Here are quotes and their sourcesfrom my studies that have helped me on my journey.
May they guide your on yours...
"American Sign Language (ASL) is now estimated to be the third most widely-used language in the [USA] (after English and Spanish)." (p.27 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
"With that loss of hearing comes a loss of status in mainstream societies and a loss of the opportunity to continue to acquire 'cultural capital'. In these respects, whether hearing impairment is interpreted through the medical or social model, the fundamental reality is one of loss." (p.33 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
"Imagine that all children with a hearing loss on a scale that inhibits meaningful interaction with mainstream societies were brought up bilingually and biculturally; that they were told throughout their childhood 'By learning both spoke and sign languages, you can learn to navigate your life path in and around two cultures and two communities, selectin whatever you wish for from either in order to build your own lives.' Is this not culturally-centered perspective a more healthy social philosophy than the medical one which stresses the shamefulness of association with signing communities?" (p.35 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
"Playing on those parents' fears of 'abnormality' and their desire to achieve 'normality', they then present their medical model which claims that normality can only be achieved by denying the realities of deafness and keeping their children away from Deaf communities lest they become 'contaminated' by them." (p.35 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
"'How dare you wish more Deaf children into the world?', they cry.
To which the response is 'If by "deaf" you mean people who were born hearing but whose daily reality is now one of forever being condemned to live on the margins of existence, where, to adapt to an old advertisement, "the edge of a conversation is the loneliest place in the world."; who have to cling to the coat-tails of the hearing world and numbly accept being reduced to imbecilic status in the eyes of the media, by cartoonists and comedians'm yes indeed, who would wish that isolated and unhappy existence on anyone?
But if, like us, you mean "Deaf" as a national and international community of people with their own beautiful languages, their own organizations, history, arts and humour, their own lifelong friends whom otherwise we would not have met, then perhaps you will understand our pride in what we have created, our desire to pass this on to future generations of Deaf Children. And if you can comprehend this pride, then you will understand the longstanding Deaf belief that if societies learn these languages and become able to participate in what we have created, barriers can come down, and all may benefit from the unique skills of Deaf existence." (p.37 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
"The Judaic literature of the pre-Christian era makes 387 references to Deaf people in the Torah and the Mishnah, revealing a complex range of attitudes divided into three schools of thought. ... There is thus reasonable ground for concluding that aspects of both Jewish and Graeco-Roman discourses (1) conceived of Deaf people as a group and (2) accepted that communication within the group by means of a common language held at least the potential to enable them to attain their full humanity, however that might be variously defined." (p.92, 93 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
"Within Christianity, then, deafness is used as a vehicle to help 'prove' the supernatural powers of Jesus, and is thus closely tied to the raison d'être [the most important reason or purpose for someone or something's existence] of the religion itself. Paul's Epistle to the Romans expanded this perspective - 'Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing the word of God.' - thus excluding Deaf people from even the possibility of becoming Christians. (p.94 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
This is something I disagree with. 'hearing' the word of God is very literal. God is more than just 'physical attributes'.
"Over the next thousand years, there are very few references to Deaf people currently known to us. This represents a major interruption to the discourses, and one might speculate that the subject was deemed of little importance." (p.94 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
Wow, to consider A THOUSAND YEARS without reference or literature related to deaf people seems like an oversight. If the ancient texts have such a presence of this group of people, what forces would allow for the dissolution of attention on them? Perhaps one reason could be satisfaction with the notation thus far? A 'firm understanding' of these people and their place in society. A 'cultural divide', as communication can be an issue, even lacking, especially without the presence of proper education and facilitation of language to this desperate community.
Another reason could be the facilitation and orchestration of the removal of the public's eye on Deaf people. Perhaps, with powerful forces in play, the government of public understanding, opinion, and attention has been waylaid, detoured, defered to other matters more readily avialable, or accessible to Hearing communities, thus renforcing the mystery, misundersrtanding, and, perhaps, power-hold of Deaf led organizations or secret societies across the country or world. These 'mega cabals' would have far reaching interests in the removal of public gaze, spreading a smoke screen across common discourse.
"Lane (1984) mentions that in the 12th century, Deaf people were permitted to marry by Papal decree provided that their signing proved that they understood the concepts involved. This suggests that the more positive of earlier readings still held good 600 years later." (p.94 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
Entrusted with the task of literacy through the Dark Ages.
