history of sign language essay

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History of Sign Language – Deaf History

• February 15, 2021
• by Michelle Jay
• 19 Comments

The events that occurred in the history of sign language are actually pretty shocking.

How deaf people experience life today is directly related to how they were treated in the past. It wasn’t long ago when the deaf were harshly oppressed and denied even their fundamental rights.

The are many famous deaf people who have made a name for the deaf throughout the history of sign language and proved that deaf people can, in fact, make history.

Aristotle was the first to have a claim recorded about the deaf. His theory was that people can only learn through hearing spoken language. Deaf people were therefore seen as being unable to learn or be educated at all.

Therefore, they were denied even their fundamental rights. In some places, they weren’t permitted to buy property or marry. Some were even forced to have guardians. The law had them labeled as “non-persons”.

Aristotle’s claim was disputed in Europe during the Renaissance. Scholars were attempting to educate deaf persons for the first time and prove the 2,000 year old beliefs wrong. This mark in the history of sign language is what started the creation of a signed language.

Starting to Educate the Deaf

Geronimo Cardano , an Italian mathematician and physician, was probably the first scholar to identify that learning does not require hearing. He discovered, in the 1500s, that the deaf were able to be educated by using written words. He used his methods to educate his deaf son.

Pedro Ponce de Leon , a Spanish monk, was very successful with his teaching methods while teaching deaf children in Spain. This was around the same time that Cardano was educating his deaf son.

Juan Pablo de Bonet , a Spanish priest, studied Leon’s successful methods and was inspired to teach deaf people using his own methods. Bonet used the methods of writing, reading, and speechreading as well as his manual alphabet to educate the deaf. His manual alphabet system was the first recognized in Deaf history. The handshapes in this alphabet corresponded to different sounds of speech.

Organized deaf education was non-existent until around 1750. This was when the first social and religious association for deaf people was founded by Abbe de L’Epee , a French Catholic priest, in Paris. Abbe Charles Michel de L’Epee is one of the most important people in the history of sign language.

Abbe Charles Michel de L’Epee established the National Institute for Deaf-Mutes in 1771. This was the first public free deaf school. Deaf children came from all across France to attend the school and brought the signs they learned from signing at home with them to the school. L’Epee learned all of these different signs and utilized the signs he learned from his students to teach his students French.

The signs they used soon became a standard signed language L’Epee taught to the students. More schools were founded and the students brought this language back to their neighborhoods. The standard language L’Epee used in the history of sign language is known as Old French Sign Language. This language spread across Europe as more students were educated.

Many people say that Abbe de L’Epee invented sign language–which is not true. If you want to know who invented sign language, read our “ Who Invented Sign Language ” article.

Although Abbe de L’Epee claimed sign language is the native language for the deaf, Samuel Heinicke believed in Oralism. Oralism was brought about as people used speechreading and speech to teach deaf students instead of manual language.

Even though this positive advancement in sign language history took place, oralism was the bump in the road.

In relation to the deaf-blind, the first deaf-blind person to be educated was Laura Bridgman . She was born 50 years before Helen Keller, but is usually not credited with being the first deaf-blind person to learn language.

Helen Keller is the most well-known deaf-blind person (she has taken the credit before Laura Bridgman). Her teacher was Anne Sullivan  and while Helen Keller wasn’t the first deaf-blind person to be educated, she was the first one to graduate from college, and she did it with honors.

Another common topic in the Deaf Community is deaf people and sports. A favorite deaf athlete is William “Dummy” Hoy . Dummy Hoy was the first deaf major league baseball player. He hit the first grand-slam home run in the American league, and created the hand signals that are still used in baseball today. It is so amazing that one deaf athlete can have so much impact and break so many records in baseball, yet many people don’t know about him. Truly amazing.

There are many famous deaf people in the history of America as well. Deaf Smith , for example, is famous for the important role he played in the Texas Revolution. Deaf Smith County, Texas is named after him.

American Sign Language

The history of American Sign Language has earned its own page. Please don’t forget to read about this important part of the history of sign language in the United States.

Speech versus Sign

Sign language is now seen as the native communication and education method for deaf people. However, it wasn’t always this way.

Even though sign language became commonly used, supporters of the oralism method believed the deaf must learn spoken language to fully function in hearing society.

Two of the largest deaf schools in America began educating the deaf in 1867 using only oral methods and encouraged all deaf schools to do the same. These methods did not use any sign language and began to spread to schools for the deaf across the U.S.

Probably the most devoted supporter of the oralism method was  Alexander Graham Bell (yes, the man who is credited with inventing the telephone). Bell started an institution in Boston in 1872 to train teachers of deaf people to use oral education. He was one person in the history of sign language who really tried to damage the lives of deaf people.

In 1890, he founded an organization that is now known as the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf .

The dispute of sign language versus spoken language continued for the next century in sign language history. The International Congress on the Education of the Deaf met in Milan, Italy in 1880 to discuss the issue. This meeting is now known as the Milan Conference.

The supporters of the oralism method won the vote. Congress declared “that the oral method should be preferred to that of signs in the education and instruction of deaf-mutes”.

The outcome of the conference were devastating. Over the next ten years, sign language use in educating the deaf drastically declined. This milestone in the history of sign language almost brought the Deaf back to ground zero after all of their progress. Almost all deaf education programs used the oralism method by 1920.

Even though oralism won the battle, they did not win the war. American Sign Language still was primarily used out of the classroom environment. The National Association of the Deaf was founded in the United States and fought for the use of sign language. They gained a lot of support and maintained the use of sign language as they argued that oralism isn’t the right educational choice for all deaf people.

In 1960, something big happened. William Stokoe , a scholar and hearing professor at Gallaudet University, published a dissertation that proved ASL is a genuine language with a unique syntax and grammar.

ASL was henceforth recognized as a national language and this was one of the biggest events in sign language history.

In 1964, the Babbidge Report was issued by Congress on the oral education of the deaf. It stated that oralism is a “dismal failure” which finally discharged the decision made at the Milan Conference.

In 1970, a teaching method was born that did not fully support either sign language or oralism. Instead, the movement attempted to bring together several educational methods to form Total Communication . This method became a new philosophy for deaf education.

Allowing the deaf access to information by any means, Total Communication can include fingerspelling, sign language, speech, pantomime, lipreading, pictures, computers, writing, gestures, reading, facial expressions, and hearing aids.

Another huge event in the history of sign language was the Deaf President Now (DPN) movement at Gallaudet University in 1988. The DPN movement unified deaf people of every age and background in a collective fight to be heard. Their triumph was a testament to the fact that they don’t have to accept society’s limitation on their culture.

Andrew Foster was the first African American Deaf person to earn a Bachelor’s Degree from Gallaudet University in 1954 and is known as the “Father of the Deaf” of Africa.

In 1995, a woman named Heather Whitestone became the first deaf woman to be named Miss America in the Miss America pageant. She showed the world that a deaf person can do anything a hearing person can do, and that all things are possible with God’s help.

The Best Deaf History Books

We highly recommend all of the books in this list. They will give you a greater insight into the history that the Deaf had to endure than you have ever known.

Please note that when you choose to purchase through the external links on this website (in many but not all cases) we will receive a referral commission. However, this commission does not influence the information we provide in this site. We always give honest opinions and reviews to share our findings, beliefs, and/or experiences. You can view our full disclosure on this page .

Forbidden Signs: American Culture and the Campaign against Sign Language This book focuses on the history of the oppression of American Sign Language. We highly recommend this book because it is not only easy to read, it goes into detail about how sign language was forbidden in schools and the fact that many attempts have been made by hearing society to prevent deaf people from using sign language. Highly, highly recommended!

Deaf History Unveiled: Interpretations from the New Scholarship This book is a little difficult to read at times, but it offers great information. The book compiles 16 essays that range in topics from new themes in Deaf history and Deaf culture experiences compared to the experiences of African American culture to societal paternalism toward the Deaf and the determination of Deaf people to establish employment, education, and social structures. This book is a deep read, but well worth it!

A Place of Their Own: Creating the Deaf Community in America Some books just talk about Deaf culture and how it is today. This book actually goes in depth and back into Deaf history to explain the trends and the changes that have taken place in the Deaf community. We highly recommend this book for anyone learning ASL and becoming involved in the Deaf community.

Deaf President Now!: The 1988 Revolution at Gallaudet University Understanding the Deaf President Now movement is critical to understanding Deaf Culture. To read more about DPN and gain a more in-depth understanding about what happened that year, we highly recommend this book.

Baltimore’s Deaf Heritage (Images of America) A great book for comparative cultural studies on the Deaf cultures in different areas, Baltimore’s Deaf Heritage illustrates the evolution of Baltimore’s Deaf community and its prominent leaders.

Detroit’s Deaf Heritage (Images of America) A great book for comparative cultural studies on the Deaf cultures in different areas, Detroit’s Deaf Heritage illustrates the evolution of the deaf community in Detroit and its prominent leaders.

• Deaf Culture

Deaf history greatly affects how deaf people live their lives today. And not only do deaf people have a history, they have a culture… Deaf Culture.

Deaf culture is culture like any other. Deaf people share a language, rules for behavior, values, and traditions. The way the Deaf culture is living today is a direct result of the Deaf history that preceded it.

Articles Submitted by Students

Who is your favorite person from deaf history?

My own views on deaf history

by Nicki (Canada) | July 17, 2013

After reading this article, as well as the other available ones on this site and a few from another ASL book I am reading I have come to the conclusion that I can’t choose one person in deaf history as my favourite. I have to say that they all have their goods and bads just like any other person.

I will say that Aristotle was entirely wrong in his views that people are only able to learn through spoken language or oralism. I can say that even hearing people don’t all only learn through spoken language, I am mostly hearing a visual learner and found that my teachers talking, in later grades, only made it more difficult to learn. Although perhaps he meant well with his statements, I suppose we will never know.

I certainly applaud the efforts of early deaf educators and say that without them deaf people would quite possibly not be as advanced in society as they are today and as they deserve to be. Juan Pablo de Bonet was very well meaning in his attempts and absolutely did good by deaf people of the time in educating them. This said, I am sure his version of deaf education was still far below that of hearing education and, although, the students could read and write and understand some speechreading, this probably still left them with a very low level education but something is better than nothing at all.

Abbe de L’Epee was absolutely one of the most important people in deaf history and without him deaf education would not have become as well known. He helped teach a generalized sign language so that deaf people could communicate with one another and with their hearing friends and family if those people were interested in learning.

Samuel Heinicke is another one of those people I would like to, try to, give the benefit of the doubt. He believed in oralism, I am sure he meant well with his ideas. He probably just wanted to make deaf people more like, or more understandable to hearing people. This however, would never work based on things we know today. Not all deaf people can be totally oral and those people deserve a language of their own to communicate their needs and wants.

Helen Keller and Laura Bridgman are both very important people in deaf history as well, showing that all deaf people can learn even if they are unable to see. I would go as far as to say that they are important to all educational history in the sense that this shows that all people are able to learn, not matter their challenges. I would like to give a hand to these ladies’ teachers as well as they had to deal with a lot of stress and difficulties while education these two people.

Alexander Graham Bell is another interesting person to deaf history. He made the choice to support oralism and I assume it was for the same reasons as all the other oralism only people but at least he eventually came around and realized that oralism is not the only way, just one way, for deaf people to learn.

William Stokoe was another very important figure and he is absolutely correct in saying that ASL is a genuine language with a unique syntax and grammar. His publication changed deaf learning forever in making ASL a national language.

The decision to use total education was also a great one in my opinion, deaf people should have the right to learn just as well as hearing people and, perhaps it is just because I was educated in a hearing school and am mostly hearing, I feel they should be taught the way that works for them, be it all sign or a mix of sign and oralism.

I also applaud the efforts of the Gallaudet University student and staff in the Deaf President Now protest and say that these people also changed deaf history for the better.

The final person mentioned in this article is Heather Whitestone, yes she may have been named Miss America and proven that deaf people can do what hearing people can but she is a bad representation of deaf people as a whole. It is well known that she refused to use ASL and looked down on those who did use it. Great for her but not a good show of who deaf people truly are.

