If the "guardians" of ASL won't 'guard' ASL, who will?

Transcript:

In 1904, James L. Smith, who was President of the NAD at that time, said:

"The ememies of the sign language are not confined to those who decry it and call for its abolition entirely. Its most dangerous enemies are in the camp of its friends, in the person who maltreat it and abuse it by misuse. The sign language, properly used, is a language of grace, beauty, and power. But through careless or ignorant use it may become ungraceful, repulsive, and difficult to comprehend. Every one of us should try, both by example and precept, to preserve the grace, beauty, and expressiveness of our gesture language".

Wow. That was in 1904, and it was quite a prescient statement!

In the 1960's, Gerilee Gustason and many other people, many of them Deaf themselves, invented signed English systems. Those systems have proliferated, causing what we see today: many Deaf people growing up with dysfluent signing. But was Gustason truly a friend of ASL? No, she is a friend of English.

But we do have people now who call themselves "friends" of ASL. For example, this woman , who is Hearing, when I watched her video, she would talk and show a sign here or there. But her signing looks almost as if she had learned out of a book before making the videos. The problem with her approach is that it causes people to think that ASL is just English shown through signs, which it is not. I don't have to explain to you why that's wrong.

But worse are people, Deaf and Hearing, who have complete websites which purport to teach ASL and have put in a lot of work into them. But what do they do and say in their websites? It is incredible. For example, Dr. Bill Vicars, who is the owner of Lifeprint/ASL University, which is one of the top-rated Google searches for ASL, has many linguicistic statements about ASL. For example, if you look at his discussion under the word "TRY", you will see him say that some people sign TRY with an A handshape, some with an S handshape, or with a T handshape. He says that many people use the T hanshape, which is true, but is that ASL? No. That goes back to SEE (Signing Exact English). SEE influenced those Deaf people into thinking that is ASL. Moreover, Bill Vicars says that today, there are people who he calls "Deaf Culture Police" or "Deaf Culture Purists" and that they (we) have "English Letter Phobia" and that we are longing for the "good old days of 'pure' ASL". Yes, we want to see good ASL to come out into the community, but will we ever go back to to that perfect ideal? I don't know. There is a lot of mixture and contamination in the community now. But that condescending attitude of perceiving us as simply "wanting the good old days of ASL" disgusts me. In another statement within that same discussion, he says "I recently saw an ASL instructor signing 'WORK ROOM' instead of OFFICE with an O. I'm not making that up!" Oh I see. He views trying to go back to a more ASL sign instead of the initialized forms with OFFICE, APARTMENT, ROOM, DORMROOM, and on and on with such a disdainful attitude!

In another example, someone asked about the word "am". He says "ASL has a sign for 'am". That is NOT ASL! That, again, is SEE! SEE is NOT ASL! But again, his view is demeaning towards ASL proponents. He says "your safest bet is to follow the herd and label that AM sign as 'English' and avoid using it around any 'DCP' (Deaf Culture Police/ASL purists)". That is so awful!

If the "guardians" of ASL won't guard ASL, who will? James L. Smith's words about who the most dangerous enemies of ASL are should include those who spread misinformation, lies, myths, AND linguicism about ASL.

Category:

People & Blogs

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• ASLGuardians

[iwefnwxj]

Like speech (deaf accent) and hearing (technologies), SEE is so worth it because deaf write pretty darn close like hearing . Sure it is not perfect, and it is a poor imitation of hearing people, but it is so worth it. ;) Just kidding. Although I do want our child to have good wrting skills and a decent speech and hearing if it work well for the child. Anyway, Here's the question I really came here to ask, You mentioned lifeprint is not all that great, what about StartASL dot com

[DrDonGCSUS]

@iwefnwxj Haven't seen that one. ASLPro has had a lot of problems with it. Will take a look at StartASL.

[DrDonGCSUS]

@iwefnwxj I don't know about startASL. I do like westwoodasl.

[deberwein]

Amen, Don! One tiny correction-- those who invented SEE weren't in any way "friends of English". After 30+ years of SEE, SEE2, LOVE, whatever... Deaf students' English scores hadn't even improved. So there!

[DrDonGCSUS]

@deberwein True enough, DE! You know what Santayana said.... "those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it". Gustason, et al should have looked at Epee's/Sicard's work with Methodical Signs and realized that if it didn't work back then, it won't work now.

What REALLY gets me are those folk with execrable English DEFENDING and SUPPORTING SEE; the very system that FAILED to provide them with good English (score-wise or in reality).

[DrDonGCSUS]

@tincancompany the one I like best is westwoodasl.

[Bunjer]

@iwefnwxj Hearing people are Ethnocentric thats why they meddle with our affairs, and that Deaf people are not breaking free from the hearing mainstream, because the hearing do not want to bother empowering us, but have everything their way! Deaf people need to break free and be in charge of our Culture and Language, and be how we are! What bothers me is that Deaf people keep asking hearing people to do things for us!

[iwefnwxj]

@pdurr They are hyprocites. they spend years making sure we are using English correctly by providing schools ALL over the United States . You get on the internet, and they would tell you that your opinion don't count because you butchered English too much.

[iwefnwxj]

@ASLElla Even though I don't know Sign language, I had a funny feeling about him when I started reading about his opinion of deaf culture.

[iwefnwxj]

@Bunjer Personally, The reason why hearing people can make a difference because they do speak their language.I know deaf people can too but I don't know why they have a hard time taking us seriously even if we don't tell them we're deaf. I guess because hearing people know how to explain it with the language they are fluent in? spanish speaking person will have a hard time telling English speaking politician how she feels. She have to depend on someone who can speak both Spanish and English.

[Bunjer]

@positivesigner That is why we need to quit relying on hearing people, and start standing up for our own Deaf people, and preserve our Langauge and Culture. Hearing people have no right to do things for us, or take care of our issues. We need to tell the hearing people to step aside and stay out of the way for the sake of our way of life! I am sick and tired of Deaf people depending on hearing people for everything, even AB2072 and ICED and so on! Pathetic even when hearing parents do for us!

[positivesigner]

@Bunjer Not just of ASL. I recently saw an article which stated that, in Britain, Hearing parents are spending less time talking to their children at mealtimes or reading to them at bedtime. "Children are starting primary school with a speaking age of just 18 months and the number unable to form simple sentences is rising." Hence, many children who cannot understand basic instructions or express their needs are "like foreigners in the classroom," not able to understand what is going on.