"Presneau (1993: 413-16) describes the widespread use of secret hand-codes and, the importance of gesture in masked balls, and their role in one of the most popular and enduring artforms, the Commedia dell'arte." (p.96 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
Italian comedy theater which utilizes masks, charictures, sketched-improv, to create foolish or witty parables.
"'...Do not laugh at me because I propose a teacher without speech to you...he will teach you better through facts than will all the other masters through words.' (in Mirzoeff, 1995: 13
...
'Deaf artists played a central role in the deaf comuunity, which formulated a cultural politics around both sign language and art. The deaf used a cachet of high art to resist being categorised as 'primative' and as a means of demonstrating their intellectual capacities.' (1995:3)" (p.97-98 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
"...sign language held high status, especially in periods where spoken language used by the Sultan and the higher nobility was regarded as 'undignified'. ...
As many as 200 Deaf people at any one time were not only employed as servants, but as expondents of the martial arts, as messengers whose contents were deliered in sign, and even as court executioners. Moreover, numerous accounts attest that some of these were the Sultan's most trusted companions, accompanying them in situations when hearing court members were asked to leave.
... these courts contained as many as 11,000 members, so knowledge of signing had potential breadth and depth.
...it indicates a reality other than the classic Western model of Deaf educational discourse - Deaf people are not a race to be pitied, shunned or conceived of primarily as tools for educational miracles. Moreover, it indicates that it is possible to conceive of situations and societies where sign language is highly valued, and at times more highly valued than the spoken language.
...this could not have occurred in a vacuum - it must have arisen initially from the culture of the society itself." (p.99 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
"This is a key point within many Deafhood constructions, where Deaf people assert that linguistic communication is the prime marker of their being. They are not simply handicapped by being unable to speak the language of the lay people - that majority is 'also' handicapped by being unable to communicate when amongst signers. Moreover, when both hearing and Deaf are able to sign together, no-one is handicapped at all. Therefore, the construction has posited across several centuries, one of the fundamental priorities of Deaf communities is to persuade that majority to learn sign." (p.102 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
"...in 1644 and 1648, ... we learn of two deaf pairs of signing Deaf knights. ...Sir Edward and William Gostwicke... Sir John and Framlingham Gaudy ... there may well have existed a Deaf network... It is important to note that signing could not have been regarded with serious disfavour if it were so openly used by those with social prestige." (p.102 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
"...one strand of this discourse, probably pioneered by L'Epee at the Parisian Deaf school, suggests an overturning of the Christian perspective of faith through hearing, replacing it with the idea of faith developing through linguistic channels, that is, through the language of signs (Lane & Philip, 1984)." (p.105 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
"These tenets of Deaf discourse can be summarised as follows:
Deaf communities possess the gift of languages so special that they can be used to say things which speech cannot.
These languages are even more special because they can be adapted to cross international boundaries when spoken languages fail.
Consequently, Deaf people model in potentia the ability to become the world's first truly global citizens, and thus serve as a model for the rest of society.
Deaf people were intentionally created on earth to manifest these qualities, and the value of their existence should not be called into question.
Hearing people unable to use them are effectively 'sign-impaired' citizens.
These languages were offered as a gift to hearing people, that if they joined with Deaf people and learned them, the quality of their lives would be improved.
The banqueteers were well aware that the majority of Deaf people had not yet had the opportunity to attend Deaf education and experience sign language socialisation. But they pledged themselves to continue to fight to ensure that all Deaf people had the 'right' to these experiences." (p.111 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
"The oralists views which follow were foreshadowed by the work of the Dutchman Johann Amman (1669-1724). His account, an attack on L'Epee's school, indicates the three linking prepositions which would come to dominate oralist discourse:
The voice is a living emanation of that spirit that God breathed into man when he created him as a living soul.
What stupidity we find in most of these unfortunate deaf! How little they differ from animals!
How inadequate and defective is the language of gesture and sign which the deaf must use. How little do they comprehend, even superficially, those things that concern the health of the body, the improvement of the mind, or their moral duties. (in Lane, 1984: 100-01)
These three prepositions then are: the reification of the voice, centered in a Christian discourse, the inherent inferiority or inhumanity of Deaf people and the inadequacy of their language. It is sobering to realise that 350 years later, versions of these arguments are still being advanced, and being favoured in the discourses of the media." (p.113-14 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
"-the fact that both Deaf and Native peoples used sign and gesture, and that neither could speak European languages, was used to construct essentialist similarities between them - both were described as 'savages' in a belief system which constructed a 'civilized Man' surrounded by savages and animals (Mirzoeff, 1995: 68)." (p.114 Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture, 2003)
Comments