As you can see, I couldn’t choose a favourite. All of these people, good and bad had an impact on deaf history and education, perhaps without the setbacks deaf people would be further advanced but I believe that these challenges made them work harder and so maybe makes them more determined than others. Either way all of these people, except Heather Whitestone are all important people.

Influences in Deaf History

by Steph Grizzard | February 24, 2017

I don’t know if I can pick a favorite person to influence deaf history. It is such a rich history and the culture is what it is today because of all of them together. Abbe de L’Epee founded the first public deaf school and used all of the signs that the students were using at home to create a whole language. Thomas Gallaudet was inspired by his neighbors daughter which influenced him to travel overseas and meet the people that developed a language and schools for the deaf. He was inspired even more by Abbe Sicard, Jean Massieu, and Laurent Clerc. He even convinced Laurent Clerc to come back to America with him to open the first public deaf school in America. Thomas Gallaudet inspired his son, Edward, to start the first deaf college in the U.S. which is now named Gallaudet University. Even Alexander Graham Bell, who was inspired to invent the telephone in hopes that it would help his mother and wife hear, was a big influence in the deaf world. He tutored Helen Keller and, although not a popular method in the deaf community, was a huge supporter of oralism. The entire history of the deaf community and deaf world is too fascinating for me to be able to pick just one favorite influential person. The fact that every person had a hand in making the deaf Culture the beautiful world that it is today, is enough for me to love them all.

There are several

by Sue | December 21, 2017

I’ve been losing my hearing for many many years now and it’s becoming more and more profound as I get older and the tinnitus gets louder and louder. I’ve know since a very young age that my hearing would go and now that day is fast approaching. Reading the Deaf History is fascinating to me.

I think that early on I am intrigued with Thomas Gallaudet. It seems he began this adventure to help out his neighbor which I find very inspirational. And then he became even more interested in helping the deaf to learn to communicate and traveled to Europe to study the techniques of others and even convinced some to travel to America to help set up schools here. It’s really something that his son kept on with this legacy and that school still exists today.

I’ve always been inspired by Helen Keller and how she overcame incredible obstacles. She was an amazing woman.

One thing I must point out – I really hate the term Deaf and Dumb and I even bristle at the term Deaf-Mutes. Deaf people most assuredly aren’t dumb and they can make sounds. These are both false terms and I’m glad to see that they aren’t used much if at all anymore.

Great People of the Deaf Community

by Lexi (Las Vegas) | March 8, 2013

There are so many inspirations in this world, but deaf people inspire me the most. I see deaf people as equals, but much more courageous. The things they overcome just amazes me.

Helen Keller surprises me. I can’t imagine being neither deaf nor blind and she was both. And graduating college! She was an amazing woman and she is such an inspiration. Seeing people overcome these challenges, makes me want to overcome mine. After reading this, I feel like I could do much more than I do now. Challenge myself to do more difficult things, just as Helen did. She couldn’t have been anymore courageous.

Another person that is my favorite is William “Dummy” Hoy. My dad is a huge baseball fan and I can imagine him and a lot of his baseball friends have no idea who this is. Baseball is a tough sport, just like any other, and this man truly amazes me for being such a big part of it. He changed the sport.

It makes me a little frustrated that Alexander Graham Bell would do the things he did. He didn’t have a right to change the way that the deaf community communicates. It disgusts me that many hearing people didn’t have the respect that they should have for deaf people. It’s just awful.

Learning sign language is one of the best things I think I could do. I’m so happy that I am doing it, and after this article, I will be more and more motivated to work my best.

So Much History To Cover

by Carol (White Cloud, Michigan) | March 8, 2013

I am not sure I could pick one person that is a favorite at this time. I have already learned so many interesting things from deaf history that are not only educational, but shocking. As a full hearing person, I was taught that Helen Keller was the first deaf person ever taught, and now I learned that is false. I now have to gain more knowledge about deaf history that was either wrong to begin with or just never taught at all.

As I was growing up, the only thing I ever learned about the deaf culture was Helen Keller and that was from a movie. I was clueless about information like Alexander Graham Bell being involved with the deaf community. I am not too sure if Bell was a good thing or bad thing for the deaf community. After opening schools for the deaf to help them communicate, supporting oralism as Bell did, was later found to be a setback to the deaf society. I have a lot of reading to do before I could ever pick a favorite from deaf history.

It seems to me that the deaf community has been cut off from the hearing culture, unless you go looking for it.

by Karen Arnold (Hamilton, Indiana) | March 8, 2013

The persons that I feel contributed most to the advancement of communication with and for the Deaf is GOD because he gave the Deaf, their desire to express themselves and to be understood. As a hearing person, I learned to express myself through hearing others talk. For most people (hearing) language is acquired by means of hearing and is expressed by speaking. When formulating concepts and ideas, most people who can hear spontaneously rehearse spoken words and phrases in their mind prior to speaking them. However, when a child is born deaf, can the mind formulate thoughts in another way? YES. There is a language that can transfer ideas, abstract and concrete, from one mind to another without a sound ever being made.

One of the wonders of the human mind is our capacity for language and our ability to adapt it. However without hearing, learning a language usually becomes a function of the eyes, not the ears. Happily, God gave us the desire to communicate and it burns deep within the human soul, enabling us to overcome any apparent obstacle. This need has led Deaf people to develop many signed languages worldwide. As they have come in contact with one another, having been born into Deaf families or brought together at specialized schools and in the community, the result has been the development of a sophisticated language that is custom-made for the eyes—a signed language that is truly beautiful to watch and learn.

The best parent wants to communicate with their child and if that child is Deaf or the parent is the best thing that could show their love is to learn (or teach) sign language to their child. They would see that Deaf people can formulate thoughts, abstract and concrete without needing to think in a spoken tongue just as each of us hearing, formulates thoughts in our own language. They think in their signed language.

Learning sign as a child is a benefit for the child born Deaf and the hearing child of Deaf parents. The future of a child born Deaf is better because they can learn to support themselves and communicate their needs. Being hearing doesn’t mean you are smart just like being deaf doesn’t mean you are dumb. Hearing is using your ears while signing is using your eyes.

I am impressed by the subtle complexities and the richness of expression of ASL. Most topics, thought or ideas can be expressed by sign language. I hope the trend continues to be that Deaf are taught in sign language and that more people will take the initiative to learn ASL to communicate with our fellow citizens.

Deaf people. Deaf History.

by Jenna (Washington) | March 8, 2013

Honestly, I don’t think I could choose one person to be my favorite of all Deaf people. I mean, after all, the reason we have Deaf History is because of the people.

Before studying up on Deaf History, I never knew how many people were subject to the great changes made by these wonderful teachers. (Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, and Abbe Charles Michel… etc.) And the teachers who were so inspired (as I am), by all the Deaf people who wanted to be taught.

Deaf people have their History because of what they’ve done together, and what they’ve accomplished as a whole. Each great person who did their part should get credit, and I think it’s amazing that so many great individuals played a role in the History of the Deaf.

To me, the thing that draws my attention the most, is how strong and how connected they are to one another. Deaf history is so cool, and I wish I could be a part of it, but I think it’s simply amazing that God could connect a peoples by this beautiful language, and for creating everyone who played a part in it.

I think the best part of Deaf history is the way all these people were able to accomplish something together, and were able to show the world what they really can do!

Touched By A Touch

by Janeel Hew (Hawaii) | June 6, 2010

Hands that speak all I needed to hear. In history, time spans endlessly. I, on the other hand, need go back only 40 years to find my favorite person of Deaf Culture in my life.

I wish that I could tell you his name, but I never knew it. I did know his smile, his eyes, and his touch–he could make my world go away. His hands are the most precious gift that God has given to him to share with others for I believe they hold his heart. Perhaps he might one day read this and realize how much of an impact he made on me?

In the 1970’s I grew up on Greenberry Dr. in Southern Ca. We had a true melting pot when it came to the children there. Different races, religions, illnesses and abilities. It was a great place for learning how to love your neighbor. We moved away when I was still in elementary school. And the one person that I’ll always remember is the boy that never spoke a word. I would wait for him to get off of his small yellow bus, that I always wished that I could ride on with him. I wanted to talk with him…I wanted to play with him…he was my very first crush, and I couldn’t even tell him my name. He was older than me and I probably made a fool of myself too. But, I would still wait…he would look at me with such understanding eyes as I would try to greet him. Eyes that could look deeper than any others. And smile at me…with a smile that seemed to say…”Silly little girl,” and “Sorry, our worlds are different.”

Yet at the same time be so understanding of my frustration in not being able to talk with him. And then he would make both my waiting and frustration all worth it…with a single touch…my heart would beat so fast as I watch his hand raise up and rub the top of my head. Then again he would smile, and walk away…go into his house, and I would have to wait another day for the small yellow bus before I would see him again.

My father is a jazz musician, and I would hide under the baby grand piano, so that I could feel the music…Oh, I can hear, but for me feeling life is just as important as life itself. It was far greater than seeing the ugliness of the drunken drug addict whose music has such beauty. The touch of a raging father and the weakness of my mother’s constant kidney health…would all go away…even if it was just for a moment…by the touch of a boy, who never spoke a word…yet said exactly what I needed to hear!!! Where ever you are… Thank You.

by Peggy: I know just where you are coming from. I too have come across that kind of situation and felt the warmness of that person. Their silent voice that seemed to speak, although you could hear nothing. It’s those type of people that keep your spirits up and give you a reason for living. Bravo for the silent voices that have so much to offer.

by Brenda: Your writing, “Touched by a Touch” was so beautifully written. I am sure the boy could read your own heart in your eyes and smile. And in this age of technology, anything is possible. Please let us know if you ever complete the circle and see him again. God Bless.

Off the beaten path…

by Rick Whited (Grand Terrace, CA) | November 7, 2014

I’m with others in noting that all of these individuals played a significant role in the history of sign language – some from a positive perspective, others from a negative. What more can be said of L’Epee and the Gallaudet’s? Even Bell thought he was progressing the education and quality of life of the deaf with what he was doing and it really did contribute to a better understanding of what was necessary for the deaf to maximize their potential.

That said, I’ll approach this from a more personal level. When I was 11, a family moved in across the street and one of the kids was a quiet, timid boy who eventually became my best friend growing up. Dave was deaf and he and his family were under the impression that if he could simply vocalize and read lips, then he would function in hearing society without hitch. I knew that was nonsense, but I also knew that Dave was smart and a tremendously talented artist. Unfortunately, everyone he came into contact with thought he was retarded and because he was trying to read lips and vocalize his confidence took a beating while people pushed him away and rejected him.

It wasn’t until his mother enrolled him at California School for the Deaf at Riverside and he learned sign language that he came out of his shell. Our ability to communicate with each other and his ability to express himself through his signing and my translating grew tremendously. It was an eye-opening experience for a 12 year old kid and even though Dave moved away when I was 16, the importance of his ability to communicate with his signing never left me. I stopped using my signing (and I had a young teenager vocabulary when I stopped!), but recently was reminded that there is a need to keep those lines of communication open with the deaf community, so I’m learning it all over again! So, first, thank you CSDR for changing lives.

The second significant person was the person responsible for the movie “Mr. Holland’s Opus” and other movies like it. Despite its leftist message at times, the movie did a good job of showing the fear, the confusion, the anger, the frustration, the difficulty that exists on both sides of the fence when it comes to deaf people existing in a hearing world – or vice versa! It also did a good job of showing the amazing talent that exists in the deaf. Sadly, I think there is still a natural tendency in the hearing to think that there is something “broken” in the deaf and movies like this help dispel that notion and maybe, just maybe, it might encourage those from both sides to step up and say hello.

When that happens, we all benefit!

Who is Your Favorite Person from Deaf History? Share Your Thoughts!

There are so many people who played a significant role in the history of sign language. So, naturally, everyone is bound to have a favorite!

Who is YOUR favorite historical figure? Is it Abbe de L’Epee? Thomas H. Gallaudet? Alexander Graham Bell? Share your thoughts!

For Start ASL Assignment Submissions: Don’t forget to tell us why this person is your favorite as well–make it a good well thought-out answer of at least 500 words. Try to also think outside the box and perhaps choose someone who hasn’t been mentioned yet. It will be fun to see why everyone chose who they did!

19 Responses

The first educated deafblind person was not Laura or Helen. It was Victorine Morriseau – France (1789-1832) – who was the first to learn and use a formal language.

