ASL Paper 2 - Grade: A PDF

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Jonathon Dobie Professor Ronchen ASL-101 December 2, 2016

When the Mind Hears Despite what many think, American Sign Language is not a pictorial version of the English language, it is not even closely related to English Sign Language. It is a language all its own that stemmed from French sign language and home-signs from the Americas. The creation of American Sign Language can be traced back to the creation of French Sign Language by The Abbe Charles-Michael De l’Epee. Often referred to as “The Father of the Deaf”, l’Epee was a priest in France during the 1700s, and in 1760, he founded the first school for deaf people in the world, the National Institute for the Deaf. Without his initiative to contribute to the better of deaf people, it is uncertain how long it would have taken for the deaf to have the opportunity of education. One of the eventual students of the Nation Institute for the deaf was Laurent Clerc. Laurent Clerc, the author of When the Mind Hears, was a young boy when he fell from his highchair into a fire causing him to lose his hearing. After growing up learning some “home signs”, Clerc’s uncle enrolled him in the National Institute for the Deaf when he was twelve. His first teacher was Jean Massieu, apprentice of Sicard who was the successor of l’Epee. Clerc and Massieu would go on to be lifelong friends. Under the instruction of Massieu, Clerc was a great student and eventually became a teacher at the school himself. When Napoleon returned to Paris, Clerc, Massieu and Sicard went to London where they taught both teachers and students how to better use sign, one of those in the audience being

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Thomas Gallaudet. At this point in 1805 the origins of ASL were officially set in motion. Gallaudet was from the United States and was growing in concerns that there were no schools for the deaf in America. He volunteered to go to London to learn about methods for teaching the deaf with the goal of establishing the first school for the deaf in America. Gallaudet took lessons from Clerc to learn French Sign Language and eventually the two traveled back to America on a fifty-two-day voyage to create the first school. Along the way Gallaudet corrected Clerc’s English while Clerc did the same for Gallaudet’s signing and the two both became more fluent in the other’s language. When they arrived in Hartford after the fifty-two-day journey across the Atlantic, the men traveled around the country giving speeches spreading awareness about the lack of deaf education and raised funds to begin their school. In total, they raised around $12,000 from people’s contributions and $5000 from the Connecticut General Assembly. April 15 th, 1817 Gallaudet University was established. Clerc and Gallaudet rented out rooms and had seven students which eventually grew and a grant was appointed for the school to get land of its own. Clerc taught his students French signs, which they mixed with some of their own language they had learned or developed from family members, thus the creation of American Sign Language, a combination of French and American signs. That is why ASL is closely related to French Sign Language, it is directly descended from it. The contributions of I’Epee, Clerc and Gallaudet created American Sign Language. I’Epee, the creator of a standard sign language for any person, got the momentum started towards the education of the deaf. His partner, Sicard, continued the legacy in the education, eventually educating Laurent Clerc. Clerc took what he learned and ran with it, quickly becoming a master signer and a teacher himself. The last component in the creation of ASL was Thomas Gallaudet, the American that wanted to make a

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difference for deaf people in the New World. It is to these men that the founding of American Sign Language is and should be accredited. American Sign Language and Deaf America is a complex entity that evokes different views from different communities. Medical, cultural and communicative all bring a different approach to what deafness is and how it affects people’s lives. For the medical view of deafness, it is seen as a severe to total loss of hearing for an individual. The loss of hearing makes deafness be classified as a disability that prevents deaf people from living a full life. To counteract the disability, the medical world employs the use of hearing aids and research for a cure to deafness. Advantages of the medical approach to deafness are that it shows a recognition of a difference and a pursuit to give everyone the same opportunities at life. By recognizing that there is a real difference it allows hearing people to understand that there truly needs to be a different approach to communicating with deaf people. The negatives of the medical view are that it assumes that a deaf person is disabled and therefore not fully capable of what hearing people are capable of, which can not only be degrading but is not the truth. The deaf community does not see a disability in their lifestyle. Deaf culture emphasizes that they can do whatever they set their mind to, and that is especially true within a group of other fluent signers. Culturally, deaf people are a close-knit community that really cares about one another and their well-being, unlike the more individualistic hearing cultures of America. Advantages of a close community are a real sense of belonging and an environment that encourages open communication of honesty that benefits everyone and allows everyone to reach their full potentials as individuals for the benefit of the group. Disadvantages to the deaf culture are that because it is commutative instead of individualistic, there can be a cultural boundary between those in deaf and hearing cultures. The boundary can come in everyday conversation,

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too personal of questions asked, for example, that can cause real disputes between hearing and deaf people because of nothing more than a misunderstanding. As for communicatively, ASL is its own language. With it, people can express any variety of theories or ideas, it has its own grammatical rules, however, it is often assumed to be pictorial in nature. Because a lot of people think it is in some way a pictorial language, there is often an assumption that deaf people are not intelligent and cannot express complex ideas, which is not the case. Just like any spoken language, it takes a lot learning to understand the nuances within ASL, but for those that are fluent, a conversation can be taken anywhere. In regard to communication between hearing and deaf people, signing is sometimes seen as a hindrance to effective communication, which can true, but not in any way that is different than someone speaking another language will have a hindrance communicating; it is not because of a lack of the usefulness of ASL.

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