So close....
I'm reading a book by this deaf guy (Tom Bertling) who hated the residential school he went to and therefore has some spot-on criticism of the more militant Deaf community leaders/activists. Since I tend to swing toward the liberal-hearing-guilt/pro-Deaf side, I thought it'd be good for me to get a reality check. But then I ran into this:
ASL evolved from first being used by the largely uneducated deaf adults of a century ago into the primary language used and favored by the culturally-deaf today. Basically, it is English broken down into its simplistic form. It is mostly graphic in form and is easily learned, especially for the uneducated or without language formation.
Okay. You had me up to there, Tommy-my-friend. There are so many things just factually wrong in that paragraph, I don't even know where to begin. This guy's misunderstanding of ASL is as profound as some of the more idiotic ideas about Egyptian hieroglyphs from a few centuries ago. And he continues:
For example, to sign "house," one makes a shape of a house with his hands. To make a phrase in ASL, one would sign "me go store," when one meant "I am going to the store" in English. Another example would be to sign "eat finish," to mean "I already ate." ASL has its own idioms and, although somewhat fluid, rules. One is able to express all one's thoughts unrestricted [sic].
Thus he completely ignores decades of research on syntax.
Unfortunately, I believe the simplicity of ASL is self-defeating. Often, a deaf person becomes a master at ASL at the expense of learning English. ASL is the primary language too often and English becomes the second language. He would experience English the same way a normal-hearing person would learn a second language, such as a difficult language like German or Japanese.
He does have a point about English being important -- it is the language of power in this country, and American citizens should have a basic working knowledge of it. But damn. So much to criticize:
First: second languages can be learned as completely and fluently as first languages. Second: he's ignoring the possibility of simultaneous bilingualism. Third: difficult languages like German or Japanese?? Now we're ranking languages by "difficulty". I see. Ignoring centuries of language research now. We've regressed to Darwinian linguistics.
And he wrote this book in 1995. It's not like these statements are merely a product of the time -- linguists knew ASL had English-independent syntax in the sixties.
ASL evolved from first being used by the largely uneducated deaf adults of a century ago into the primary language used and favored by the culturally-deaf today. Basically, it is English broken down into its simplistic form. It is mostly graphic in form and is easily learned, especially for the uneducated or without language formation.
Okay. You had me up to there, Tommy-my-friend. There are so many things just factually wrong in that paragraph, I don't even know where to begin. This guy's misunderstanding of ASL is as profound as some of the more idiotic ideas about Egyptian hieroglyphs from a few centuries ago. And he continues:
For example, to sign "house," one makes a shape of a house with his hands. To make a phrase in ASL, one would sign "me go store," when one meant "I am going to the store" in English. Another example would be to sign "eat finish," to mean "I already ate." ASL has its own idioms and, although somewhat fluid, rules. One is able to express all one's thoughts unrestricted [sic].
Thus he completely ignores decades of research on syntax.
Unfortunately, I believe the simplicity of ASL is self-defeating. Often, a deaf person becomes a master at ASL at the expense of learning English. ASL is the primary language too often and English becomes the second language. He would experience English the same way a normal-hearing person would learn a second language, such as a difficult language like German or Japanese.
He does have a point about English being important -- it is the language of power in this country, and American citizens should have a basic working knowledge of it. But damn. So much to criticize:
First: second languages can be learned as completely and fluently as first languages. Second: he's ignoring the possibility of simultaneous bilingualism. Third: difficult languages like German or Japanese?? Now we're ranking languages by "difficulty". I see. Ignoring centuries of language research now. We've regressed to Darwinian linguistics.
And he wrote this book in 1995. It's not like these statements are merely a product of the time -- linguists knew ASL had English-independent syntax in the sixties.
Labels: disability, language
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