I just recently started ASL, and I am not deaf, but I already find ASL extremely interesting. I have always wanted to learn ASL, and now that I’ve learned some of its history, it has become immensely challenging to choose a favorite figure in history. If I had to choose one, it would have to be Abbe de L’Epee. He pretty much invented sign language, and without him, deaf people would have probably not had any organization for a very long time. It is amazing how, instead of trying to teach deaf people the way other people are taught, Abbe de L’Epee took the time to find a style of learning that works for deaf people. Abbe de L’Epee was a truly amazing figure in deaf history. He definitively earned his name, “Father of the Deaf.”

when was this written

As someone who is just starting to learn about deaf History and culture, I don’t feel like I can choose just one favorite. Based off of this article alone, I really believe that Louis Laurent Clerc was a huge influence and a great educator for the deaf community. He seemed to have a real passion to educate the deaf and spent the better part of his life doing just that. His legacy still lives on in deaf schools across the world. I also found it fascinating to learn about William Hoy. My daughter plays softball and it was very interesting to read how he influenced the umpire signals used today and made a lasting impact on the game even though he isn’t widely known outside the deaf community. In further reading about deaf historical figures, I was surprised to discover that Thomas Edison was also deaf, something I may have learned years ago in school, but had not thought about or realized again until now. I wish schools would teach more of these kinds of stories and facts and incorporate these people into their history lessons instead of only teaching Helen Keller for deaf history. Thank you for this article and for enlightening me on deaf people who made an impact.

It’s hard to choose, but Hellen Keller has to be my favorite person in sign language history. I have watched documentaries and read biographies about her because her story is inspirational. She is my favorite because she broke down so many barriers and proved to the world that the deaf and blind can be successful.

From reading this article I can not possibly choose one favourite person but to me Juan Pablo de Bonet is amazing as he was one of the first to try and teach a deaf student other than his child. I admire those who created ways to teach their own children but to me Bonet stepped outside of the comfort zone. He chose to do something that was very uncommon at the time . When those that were deaf were typically pushed aside and disregarded he decided to create a manual language and use his own methods to teach. To me that takes courage, to go against what other people are saying and just try any way. That is something that I think each person in sign language history did, the went against the norm (well except Alexander Graham Bell, but lets not get into that). I couldn’t imagine having to deal with people like that saying that I was unable to learn or communicate effectively (I’m hearing) I’m thankful for those who paved the way and the ability to learn sign today.

Helle can I please have a name for the author of this article? Thanks I need it for a project

Hi Reilly, You can use the name Michelle Jay. :)

Is that the actual author?

Yes, it is.

When was this article published?

This article was published in 2008. :)

What day,month and year this article was published?

Hello Harlie! Send us an email here and we will assist you with that: https://www.startasl.com/contact-us/

Hello! When is the exact date? I need it for a project

I am inspired by Dr. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. I am amazed at the passion he had for teaching the deaf. For a man to leave his home country, his family and friends, and his ministry, and travel half way across the world simply to learn how to teach the deaf is mind boggling. And why did he do it? Because he had a young deaf girl as a neighbor; not a family member, but just a neighbor. What love and care he must have had for that young lady and her family to go to such lengths to help her. Also he took it a step farther and started a public school for the deaf, inviting the deaf to come from all over the country. He not only did all of the above, but he made teaching the deaf his life long ministry. I find such a commitment extremely intriguing. Oh that people in today’s day and age would have such compassion for others! I, myself have had a strong, burning desire to learn sign language and to work with the deaf for as long as I can remember, but I’m not sure that even I could say that I have that kind of a commitment to it.

Anne Sullivan is most interesting to me, because, even though she did not have hearing loss herself, she overcame her own visual impairment to prove that Deaf/Blind individuals can learn to read, write, and speak fluently. She overcame innumerable obstacles in her fight to educate Helen Keller whose family and herself did not make it easy for this first-time teacher. Sullivan dedicated her entire life and health to educating, interpreting for, and supporting Helen Keller. She was so successful that Keller learned multiple languages, gave speeches around the world, and wrote articles and a memoir without assistance. After graduating from university, Helen Keller became an enormous advocate of education for the Deaf, Deaf/Blind, and individuals with other disabilities. Without Anne Sullivan, none of that would have been possible, and Helen would have languished without language or direct interaction, probably ending up in an asylum.

At the risk of coming across as a cliche, I have to say that Abbe de L’Eppe is my favorite person from the history of American Sign Language. Reading about how much he did for the Deaf community brought tears to my eyes and inspiration to my heart. The fact that he decided to learn how to communicate properly with the Deaf instead of forcing his usual ways of communication onto them was an extremely honorable rarity for that time period. Though everyone should have that mind-set, it was uncommon and amazing that he was able to stray from what others thought and aid the Deaf in showing their true potential. I definitely understand the reasoning behind his being named “Father of the Deaf.”

I first learned about Sue Thomas through the T.V. show named after her. It was this show, I think, that sparked my long lasting interest in learning ASL. The lead role is played by Deanne Bray who portrays Sue Thomas so well. Sue has such great faith in God that has held her through so many trials in her life. After her mom passed away she started a program called Silent Night to help homeless people. There is also The Levi Foundation, a dog training centre named in honour of her first hearing dog, Levi. She has written a book, learned piano, and worked for the F.B.I. Thomas has accomplished so many things in her life. Along with Sue Thomas F.B.Eye, I recently found another movie called No Ordinary Hero. It shows a little bit of what life for Deaf people is like. You can see how some people can be so rude and others can be more understanding. If I had to choose someone else in Deaf history who lived a little longer ago, I would probably choose William Stokoe. He proved that ASL is a language in and of itself, and without him, I don’t know if this website, StartASL.com, would have been created in the first place

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The History and Evolution of American Sign Language: A Journey of Recognition and Empowerment

• April 7, 2023

Introduction

American Sign Language (ASL) is a complex, fully developed visual-spatial language utilized by the Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities in the United States and parts of Canada. ASL has a rich history that reflects the resilience and determination of the Deaf community in seeking recognition and social equality. This essay will provide an overview of the origins of ASL, its development over time, the influences of other sign languages and linguistic communities on its evolution, and the key historical figures, educational institutions, and milestones that have contributed to its growth and recognition as a distinct and valuable language.

Origins of ASL

The roots of ASL can be traced back to the early 19th century, with the merging of local sign languages and the Old French Sign Language (OFSL) brought to the United States by Laurent Clerc, a Deaf educator from France (Lane, Hoffmeister, & Bahan, 1996). In 1817, Clerc and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, an American educator, established the American School for the Deaf (ASD) in Hartford, Connecticut, which became the cradle of ASL (Lane et al., 1996). The ASD provided an environment where the combination of OFSL and the regional sign languages of Martha’s Vineyard, Henniker, and Sandy River Valley, among others, gave birth to what we now know as ASL (Groce, 1985).

Development of ASL

ASL continued to develop and evolve throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Its expansion was propelled by the establishment of more schools for the Deaf, such as the New York Institution for the Deaf in 1818 and the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf in 1820 (Gannon, 1981). As the Deaf community grew, so did the linguistic diversity of ASL, as regional variations and dialects emerged (Lucas, Bayley, & Valli, 2001).

One of the most significant milestones in the development of ASL was the publication of the first ASL dictionary by William Stokoe in 1960 (Stokoe, 1960). Stokoe’s work demonstrated that ASL possessed a linguistic structure and grammar distinct from English, contributing to its recognition as a bona fide language (Stokoe, 1960). Subsequent research further established ASL as a complex and robust language with its own syntax, morphology, phonology, and semantics (Klima & Bellugi, 1979).

Influences of Other Sign Languages and Linguistic Communities

Various sign languages and linguistic communities have influenced ASL throughout its history. As previously mentioned, OFSL played a pivotal role in the formation of ASL, providing a foundation upon which regional sign languages could merge (Lane et al., 1996). Additionally, ASL has been influenced by Black American Sign Language (BASL), which developed among African American Deaf communities during segregation (Lucas, Bayley, & Valli, 2001). The two languages share many similarities, but BASL exhibits unique phonological, lexical, and syntactic features that reflect its users’ distinct experiences and cultural identities (Lucas et al., 2001).

Key Historical Figures, Educational Institutions, and Milestones

The history of ASL is marked by the contributions of key figures, educational institutions, and milestones that have shaped its growth and recognition. Thomas Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc were instrumental in founding ASD, which served as the birthplace of ASL and a model for other Deaf schools across the country (Lane et al., 1996). Another notable figure is Edward Miner Gallaudet, Thomas Gallaudet’s son, who founded Gallaudet University in 1864, the world’s first and only liberal arts university for the Deaf (Gannon, 1981). Gallaudet University has since become a hub for research and innovation in ASL and Deaf culture.

Throughout the 20th century, several milestones contributed to the recognition and standardization of ASL. The National Association of the Deaf (NAD), founded in 1880, advocated for the rights of the Deaf community and promoted ASL as a legitimate language (Gannon, 1981). The work of William Stokoe and the publication of the first ASL dictionary in 1960 served as a turning point in the linguistic recognition of ASL (Stokoe, 1960). Later, the establishment of the Linguistics Research Laboratory at Gallaudet University in 1975 further advanced the study and documentation of ASL (Klima & Bellugi, 1979).

In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed, which granted Deaf individuals legal rights and protections, including the right to access ASL interpreters (ADA, 1990). This legislation marked an essential milestone in the recognition of ASL and the empowerment of the Deaf community.

The history of American Sign Language is a testament to the resilience, adaptability, and determination of the Deaf community in the United States. From its origins as a fusion of OFSL and local sign languages to its development and evolution over time, ASL has grown into a robust and distinct language that serves as a cornerstone of Deaf culture. The contributions of key historical figures, educational institutions, and milestones have been integral to the recognition of ASL as a valuable and legitimate language. As research and advocacy continue, ASL will continue to evolve and empower its users for future generations.

ADA. (1990). Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Pub. L. No. 101-336, 104 Stat. 327.

Gannon, J. R. (1981). Deaf Heritage: A Narrative History of Deaf America. National Association of the Deaf.

Groce, N. E. (1985). Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Martha’s Vineyard. Harvard University Press.

Klima, E. S., & Bellugi, U. (1979). The Signs of Language. Harvard University Press.

Lane, H., Hoffmeister, R., & Bahan, B. (1996). A Journey into the DEAF-WORLD. DawnSignPress.

Lucas, C., Bayley, R., & Valli, C. (2001). Sociolinguistic Variation in American Sign Language. Gallaudet University Press.

Stokoe, W. C. (1960). Sign Language Structure: An Outline of the Visual Communication Systems of the American Deaf. Studies in Linguistics: Occasional Papers (No. 8). University of Buffalo.

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​​​​​​​The History of American Sign Language Essay Sample

The History of American Sign Language Essay Sample 

In the American Sign Language community, the deaf and hard of hearing people always have had a hard time communicating with hearing people.  People who have hearing disabilities have been treated differently than hearing people ever since the 1800’s.  It wasn’t until the 1850’s when people with hearing disabilities had their own residential school.  Since then, America has gradually increased to be more helpful and overall more considerate to people who have disabilities.  Interpreting as a career is very difficult since many people often confuse translating with interpreting making it difficult to communicate; interpreters must go through long testing procedures to get their certificates with the NIC, if interpreters want to work in schools they must go through another round of testing to get the EIPA certificate as well.

Often people confuse translating and interpreting as the same concept when they are both different styles of communicating.  Interpreting is paraphrasing or changing the structure depending what the speaker says.  In contrast, according to The Sign Language Interpreting Studies Readers translating is, “thoughts and words of the speaker are presented verbatim,” (Napier).  In American Sign Language translating isn’t common unless the deaf/hard-of-hearing person is extremely literate who likes to have word for word.  The need for interpreters is extremely high because there are only a handful of interpreters so most deaf/hard-of-hearing people will not have access to an interpreter unless they are participating in a public service such as being involved with court.  Rolling over, most public services already have an American Sign Language interpreter on hand so the deaf/hard-of-hearing person doesn’t have a chance misinterpreting what is being said.  For example, in The Sign Language Interpreting Studies Readers it explains what are some of the best places to have an interpreter, “legal problems in which people become involved require a sensitive and impartial inter-preter to assist in courtroom procedures, witness testimony, and general legal transactions involving real estate, bank notes, wills, insurance, compensation, and domestic relations,” (Napier).  This quote shows all the places where interpreters are very important, with most interpreters in those public services it is hard to get one for personal use.  Next, when having an interpreter for personal use deaf/hard-of-hearing people must talk to the interpreter and agree with they want interpreting for translating, this always will fluctuate depending on what situation the deaf/hard-of-hearing person is in.  In conclusion, interpreting is very hard because different signers like different ways such as translating or interpreting but the interpreters in the public services must interpret since it is the most common communication.

In the late 1960’s and early 70’s the government announced that American Sign Language interpreters were now recognized as professions.  To become an interpreter the interpreter must go through testing and get a certificate, one of the programs was: The Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID).  Every certificate had different credentials to be able to pass that certain program, Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf Inc. says "RID certifications are a highly valued asset and provide an independent verification of an interpreter’s knowledge and abilities allowing them to be nationally recognized for the delivery of interpreting services among diverse users of signed and spoken languages."(Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf Inc.).  Between the 1990’s and early 2000’s the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) had become the main program to get the interpreter certification.  The RID and the NAD were going head to head over who would be the best program.  After a few years of battling, in 2002 they had a formal collaboration system called National Interpreter Certification.  This certification has three levels to it, the normal beginner, the advanced, and the master.  This certification consisted of a written test, interview, and a performance test.  According to Verywell Health their program keeps getting harder, “However, starting in June 2012, hearing candidates for interpreter certification had to have at least a bachelor's degree and as of June 2016, deaf candidates for interpreter certification needed to have at least a bachelor's degree, but requirements may vary by state.” (Berke).  This quote shows that the program doesn’t want anyone to join, they want people who have gone to college and have an education.  This is important because depending where you want to work you may need knowledge of that career and vocabulary.  To summarize, there is now only one program to become a certified interpreter and to be allowed to be in the program the candidate must have a four-year degree.

Interpreters can go into any career they desire, because there is always a need for one all the places deaf/hard-of-hearing people go.  Since there is so much demand for interpreters but there aren't a lot of qualified interpreters most of the interpreters go into the jobs that pay they are most needed for.  National Association of the Deaf gave some of the main careers interpreters go into, “ educational interpreting in K-12 and higher education settings; in the community, such as for doctor’s visits, court appearances, and business meetings; and for the provision of video relay services(VRS) and video remote interpreting (VRI) services.” (National Association of the Deaf).  This quote shows that these interpreters are looking for the jobs and careers that they will be mostly needed for since they are in high demand.  To go off the educational settings there is another program/ certification that the interpreters need to go through to be able to work at the schools.  This is to make sure that they are able to interpret what is being said and the careful instructions that come with it since a lot of teachers go into deep detail.  This certification is called  Educational Interpreter Performance Assessment (EIPA).  To pass the program, the candidate must get a 4.0 on the EIPA test, and according to Classroom interpreting other requirements are, “Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) certification, NAD-RID certification (NIC) at a certified level, NAD certification of at least a 4.0, Degree or coursework in an educationally-related field, BA degree (preferred), Graduate of an Interpreter Training Program, 24 – 30 credit hours of educational coursework, a formal assessment of content knowledge related to educational interpreting,the ability to perform as a professional member of the educational team.” (Schick).  To explain, this quote shows that it is extremely difficult to become certified to be able to work in the education field.  To summarize, there are many career and job opportunities for interpreters but some careers do need more certifications then others.

In conclusion, interpreters have come a long way of finally being recognized as a professional career and also a career that is in high demand.  To become a certified interpreter it takes a lot of work and dedication to get through all the procedures in the program and pass all the tests with exceptional grades.  Interpreters have lots of careers to choose from but some do need more education, training, experience, and certifications.  Interpreting is different from translating and interpreting is more common but the signers need to communicate to decide what is better in that situation.Translating and interpreting are both very difficult skills, it takes a lot of work to become qualified to help people with hearing disabilities, lots focus and inspiration to want to work to get more certificates to help children in schools.

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Home Essay Examples Science Sign Language

Sign Language: History And Analysis Of Case Studies

• Category Science
• Subcategory Language and Linguistics
• Topic Sign Language

Introduction

Sign language has played a significant role in the deaf culture. Individuals who were deaf did not have a voice to communicate with, but when sign language was created it gave deaf individuals a newfound voice. Sign language started a new culture for the deaf community and brought them around the world together. In a deaf community, sign language is a vital form of communication. Despite the difficulties of speaking and learning that deaf people might encounter, they can efficiently and professionally communicate with hearing people, of course, with sign language. The latter, however, has been a central feature of communication throughout human history. Like any other language, sign language has changed and evolved into the structure that people can see at present since the beginning of human communication. Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning. Sign languages are natural languages with their own grammar and lexicon. This means that sign languages are not universal and they are not mutually intelligible, although there are also striking similarities among sign languages. Linguists consider both spoken and signed communication must be kinds of natural language, meaning that both emerged through an abstract, protracted aging process and evolved over time without meticulous planning. Sign language should not be confused with body language, a type of nonverbal communication.

The main aims and objectives of this paper are:

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• to collect data about sign language learning in Baku
• to investigate problems of learning and teaching process of sign language.

Wherever communities of deaf people exist, sign languages have developed as handy means of communication and they form the core of local deaf cultures. Although signing is used primarily by the deaf and hard of hearing, it is also used by hearing individuals, such as those unable to physically speak, those who have trouble with spoken language due to a disability or condition, or those with deaf family members, such as kids of deaf adults.

It is unknown how many sign languages exist worldwide. Every country generally has its own, native sign language, but some of them have more than one. The 2013 edition of Linguistics lists 137 sign languages. Most sign languages have accepted some form of legal recognition, while others have no status at all.

Linguists consider natural sign languages from the other systems that are precursors to them or derived from them, for example, invented manual codes for spoken languages, home signs, ‘baby signs’, and signs learned by non-human primates.

1.1 The history of Sign Language.

Historically, deaf and hard-of-hearing people are said to be known since ancient times. Socrates, in one of his earliest written records of a sign language from the fifth century BC says, ‘If we hadn’t a voice or a tongue, and wanted to express things to one another, wouldn’t we try to make signs by moving our hands, head, and the rest of our body, just as dumb people do at present”.

Besides, Friend refers to one of Stokoe`s main works about human sign language. Stokoe suggests that the roots of a language of gestures for example sign languages have their primate. It is as old as the race itself, and its earliest history is equally obscure. Despite the fact that hearing technologies are improved, and that sign language may witness kinds of decline in the future, sign languages still have their well-known position especially among parents who want and encourage their children to learn signs and symbols. It has many dialects and grammatical structures which are learnt by deaf community. Sign language is one of the methods of communication, which is defined as a set of visual symbols or gestures that are used in a very systematic way for words, concepts or ideas of a language. They are expressed through sign language by representing a relationship between the sign and its meaning in spoken language.

1.2 Literature Review

Allen and Anderson have claimed that sign language is seen to take a crucial part in the deaf `s special schools. This language has supporters and opponents. It is the most general and privileged way used by deaf community. In here, deaf people can have a unique education that the purpose of it is to integrate deaf individuals into humanity utilizing language. As a consequence, they can obtain their rescue and not be marginalized. In many educational contexts, an oral method was always used with deaf pupils. A teacher used spoken language while the deaf pupils were obliged to do lipread and to respond in spoken language. Astonishingly, neither teachers were allowed to use sign language nor pupils were given a chance to interact with it during classes. Pupils, though, were signing during breaks. As we can see, to survive, sign language as well as deaf people and those who use it, have been continuously fighting. Deaf children have the right to equal education. According to Barriga, the ability to use sign language gives strength for deaf people to be free , to be able to communicate quickly, to get a profession and to participate in both communities and family life. Sign language has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, mentioned that sign language is the main solution for them. It fits their needs to communicate and express themselves to others, freely. That’s why, deaf people seem to be used to accepting it, learn it, and use it. Not only deaf people, hearing people may use sign language in some situations, too. Disadvantages of sign language, on the other hand, can be related to the fact that it affects the use of spoken language. A sign language requires good face-to-face communication between the addresser and the addressee to deliver a message. The oral way of communication is unlike the sign one, and the latter may seem more difficult especially when taking into account the fact that sign language is not unified. This may cause a misunderstanding of some of its diverse vocabularies.

2.1 Analysis of case studies

This study aims to investigate the special educational system used to teach sign language for deaf and hard of hearing individuals and to see the problems during acquiring process. Moreover, it also explores the current situation of teaching sign language, challenges, and obstacles encountered by teachers using sign language with deaf and hard of hearing children inside the deaf school. This study also attempts to find out the effectiveness of the deaf special education from the perspective of deaf pupils, to figure out to what extent they are satisfied, to know if they face any problems during their learning process and if the educational level meets their needs or not.

Study population

The language acquired by teachers, pupils, and some other specialists in the field of deaf education, as for teachers, because they are the experienced and professionals in the field of teaching deaf children. They must be aware of their pupils knowledge, language progression, and the process of learning. They are able to determine the challenges which they may have encountered as well as the solutions needed to overcome such barriers to be able to teach them in better conditions as possible as it should be. Consequently, as a result, teachers in special deaf education will be able to achieve better performance of teaching inconvenient conditions that the deaf children need and to pave them the way to live as any hearing children inside regular schools. Pupils, on the other hand, come in the first place. They play a central role in special education. They are the ones whom the purpose of inclusive education does exist. Because of them, the researcher was able to shed, to some extent, some light on the benefit of such education and its effectiveness of it on their language progression, learning process, and their life in general. Since they are presently experiencing the process of learning used inside the school, they might have a clear awareness of different difficulties and obstacles they might have came across while learning in such a special educational system. They may have some views, strategies, or solutions which may help them to enhance their academic performance.

2.2.Relating theory and practise

This study was accomplished in the School of Hearing Impaired Children in Baku. The real and the official start of this school was until 1989. It was established to meet the needs of hearing-impaired children. According to the education adviser, the name of this deaf school has witnessed lots of changes. At first, this school was given the name of the deaf and mute youth`s school. Later on, it was changed to be named: the school of deaf and mute children. Finally, its name was modified to a school of hearing impaired children, which is known as the deaf community in Baku. It is a boarding school. It provides board and lodging to some students but allows others to attend during the day only, like a day school

Data collection procedures

Interviews and classroom direct observation were the ways used to collect data for this study. The first step was to seek permission from the supervisor and the Deaf Community School in Baku. Immediately after that, the researcher moved to the school of hearing-impaired children and met the head of the school personally and sought permission to carry out the study. Then the permission was accepted, the researcher met the therapist, pedagogical advisor, and teachers to introduce himself and to inform them about the purpose of his case study.

Meanwhile, the researcher started taking some observations through attending different classes with deaf pupils and interviewed the latter whenever possible. In such a way, gathering information throughout the observations was an attempt to compare, collect, and capture any other data needed for the study as far as possible and in order not to miss any information that might not have been provided in the interviews.

Methodology

To make sense of the data was collected through interviews and observations, the researcher the needed instruments were gathered for data coding and subsequent analysis. The data for this study was analyzed through detailed description and explanations which were being given by the respondents. To establish patterns, trends and relationships from the information gathered and to make the collected data easily interpreted by many people, basic quantitative statistical techniques such as frequencies, percentages, and tables were used.

The methodology of this project is ethnographic and qualitative research. Observation is method used by researcher Through this work in the community it was slowly accepted more and more. This is qualitative methodology that researcher decided to go and have observation. And there are some questionnaires used by researcher on this research paper.

When the case study revealed facts related to the training of teachers in sign language, we wanted to know the teachers` views about sign language. Thus, the ten teachers were asked about the nature of sign language,importance of learning of it, teaching it as a subject in classes, and whether the deaf children seem to learn enough sign language from the teachers as they teach them some other different contents or not.

Teachers` attitudes towards teaching of sign language. 50 percent of the teachers seems to believe that sign language is as natural as Azerbaijani or Turkish. It has its alphabets, vocabularies, and grammar. Only 2 out of 10 teachers state that unlike spoken languages (e.g. Azerbaijani), sign language is not natural. It is not even comparable, linguistically speaking. The number of teachers who responded by no represents a percentage of 20 percent. The 30 percent of teachers, however, gave no response at all related to the nature of sign language. These teachers were 3 in number. Some reasons given by teachers who have belief that sign language is natural were also asked by the researcher. A female teacher has 28 years of experience in teaching 40 illustrate that sign language is a natural language used by deaf children since the babbling stage, who learns his first signs from his mother. Whether we agreed or not, sign language is the deaf children`s mother tongue. So, it is natural, it has its linguistic features and grammar. Further, she said that she had been trained by deaf teachers who master the language very well. If the language was not natural, she could not have been able to acquire it, understand it, use it, and teach it. Another female teacher has only five months of experience in teaching the deaf argued that it is a natural language because no one can understand it unless he learns it. The answers to the second question that asks if the teachers are offering sign language as a taught subject in their classes reflected noticeable results concerning teaching sign language for the deaf. The vast majority of 90 percent of teachers answered by no. Almost all teachers were not offering sign language as a taught subject in the school. Only one male teacher, who has not mention his years of experience in teaching, says that he is offering it as a taught subject in his classes. The teacher claims that he has a specific class devoted only to sign language itself. In this class, he explains the content of the sign language dictionary used in the school to enrich his pupils’ vocabularies. The nine teachers, on the other hand, are not teaching sign language as a subject in the school. Two teachers say they are not offering it as a subject because it is just a means that the teacher uses to explain various content subjects like mathematics or history. Another teacher adds that it is not scheduled in the timetable to be taught as a subject itself. A male teacher has 26 years of experience in teaching that sign language is not scheduled as a taught subject because he relies on the curriculum

The grammar taught at this school follows the same grammar rules of the Azerbaijani language. However, some of these rules seem to be dropped in sign language. For instance in the first sentence and the second sentence the definite article “the“ is not used before the tow words “sign and baby“. Another thing was dropped which is the sign that represents the question mark in the second sentence. Although it might seem that the Azerbaijani language grammar is not entirely applicable, teachers follow it as an alternative in the absence of available sources to teach sign language and its real grammar that fits its linguistic features and nature.

Barriers and challenges to the teaching of sign language

Findings of this study indicate that there are some challenges and barriers encountered by deaf pupils and their teachers in particular. First, the results revealed that there is no Azerbaijani Sign Language in Baku neither any sign languages are being used in the school of hearing-impaired children. Second, there is a need for real sources of sign language, academically speaking. Also, there is lack of equipments in this school. Therefore, the school must be well equipped.

Many people who have no or minimal experience with sign language users, including parents of deaf children and the professionals who advise them, have fears about the difficulty of learning a sign language. Certainly, they might lack the resources or infrastructure to do so crucial but separate issue. What concerns us here is that they might initially assume they are incapable of learning to sign well enough to be able to help their child’s language development. The same paediatric audiologist’s websites mentioned earlier says, ‘Parents who do not know sign language well cannot provide a rich language environment for their child’. With little prior knowledge of signing , parents and professionals can be vulnerable to a bias against bringing a sign language into the lives of children who, in fact, could benefit greatly from sign language during a critical time for language and cognitive development. Surely, learning a second language as an adult is challenging, but no scholarly study has yet to find that sign languages are more difficult. Motivation is a crucial component in all second language learning, and parents who find themselves with a deaf child are likely to have strong motivation due to an impulse to communicate with their child in effective ways. The fear that parents can not learn to sign well enough to serve as good language models for their children should be put aside: parents do not have to be the most fluent signing models for their children. Deaf children, if exposed to good signing models outside the family, will learn to sign well even if their parents are less than fluent. Moreover, deaf children whose parents are able to communicate with them with sign language benefit in other ways: they use more complex language with one another with more positive outcome than those who do not sign at all, and they show early language expressiveness on a par with hearing children of the same age. With language learning support (a teacher, tutor, other signers, the child’s deaf peers and the parents), family members learning a sign language, for example, ASL or German Sign Language (DGS), at the same time as the deaf child, powerfully enhance family communication and promote a typical language acquisition process, which is key for the child’s lifelong success. S ign language, their children will drift away from the family and become part of a social world of deaf signers, a deaf culture.

The opposite has been shown to be true. Deaf children who grow up bilingually and can communicate with their parents in a sign language (and in a visual modality) are much more likely to have strong, healthy family ties than those deaf people who are unable to speak well or hear well enough to have communication with their parents because neither they nor their parents learned a sign language. There are reports indicating that some oral deaf people and hearing parents of deaf children wish they had had an opportunity to learn sign language earlier but were advised against doing so. One of the comments to the Post article on Di Marco ended with the bleak statement, ‘I was a victim of oral monolingual education’. In their social world (or shared culture), deaf people view themselves as whole, well and empowered. In contrast, the medical profession views deaf people as having a medical condition or pathology that they are obligated to address through medical means. Likewise, professions such as audiology and hearing sciences see it as their duty to provide treatments, therapies and interventions. Educators design pedagogy that is special or differentiated from that of other children. This combination of historical negative view of deaf people in society and the professions often communicates to parents that if they allow their deaf children to learn a sign language, their children will identify with this community and not the family.

Conclusion:

There are not a lot of researches about how icrucial Sign Language is for Deaf Community. Deaf of hearing people suffer from isolation from their own family when both they and their families do not have access to Sign Language. This lack of understanding creates rifts within the relationships, making it more difficult to communicate. This is avoidable by families being properly informed in the beginning and taking advantage of the multitude of free classes available. For those Deaf students who are in schools that do not use Sign Language may continue to have limited access to their education. The same issue exists for children who arrive at kindergarten with no language and have to start from the very beginning before they can begin acquiring knowledge. Communication with the hearing community is fraught with problems, but most of these conflicts stem from language and communication issues that could easily be solved. All of these negative experiences pale in comparison to the stories of the discovery of Sign Language. The joy, and finding of self described by individuals is an experience all Deaf people should have access to.

References:

• https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/american-sign-language
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
• http://www.signlanguage101.com/
• https://www.handspeak.com/
• https://www.lifeprint.com/
• https://mashable.com/article/how-to-sign/
• https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935345.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199935345-e-19
• https://en.wikipeia.org/wiki/Language_acquisition_by_deaf_children
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/_Sign_Language
• ttps://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1356&context=theses
• https://www.academia.edu/37430562/Teaching_sign_language_to_the_deaf_children_in_Adrar_Algeria._A_case_study_of_the_Hearing_Impaired_Childrens_School_in_Adrar
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_language#History
• https://www.google.az/search?ei=yo_qXKyvPKP1qwHX26KoBw&q=sign+language&oq=sign+language&gs_l=psy-ab.3..35i39l2j0l8.1937.4559..5618…0.0..0.147.1555.0j13……0….1..gws-wiz…….0i71.ysjSGH17X2c
• https://www.uncommongoods.com/product/american-sign-language-blocks?msclkid=a3159dd78feb17141efec13d1c2dc5fe#pr-reviewdisplay
• https://www.signingsavvy.com/
• https://www.learnwithadrienne.com/sign-language-in-30-days-online-course-for-beginners-registration
• https://www.signschool.com/
• https://www.perkinselearning.org/earn-credits/onsite-training/sign-language-classes
• https://jme.bmj.com/content/medethics/43/9/648.full.pdf

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Sign Language Studies

ISSN 0302-1475

Editors: Erin Wilkinson , University of New Mexico Pilar Piñar , Gallaudet University

SPECIAL ISSUE

The first wave of sign language research, selected memoirs.

Guest Editors: 

Penny Boyes Braem

Virginia volterra, robbin battison, nancy frishberg, carol padden.

"A truly  stunning  collection from the who's who of early sign language research, and a very valuable gift to anyone wanting to learn about the sign language research community."  — Ceil Lucas, Professor Emerita, Gallaudet University

From the Introduction

"Fifty years after William Stokoe founded Sign Language Studies ( SLS ) in 1972, we have reason to give thanks for a half-century of research and discovery, and to reflect on its origins. Because much has changed since those early days. And many stories have not yet been told. . . . The resulting collection serves as historical documentation of how a new research field is born. We believe that the personal details and variety of motivations and settings will interest a wide range of readers—not only the veterans of the field who will recognize their pioneering friends, but also younger researchers seeking insights into the roots of sign language linguistics and related fields."

This special issue is included as part of the SLS subscription. 

If you would like to purchase a print copy ($40/individuals and $50/institutions) , please click here.

If you would like to purchase a digital copy ($24/individuals) , please click here.

Aims & Scope Issues Submissions Manuscript Submission Guidelines Book Review Guidelines Special Issue Proposals Subscribe Purchase Digital Content The Editors Customer Service

Aims & Scope

Founded by William C. Stokoe, known by many as the father of the linguistics of American Sign Language, this quarterly journal presents a singular forum for groundbreaking research on the language, culture, history, and literature of signing communities and signed languages. The first journal published in the field, SLS continues to offer fresh content with a uniquely international, multidisciplinary focus.

" “Time and again, Sign Language Studies features some of the best articles in the field. The editing is solid, the issues are always pertinent and whether about a sign language of the world, or about the people who use it, the topics are invariably interesting.” —Carol Padden, Professor, Department of Communication, University of California, San Diego "

A common misconception about sign language is that it is universal. Check out our #SLStudies map to see the many different sign languages that are used across the globe! These are the sign languages that have been represented in Sign Language Studies .

New Features in Sign Language Studies

An annual list of completed sign language or sign language-related dissertations and master’s theses.

A section called In Brief , which features short pieces that are 3–4 pages in length, written by undergraduate and graduate students, that are not yet full articles but contain interesting information that should be shared.

History of SLS

William C. Stokoe began publication of Sign Language Studies in 1972. With the encouragement of Thomas Sebeok, Stokoe created this seminal journal as an outgrowth of his pioneering studies of the structure of American Sign Language and the dynamics of Deaf communities. From then until now, SLS has presented a unique forum for revolutionary papers on signed languages and other related disciplines, including linguistics, anthropology, semiotics, deaf studies, deaf history, and deaf literature.

After a three-year hiatus, Sign Language Studies commenced publication in the fall of 2000. The new editor was David F. Armstrong, an anthropologist and author of Original Signs: Gesture, Sign, and the Sources of Language and coauthor of Gesture and the Nature of Language with Stokoe and Sherman Wilcox. A long-time collaborator with Stokoe, Armstrong became a member of the SLS editorial board in 1986.

David Armstrong stepped down as editor at the end of 2009 and was succeeded by Ceil Lucas, Professor Emerita, Gallaudet University, who is the coauthor and editor of many Gallaudet University Press books, including Linguistics of American Sign Language and What’s Your Sign for PIZZA? , and is the founding editor of the Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities series. She is also the author of a memoir, How I Got Here .

In 2022, the editorship moved to Erin Wilkinson and Pilar Piñar.

Back to top

Table of contents and article abstracts for current and previous issues are available at Project MUSE . All issues are fully searchable.

Search Project MUSE®

Publisher Limited To: Gallaudet University Press

Journal Limited To: Sign Language Studies

https://muse.jhu.edu

Submissions

Articles, book reviews, and other pieces.

Sign Language Studies invites submissions of high-quality papers focusing on research relevant to signed languages and signing communities from around the world. Topics of interest include linguistics, corpora development, anthropology, deaf culture, deaf history, and deaf literature. We are also interested in ongoing research reports, shorter pieces that are not full-fledged articles but contain information that should be shared with signing communities, and book and media reviews.

Articles and essays are welcomed from all countries. All submissions must be in English. Authors should submit papers electronically to [email protected] and [email protected] .

Original scholarly articles and essays relevant to signed languages and signing communities.

Word count limit: 8,000 to 10,000 words, including references

Ongoing Research Reports

Status reports of research being done on signed languages or issues relevant to signing communities.

Word count limit: 3,000 to 6,000 words

Pieces that are shorter in length (can be written by undergraduate and graduate students) and are not yet full articles but contain interesting information that should be shared.

Word count limit: 750 to 3,000 words

Book Reviews

Reviews of relevant books.

Word count limit: 600 to 1,000 words

Every fall, SLS publishes a list of doctoral dissertations related to signed language and signing communities that have been successfully defended that year. Please send citations for dissertations you’d like to see included in the list by early August in the following format:

Author. Year of Defense. Title. University. Database where the dissertation can be found or ProQuest order number if available.

Note: Please do not send full text of the dissertation.

Manuscript Submission Guidelines

A manuscript will be accepted for review on the condition that it has not been published or is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere. Once an article is accepted, the author will be asked to assign copyright to Gallaudet University Press in order to protect the article from copyright infringement. Gallaudet University Press will not refuse any reasonable request by authors for permission to reproduce their contribution to Sign Language Studies .

All articles will undergo peer review, be professionally edited and typeset, and be distributed in print and electronic format.

Length. Manuscripts can be between 8,000–10,000 words including the references. After an article has been accepted, the author will be asked to send the final version as an attachment to an email with the article saved in Word or Rich Text Format.

Format. The title of the article/essay and the author’s name, affiliation, and contact information (including email address) should be on page 1. This is the only page where the author’s name should appear.

Headings. Please do not number your headings (i.e., “3.1. Data Collection”). Also, please do not include cross-referrals to sections in your article's text (i.d., “see section 4.1.2”). If this appears, it will be removed during copy editing. Please do indicate head levels by either formatting them differently (bold, all caps for first-level heads, bold, initial cap/lowercase for second-level heads, bold italics for third-level heads) or by adding bracketed codes:

• <1> = first-level heads
• <2> = second-level heads
• <3> = third-level heads
• <4> = fourth-level heads.

Tables and Figures. All tables and figures should be mentioned in the text, should include a title or caption, and should be numbered consecutively. Tables should not be embedded in the running text but appended at the end of the article. Figures should not be embedded in the file with the text. They should be submitted as separate files in the format in which they were created. Do not embed the figures in a Word document. All figures should be in reproducible form, with type that is clearly legible at a reduction of 50 percent.

Endnotes and Footnotes. Footnotes should be used sparingly and should be numbered consecutively. Endnotes should also be numbered consecutively and should follow the form detailed in The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) , 17th ed. Endnotes should be placed together in a section following the main body of the text.

References. All sources cited in the text should appear in the reference list at the end of the chapter. Text citations should include the author, year of publication, and page number, where applicable: (Wilcox 2000, 120). Books and articles listed in the references should take the following form:

Brueggemann, B. J. 1999. Lend Me Your Ear: Rhetorical Constructions of Deafness. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.

Winston, E., and C. Monikowski. 2000. Discourse Mapping: Developing Textual Coherence Skills in Interpreters. In Innovative Practices for Teaching Sign Language Interpreters , ed. C. Roy, 15–66. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.

Stokoe, W. C. 2000. Commentary. Sign Language Studies 1(3): 5–10.

For other types of citations, consult The CMOS , 17th ed.

Permissions. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reprint tables, figures, illustrations, and large excerpts. Copies of the permission letters must accompany the manuscript.

Proofs. One set of proofs will be sent to the lead author. Authors are responsible for proofreading and returning the proofs within three days of receipt.

Graphics. Please submit all graphics in a size that is clearly legible when reduced 50 percent. Please note that all graphics must be in grayscale or black and white. Color graphics are not acceptable. Line art should be saved in files separate from the article, preferably in Adobe Illustrator .eps files. Photographs should be scanned as TIFF or PNG files—do not send them as JPEGs.

Please make a separate file for each graphic submitted. Do not embed the graphic in a Word document (this reduces resolution and will affect how well the graphic appears on the printed page). When scanning line art or halftones for submission, please scan to 300 dpi. This is the minimum resolution required for good printing results.

Book Review Guidelines

Sign Language Studies considers the following genres for book reviews:

• Scholarly monographs and contributed volumes on sign language linguistics and/or sociolinguistics, deaf history, deaf education, deaf studies, deaf literature studies, sociology, anthropology, psychology

• Nonfction—memoirs, biographies, autobiographies

• Fiction and poetry

• Alternative media—videotexts, online multimedia texts

• Double-spaced 12 pt. Times Roman text.

• Length: 800–1,200 words (does not include references).

• Include a one-sentence author biography for the reviewer.

Example: Christina Young is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Virginia.

Bibliographic Citation:

The book review should begin with a bibliographic citation of the book under review following the format below:

Author/Editor’s name(s). (Translator’s name, if required). Book title. Publisher (Page count, price, ISBN, additional format, price, ISBN). URL or DOI if available.

Example: Mary H. Wright. Sounds Like Home: Growing up Black and Deaf in the South. Twentieth Anniversary Edition. Gallaudet University Press (282 pages, $32.95, paperback: ISBN 978-1-944838-58-4, ebook: ISBN 978-1-944838-59-1).

Writing a scholarly book review requires careful analysis, critical thinking, and the ability to communicate your thoughts and opinions effectively. Here is a step-by-step guide:

1.  Read the book thoroughly: Begin by reading the book from start to finish. Take notes while reading, paying attention to the main arguments, evidence, and the author's writing style. It's essential to have a clear understanding of the book's content. Questions to ask while reading:

• What is the author's main argument that they want to get across?

• What are the smaller arguments the author argues contribute to the main one? Are you persuaded that these more specific reasons support the author's wider thesis? If not, why not? (this is also an excellent time to think about any key terms the author uses or invents to discuss a specific problem or occurrence. How do they improve upon what we already know?)

2. Understand the book's context: Research the author's background, their previous works, and the broader context in which the book was written. Consider the book's genre, its significance within the field, and any relevant historical, cultural, or social aspects that may inform your review.

3. Structure your review: Start by providing a concise summary of the book, highlighting its main themes, arguments, and contributions. Then, organize your review by discussing specific aspects of the book in separate sections, such as the author's methodology, the strength of their arguments, the quality of evidence, the writing style, and the overall impact of the book.

4. Provide evidence and examples: Support your evaluation with specific evidence from the book. Quote relevant passages, cite specific examples, and reference any data or research the author presents. Use these examples to illustrate your points and provide a solid foundation for your analysis.

5. Engage with the text critically: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the book. Consider the author's arguments, the evidence they provide, and their overall effectiveness in conveying their ideas. Identify any gaps or limitations in the book's approach, and analyze how it contributes to the existing body of knowledge.

6. Situate the book within the field: Assess the book's contribution to the broader scholarly conversation. Determine whether the book introduces new insights, challenges existing theories, or offers a fresh perspective on the subject matter. Discuss how the book aligns with or diverges from other works in the field and its potential impact on future research.

7. Develop a clear and coherent argument: Present your analysis in a logical and organized manner. Use clear language and concise sentences to convey your thoughts effectively. Make sure to back up your assertions with evidence and examples from the book.

8. Balance objectivity and subjectivity: While a scholarly book review requires objectivity, it's also acceptable to include your own subjective opinions and reactions. Just make sure to clearly differentiate between the author's work and your personal perspective.

9.  Conclude your review: Summarize your main points and provide a final evaluation of the book. Offer a concise recommendation or judgment regarding the book's overall quality, usefulness, and significance.

10. Edit and proofread: Review your work for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. Ensure your review is clear, coherent, and well-structured. Consider seeking feedback from peers or colleagues to refine your review further.

Remember, a scholarly book review should be thoughtful, well-reasoned, and objective. It should provide readers with a comprehensive understanding of the book and its contributions to the field while offering your own critical analysis and evaluation.

Suggested Structure for the Review

1. Introduction

   a. Begin with a brief introduction that includes the book's title, author, publication information, and any relevant background information about the author or the book's context.

   b. Provide a concise overview of the book's main topic or subject matter.

   c. State your overall purpose for writing the review and mention the main points you will address. What is at stake here? Why should scholars be interested in this work? Grab the reader’s attention right away, locating the book in established debates and controversies.

2. Summary of the Book

   a. Provide a summary of the book's main arguments, ideas, and supporting evidence. Include the major themes and key concepts.

   b. Be concise but ensure that you cover the essential aspects of the book. Within the first two paragraphs, it’s important to try to explicitly state the primary argument of the book (e.g., “Smith’s main argument revolves around/centers on/is…”). What is the larger point of this book, and why should readers care?

3. Analysis and Evaluation

   a. Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the book. Consider aspects such as the author's argumentation, evidence, methodology, organization, and writing style. Please strive to be fair and considerate while offering critique. However, you can disagree with the book's claims if you believe they are incorrect, exaggerated, misguided, or for any other reason. On the other hand, you can talk about how much you loved the book and explain what specifically fascinated, persuaded, or revolutionized your perspective about the argument or idea.

   b. Assess the book's contribution to the field or discipline. Evaluate whether it adds new insights, challenges existing theories, or provides a unique perspective.

   c. Support your analysis with evidence from the book. Quote relevant passages or provide examples to substantiate your points.

4. Discussion and Interpretation

   a. Engage in a critical discussion of the book's content. Analyze the implications of the author's arguments and ideas.

   b. Consider the book's significance in relation to broader academic debates or the field of study.

   c. Offer your own interpretations and insights, presenting your perspective on the book's strengths, weaknesses, and overall value.

5. Conclusion

   a. Summarize your main points and findings from the analysis and evaluation.

   b. Provide a clear and concise overall assessment of the book.

   c. State your final thoughts and opinions on the book, including any recommendations for further reading or research.

6.  References

   a. Include a list of references for any sources cited or referenced in your review. Follow the Chicago Manual of Style ’s author-date format.

Potential Book Reviewers

We are always looking for new book reviewers interested in various disciplines. If you wish to become a book reviewer, write to us along with your CV. You can send us a few titles that you would like to review or just your areas of interest. Please contact our editors at [email protected] .

Special Issue Proposals

Guest editor guide.

We know that there is a lot to take on when assuming the role of guest editor. We have therefore put together this guide, which leads you through the most important aspects of the role and what you can expect from the process of editing a special issue.

What is a special issue of a journal?

Special issues of a journal are generally centered around a theme. These articles can come from papers/presentations at workshops, symposia, or conferences. The guest editors can also issue a call for papers about a particular topic. Some special issues are festschrifts honoring a certain scholar’s contributions to their field.

In the past, Sign Language Studies has featured special issues on:

• Linguistic ethnography and sign language studies (guest editors: Annelies Kusters and Lynn Hou; vol. 20, no. 4)
• Creative sign language in the Southern hemisphere (guest editors: Rachel Sutton-Spence and Michiko Kaneko ; vol. 20, no. 3)
• Rural sign languages (guest editors: Connie De Vos and Victoria Nyst ; vol. 18, no. 4)
• Language planning and sign language rights (guest editor: Joseph J. Murray; vol. 15, no. 4)
• (This is not an exhaustive list of our special issues—it’s just a sampling.)

What are the responsibilities of guest editors?

As a guest editor, you are assuming the responsibilities of the journal editors. They will be available to give advice but you are responsible for the following:

• coming to an agreement with the SLS editors on a specific deadline to submit the final version of the papers
• gathering the initial submissions
• identifying appropriate peer reviewers and asking if they are available to peer review
• sending out and tracking the submissions for peer review (you may have to nudge some reviewers to meet your deadlines)
• deciding whether or not to accept the submissions as is, with revisions, or whether to reject
• communicating your decisions to the submissions’ authors
• sending out the contributor contracts to the accepted submission authors
• gathering all the signed contributor contracts and forwarding them to GU Press along with each author’s snail-mail address (in order to facilitate sending out the comp copies after the issue is printed) and each contact author’s email address
• submitting a table of contents to GU Press to indicate the articles’ order and to help market your issue
• writing an introduction to the special issue
• submitting the final manuscripts with all of their art, tables, appendixes, etc., to GU Press by the established deadline
• reviewing the typeset proofs (these will also be sent to the article authors)

Before submission

Unless one of SLS ’s editors has directly approached you about guest editing an issue, you will need to submit a proposal. The proposal should include:

• the potential papers and authors with a brief description of each paper (these papers don’t need to be already written, though they might be in progress)
• the timeframe in which the special issue could be produced (include time for paper writing, peer reviewing, and submission of final copy to the journal) if the proposal is accepted
• short biographies of all authors and guest editors
• any special timing, associated events, funding support, partnerships, or other links or relationships that could influence the issue
• any other information that you feel is relevant

A special issue normally contains around five full-length articles, in addition to an editorial written by the guest editors (occasionally the SLS editors might want to include their own editors’ note).

Please submit your proposal to [email protected] .

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Conflict of interest exists when an author (or the author’s institution), reviewer, or editor has financial or personal relationships that inappropriately influence (bias) their actions.

The special issue may publish submissions from the guest editors but the number should normally not exceed one by each guest editor (except where specifically approved by the SLS editors). The guest editor cannot be involved in decisions about papers that they have written themselves. Peer review of any such submission should be handled independently of the relevant guest editor/coeditor and their research teams.

The peer review process

Confidentiality

The guest editor should protect the confidentiality of all material submitted to the journal and all communications with reviewers. The guest editor must not disclose reviewers’ identities.

Selection of papers and the decision process

You are responsible, along with any other guest editor(s), for making sure that the review process is conducted in an appropriate manner and in line with normal review practices for the journal. You may consult with the SLS editors about the procedure to be followed.

You will make the decision on all manuscripts based on peer review and your own expertise (as well as that of any co-guest editors).

Selection of reviewers

As guest editor, you should select reviewers who have expertise in the field. You also must ask for and review all disclosures of potential conflicts of interest made by reviewers in order to determine whether there is any potential for bias.

Publication process

Once all the peer reviews are finished and you are satisfied with the final accepted articles, they should be submitted with all of their art, tables, videos, contact email addresses, and any other supplementary material to [email protected] . She will review the articles to make sure they are complete and then they will be sent out for copy editing.

Once the copy editor has finished, the articles will be returned to their respective authors for their review. Typically, there is a one- to two-week turnaround. Once the authors are finished, the manuscripts are returned to GUP for clean-up. If time is available, the clean version of the articles is re-sent to the authors for a final check before being sent to typesetting.

After the issue is typeset, proofs of each article are sent to their respective authors and a proof of the entire issue is sent to the guest editor(s). At this point in the process, we are checking for typos and any serious factual errors. Changes such as rewriting paragraphs or moving figures and tables around are not acceptable at this stage (anything that affects the pagination is very costly to change and the authors may be charged for these changes).

The article authors have the prime responsibility for proofreading their typeset articles but you may also review them and submit corrections. Once all the proofs have been returned, the GU Press managing editor will combine all of the changes onto a single marked-up proof and will return that to the typesetter. GU Press will then check all subsequent proofs to make sure the changes have been made correctly.

Final “print-ready” files are then sent to the printer, ERIC (Education Resources Information Center at the U.S. Department of Education), and to electronic library platforms such as Project MUSE and JSTOR. Once the issue is printed, hard copies of the issue will be sent to each of the guest editors and article authors.

SLS (ISSN #0302-1475) is published four times a year: fall, winter, spring, and summer.

Click here for subscription information.

Purchase Digital Content

Click here for information about purchasing digital copies of articles or issues.

The Editors

Erin Wilkinson and Pilar Piñar Editors

SLS Editorial Board

Robert Adam University College London

Glenn Anderson University of Arkansas

Dirksen Bauman Gallaudet University

Karen Emmorey San Diego State University

Jordan Fenlon Independent Researcher

Maribel Gárate Gallaudet University

Brian Greenwald Gallaudet University

Joseph Hill National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology

Julie A. Hochgesang Gallaudet University

Lynn Hou University of California, Santa Barbara

Tom Humphries University of California, San Diego

Terry Janzen University of Manitoba

Arlene B. Kelly Gallaudet University

Christopher Krentz University of Virginia

Gaurav Mathur Gallaudet University

Kazumi Matsuoka Keio University

Carolyn McCaskill Gallaudet University

Johanna Mesch Stockholm University

Rezenet Moges-Riedel California State University Long Beach

Soya Mori Institute of Developing Economies

Erin Moriarty Gallaudet University

Ronice Müller de Quadros Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

Elena Radutzky Mason Perkins Deafness Fund

Timothy Reagan University of Maine

Octavian Robinson Gallaudet University

Kristin Snoddon Toronto Metropolitan University

Rose Stamp University of Haifa

Gladys Tang Chinese University of Hong Kong

John Vickrey Van Cleve Gallaudet University

Sherman Wilcox University of New Mexico

Betsy (Elizabeth) Winston Teaching Interpreting and Mentors Center

Customer Service

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Home — Essay Samples — Science — Sign Language — The Development of ASL (American Sign Language)

The Development of Asl (american Sign Language)

• Categories: Sign Language

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Words: 365 |

Published: Dec 12, 2018

Words: 365 | Page: 1 | 2 min read

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Sign Language

The History of Sign Language

Sign languages have been around much longer than most people think. Did you know that they existed in ancient Greece? And even before recorded history? To give you some perspective on just how amazing and prolific sign language really is, let’s take a deep dive into the long and colorful history of how signs—and ASL in particular—came to be.

The Earliest Sign Languages

No one knows exactly when sign language first appeared, but many sources agree that using hands to communicate has been around just as long as spoken language. And these early signing systems were the direct result of humans needing a new way to interact. Researchers believe that hunters on the open plains used signs to communicate to each other from great distances. Because of the lack of visual obstruction in a plains environment, sign was the most obvious way to communicate without scaring off the animals they were hunting.

The ancient Great Plains Native Americans also developed a complex signing system . It’s unclear what exactly the system was for, but many different theories exist. A popular one is that sign made intertribal trade possible. To overcome language barriers, the natives developed a standardized system of hand gestures to negotiate with tribes that didn’t speak their language—including European expeditioners. Multiple accounts of Columbus landing in the Americas claim that the natives communicated with his crew through sign.

The Greek Philosophers

It’s impossible to know exactly when and where the first deaf person tried out sign, but we do know that the first written record of sign language came from Ancient Greece. In fifth century B.C., the philosopher Plato wrote the dialogue Cratylus . In it he recorded Socrates saying , “If we had neither voice nor tongue, and yet wished to manifest things to one another, should we not, like those which are at present mute, endeavor to signify our meaning by our hands, head, and other parts of the body?” Apparently ancient Greeks who couldn’t speak did indeed have a rudimentary sign language to go about their daily lives.

Later Plato’s student Aristotle became the first person ever to record a claim about deaf people —and unfortunately it wasn’t a good one. He believed that being able to hear speech was the only way people could learn. So according to Aristotle it was completely impossible to educate deaf people. Even though there wasn’t a shred of factual evidence to support his claim, Aristotle’s theory caught hold and was widely believed for the next 2000 years throughout the world.

And the results weren’t pretty. During this era of history, deaf people were viewed as lesser humans who couldn’t legally hold property. They couldn’t get married because society was afraid that deafness was a hereditary trait that would be passed on to future generations. Deaf people were often denied citizenship and even religious rights . And though deafness was regarded as a shameful disability, any form of sign was ostracized and discouraged, making it nearly impossible for these people to communicate freely.

Scholars of this period genuinely believed that deaf people couldn’t learn, but some teachers still tried. In 685 A.D. the Archbishop of York, John Beverly, famously taught a deaf boy to speak . But instead of seeing this accomplishment as proof that Aristotle was wrong, thinkers of the era deemed this act as divine. The archbishop was later canonized for performing the miracle, but people still believed that the only way deafness could be “overcome” was to speak the same language as the general population.

Teachers in Italy and Spain

In the sixteenth century , philosophers and teachers finally started questioning Aristotle’s claim that people who couldn’t hear couldn’t be educated. An Italian physician and mathematician named Girolamo Cardano (also known as Gerolamo or Geronimo) was the first voice to challenge Aristotle’s long-standing assumption.

Cardano claimed that hearing wasn’t necessary for a person to understand ideas and even started developing his own code of hand gestures. He believed that one could use written words matched with symbols of what they represented to communicate with deaf students. Although his code was never widely adopted, he did use his methods to teach his own deaf son. And Cardano’s theories greatly influenced other leaders and thinkers of the time.

Around the same time as Cardano ( about 1570 ), a Spanish monk named Pedro Ponce de Leon started educating his own deaf students —the sons of Spanish nobles. Because they were deaf, these young men were ineligible to inherit property. Leon taught them to read, write, and speak so they could claim the family fortunes that rightly belonged to them. And his efforts were successful.

Both Cardano and Leon inspired another Spanish monk named Juan Pablo de Bonet to take the biggest step in early sign language history. After developing his own methods of educating deaf pupils, Bonet published the first book on sign language in 1620. In it he included his own manual alphabet of handshapes representing sounds. This was the first published system of fingerspelling in history.

Even though these early systems were designed to teach deaf people how to speak other languages, Bonet’s book was still a revolutionary landmark in the development of sign language as an officially recognized form of communication. His book sparked interest across Europe in educating deaf students, but it wasn’t until the mid-1700s that the next groundbreaking achievement in sign language development took place.

The French Sign Language Revolution

Abbe Charles Michel de l’Eppe was a French Catholic priest who studied theology and law. After he was ordained, l’Eppe devoted his life to caring for the impoverished French, and it was during this service in the slums of Paris that he met two twin sisters—both deaf. Another cleric had been tutoring the girls but died very suddenly. L’Eppe stepped in as their new teacher, a decision that started his lifelong mission of serving and educating the deaf population of France.

The French Deaf community already used a common sign language in Paris, one that had developed organically over centuries. L’Eppe added to this Old French Sign Language system by creating a series of hand signals to replace the sounds of the alphabet . As he taught the twins, l’Eppe uncovered a breakthrough in deaf education: that deaf people learn visually all the same things that other people learn by hearing. Deaf and mute people already had a language that was every bit as powerful and expressive as spoken French, and the key to educating them was training them to communicate with their hands instead of their voices.

In 1760 l’Eppe founded the first free public sign language school in the world, funded by his own inheritance. The school was called Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets à Paris (The Royal Institution of Deaf-Mutes). As the French signing system and l’Eppe’s methods of teaching continued to develop, deaf people from all over France flocked to his school. Even officials from other countries started to take notice. The emperor of Austria and the empress of Russia both sent teachers to learn l’Eppe’s teaching style , and his influence eventually led to the creation of twenty-one schools total in France and many other countries.

Of course l’Eppe wasn’t the only influential sign language teacher of this time period. In England Thomas Braidwood was establishing the Braidwood’s Academy for the Deaf and Dumb around the exact same time that l’Eppe’s school opened in France. Even though Braidwood’s school only educated the deaf children of wealthier families, Braidwood was pivotal in developing the British style of sign language in conjunction with teaching his students to speak.

But not all the teachers of the time were accepting of sign. Samuel Heinicke started the first German school for the deaf in 1778, but unlike l’Eppe, Heinicke was a staunch oralist. He falsely believed that the primary function of education for deaf children should be to develop their spoken language skills so they could fully integrate into hearing society. This is the one area where l’Eppe’s influence stood out among the other European teachers.

L’Eppe truly was the first “manualist” teacher, the first leader of deaf education who realized that sign language was the way deaf people should be communicating, and not just as a vehicle to help them speak oral languages. Aside from perpetuating the importance of sign, l’Eppe’s unique background in theology and law also made him a valuable ally for deaf rights in both religion and the court room. He was one of the first people in history to publicly assert that deaf people deserved to be treated as fully functioning human beings with something meaningful to contribute to society, even if they spoke a different language. It’s little wonder that today l’Eppe is known as the “Father of the Deaf.”

Sign Blossoming in the New World

In 1620, the exact same year that Bonet was publishing the first book on sign language, the Mayflower landed at Cape Cod, Massachusetts. This was the first of many waves of colonists sailing to the New World in search of a better life. Among the many immigrants that hopped on ships bound for America was a group of settlers originally from Kent county England. They arrived in Massachusetts in the 1690s , bringing with them a unique genetic defect that causes hereditary deafness. The result was Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language.

Martha’s Vineyard is an island off the southeastern coast of Massachusetts, and it is a historically significant location for the development of sign. Thanks to the unique genetic makeup of the island’s progenitors, Martha’s Vineyard was home to the largest deaf population on the continent. These deaf islanders created one of the most highly developed signing systems in history, perhaps based on a language used in Kent . Everyone on Martha’s Vineyard knew the signs and used them regularly to communicate with friends, family, and neighbors. Because even hearing members of this community used sign language, Martha’s Vineyard was one of the few societies in the world where deaf and hearing individuals were fully integrated together in all social, civic, and religious activities in the mid-1700s.

Aside from the famous Martha’s Vineyard sign, other versions of sign language began popping up around America wherever deaf populations existed . By the nineteenth century, church census data reported that approximately 800 deaf children were living in the United States. But sign language was still far from standardized and not even close to being recognized as an official language. It wasn’t until decades later that American deaf education would take a large and decisive step forward.

The Great Gallaudet

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was a Yale graduate and an ordained clergyman in Hartford, Connecticut. He dreamed of becoming a professional minister, but his path took a different turn in 1814 when he met nine-year-old Alice Cogswell .

She was the deaf daughter of Gallaudet’s neighbor Dr. Mason Fitch Cogswell. Gallaudet befriended Alice when he saw that the other children weren’t playing with her, and he began teaching her the names of objects by drawing pictures and words in the dirt . Right from the beginning of their friendship, Gallaudet was amazed by Alice’s intelligence, personality, and enthusiasm to learn. He didn’t realize it at the time, but this relationship with this little girl was going to change Gallaudet’s life forever—and the lives of millions of future deaf Americans too.

Dr. Cogswell was delighted to see his daughter’s progress and convinced Gallaudet that he should learn more about educating deaf children. Perhaps even start a school. As a prominent member of Connecticut society, Dr. Cogswell used his connections to raise enough money to send Gallaudet to Europe to study established methods of deaf education. The funds were raised in just one afternoon , and soon Gallaudet was on a ship bound for England.

He hoped to be trained at one of the Braidwood schools for the deaf in England and Scotland, but the Braidwoods turned out to be far from welcoming. They weren’t in a hurry to give up their family speech and lip-reading methods without compensation. And Gallaudet wasn’t convinced that teaching deaf children to speak English was really the best method of educating them anyway.

A discouraged Gallaudet parted ways with the Braidwoods, but shortly thereafter he met Abbe Roch-Ambroise Curcurron Sicard , l’Eppe’s successor at the Paris school for the deaf. Sicard just happened to be visiting England during Gallaudet’s trip and was giving lectures on deaf education along with two of his deaf assistants, Jean Massieu and Laurent Clerc. When Gallaudet introduced himself and explained his vision of establishing a school for the deaf in America, Sicard gladly invited him back to Paris to learn the French method of deaf education.

Gallaudet liked what he saw in Paris. He studied French sign with great enthusiasm, but he was quickly running out of money and needed to return home. Unsure if he could really start an American school all on his own, Gallaudet convinced the young Laurent Clerc to return with him to Hartford so they could start the school together. During the long sea voyage across the Atlantic, Gallaudet taught Clerc English and Clerc taught Gallaudet how to sign.  

Spreading Sign Across North America

With Dr. Cogswell’s help, Gallaudet and Clerc opened the first American public school for the deaf on April 15, 1817 , in Hartford’s Bennett’s City Hotel. Gallaudet and Clerc’s first class had just nine students in it —Alice Cogswell among them—but soon their numbers grew.

As the school’s reputation spread, young deaf students from across the country journeyed to Hartford to learn Clerc and Gallaudet’s unique mixture of signs. Eventually their signing developed into the American Sign Language (ASL) that the Deaf community uses today. By 1863, twenty-two deaf schools were in operation around the U.S., most founded and run by Clerc and Gallaudet’s students.

Gallaudet’s youngest son, Edward Miner Gallaudet , continued his father’s legacy in deaf education. After teaching at the Hartford school for a number of years, Edward Gallaudet was instrumental in establishing the first college for the deaf in 1864, the Columbia Institution for the Deaf at Washington, D.C. (later renamed Gallaudet College in 1893).

The Rise of the Oralists

Despite the momentum sign was gaining in America, there were still many that didn’t view this widespread acceptance of sign language teaching as a positive development. Like the oralists in Europe, many American leaders and teachers falsely thought that sign was holding back deaf students. They believed it only hampered their development and encouraged deaf people to be isolated from the rest of hearing society. For the oralists, the only way to truly teach deaf pupils was to require them to speak English and abandon sign altogether.

By 1867, major schools in America began using oral methods of teaching with no sign language at all. Misguided advocates like Alexander Graham Bell —the same Bell who invented the telephone—were convinced that oral education was the best and only way for deaf children to learn. More and more schools started teaching deaf students orally or trying out combination methods that still used sign language but mainly focused on lip-reading and learning speech.

This ongoing conflict between oral and manual education culminated in the infamous Milan Conference of 1880. Deaf educators from seven different countries all gathered in Milan, Italy, to make decisions about the future of deaf education. The majority of the delegates firmly believed that oral methods were superior to sign language. Edward Miner Gallaudet was among the minority who knew without a doubt that sign language was the primary mode of communication for deaf people and should be the primary means of teaching them. Sadly the oral delegates won the vote, and the Milan Conference decided that sign language would be banned from all schools.

This decision rocked the deaf education world. In the next ten years sign language drastically declined, and by 1920 nearly 80% of all deaf programs were using oral methods. In some classrooms the signing ban was enforced through cruel methods like tying deaf students’ hands behind their backs to force them to speak. Perhaps the most regrettable consequence of the Milan Conference was the decline of deaf instructors in deaf classrooms, which dropped from 40% to a mere 15% .

But despite the ban, sign language still lived on. Deaf people were still signing outside of school or under tables, and the language continued to grow, develop, and build relationships. On a more official level, America’s National Association of the Deaf was created in response to the Milan Conference. The association stood as a guardian of American Sign Language to make sure sign and Deaf culture would be protected and preserved for future generations. They fought relentlessly to restore sign language in the classroom, but it was nearly a century later before sign made a comeback.

The Truth in the Research

The restoration of sign language happened thanks to William Stokoe , a scholar and hearing professor at Gallaudet University. Stokoe arrived at Gallaudet to teach English to the students, but upon observing ASL up close, he made a shocking realization.

In this era, sign language was viewed as a cheap mimicry of spoken languages, a primitive and insufficient means of communication for those who couldn’t hear. But Stokoe’s linguistic background revealed so much more to him. As he observed ASL he noticed that it wasn’t mimicry at all. In fact it carried all the markers of a unique language with its own syntax and grammar. That meant sign language was a fully formed language just like any spoken one.

Stokoe went on to publish his findings in 1960 and developed the very first sign language dictionary. His work was received with great excitement in the linguistic community and eventually entered the deaf education community as well. Stokoe’s research became a springboard for widespread positive change in deaf classrooms as educators finally accepted sign language with open arms and recognized ASL as the official language for deaf Americans.

Eventually Congress issued the Babbidge Report in 1965, acknowledging the failings of oralism-only deaf education and finally recounting the decisions made at the Milan Conference. Now with an official stamp of approval, American Sign Language has spread freely nationwide and become an integral piece of educating deaf children.

Sign Language Today

Sign language is now recognized as the native communication and education method for Deaf people. No one knows exactly how many sign languages exist around the world today, but there are unique signing methods in just about every country on the globe .

Many, many countries still do not have strong support for deaf education, and plenty still haven’t recognized sign as an official language. But there’s no doubt that sign has developed into a fully fledged and beautiful language of its own right that has connected deaf people all around the world and impacted the lives of individuals everywhere.

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Sign Language through the Ages (Robert Adam)

Robert Adam explores the rich history of British Sign Language and how it survived the years when it was banned from society to become the flourishing language it is today.

Dr Robert Adam is an assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University and a lecturer in Linguistics, British Sign Language and Deaf Studies.

In his essay, 'Sign Language through the Ages', Robert explores the rich and layered history of British Sign Language. He recalls the first time he read a piece of deaf history - his father’s school published ‘Utmost for the Highest’ for its centenary in 1962, and was full of black and white photos of stern looking people and impressive edifices. The faces and names of long-dead deaf people leapt out at Robert and made him wonder what was life like for those deaf people then? They achieved so much but would have had to find their way in times where there were no anti-discrimination laws.

Robert shares with us how Deaf people and sign languages have existed since antiquity. Quintus Pedius, a painter in the first century AD, is the first recorded deaf person in history. The first clear record of sign language being used was a wedding in Leicester in 1575.

So why is sign language still viewed as a 'new' language by some? Robert shares the story of the fated Milan Congress held in September 1880 which was attended by mostly hearing educators from around the world who resolved to stop the use of sign language in the classroom. After Milan, sign language went 'underground' till the 20th century where it began to gain traction again - largely due to programmes such as 'Vision On' and 'See Hear' which graced our screens.

Within the context of the historical discourse, Robert concludes that deaf people are pioneers in their field and their work has had an impact on our lives today.

A Flashing Lights Media production for BBC Radio 3.

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The History of a Language: American Sign Language

The History of a Language: American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is an intricate language using complicated hand gestures mixed with very animated facial expressions and body posturing. It is the primary form of communication among the deaf and hard of hearing in North America. In these modern times it is not uncommon to see two deaf people communicating in sign language or colleges teaching ASL as a form of foreign language. But ASL or deaf people in general weren’t always so openly accepted in society.

The deaf community was shunned, but despite the way the rest of society treated them deaf culture flourished. Before contemporary times, the deaf, or any sort of physically handicapped weren’t treated very kindly. In fact, in 300’s B. C. Aristotle, the Greek Philosopher , declared that “It is impossible to learn without the ability to hear… those who are born deaf all become senseless and incapable of reason”(Sharner). And in 345 A. D. St. Augustine preaches to “early Christians that deaf children are a sign of God’s anger at the sins of their parents” (Sharner).

As a result deaf people were seen as un-teachable, no parents would allow their children to marry to a deaf person, they couldn’t buy property or go out in public without a guardian. The law didn’t even consider them people. But in 1501, Geronimo Cardano openly challenged the almost 2000 year old belief set by of Aristotle and St. Augustine’s teachings. Cardano claimed that learning does not require hearing; he was able to communicate and teach his deaf son using a ‘code of symbols'(“Deaf History)”. He was the first to prove that deaf people have the ability to reason and learn using signed communication and writing .

Not too long after, others were inspired to teach the deaf as well. Juan Pablo de Bonet a Spanish priest, studied Leon’s methods as well as using his own methods of writing, speech reading and a anual alphabet (using corresponding hand shapes for the letters of the alphabet) to teach the deaf as well as publish the first well known “writes the first well-known book of manual alphabetic signs for the deaf in 1620″(“ASL Timeline”). But there still wasn’t an organized system of teaching the deaf, or a standardized system to communicate for that matter.

However in the 1760’s, the French Priest, Charles Michel De L’epee, “founded the first public school for the deaf… using a system of standardized signs and finger spelling” (“Deaf Timeline”). Deaf children all across the ountry came to attend the school, the students brought the signs they learned back to their neighborhoods. As a result the language that L’eppe used became the standard sign language for the country known as Old French Sign Language. De L’eppe helped create a bridge between the hearing and deaf world and is often times considered the father of sign language.

Before the creation of ASL, there was no form of education for deaf children in America, so the parents were forced to send their children to private academies that specialized in deaf education in Europe. In 181 5 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, an American minister decided to learn abroad to tudy the European methods of the deaf. … he was introduced to the Abbe Sicard in several months studying educational methods as well as signs, he was ready to . In America the French sign language was enlarged and return to America modified, eventually becoming the basis of the American language of signs.

In Hartford Connecticut, 1817, the first permanent school for the deaf was established… By 1857 there was 19 schools for the deaf across the United States (Riekenhof 6). ” In 1864 the Gallaudet College, world’s only deaf college, was established. By 1876, every deaf school in America taught ASL. The schools for the deaf gathered together larger numbers of deaf people than ever before, placed them in communal living situations, and taught them not only formally about the world at large but informally about themselves…

They encountered the surprising knowledge that they had a history and an identity shared by many others. From this common language and common experience, they began to create an American deaf community (Baynton 4). Sheryl Arcelao, a deaf sign language teacher remarked that, “ASL is a part of me, Just like English is a part of you. The rest of my family doesn’t know ASL so I couldn’t express yself to them, which made communicating really frustrating. But when I’m with deaf people, all the barriers come crashing down and I Just feel at home (Arcelao). However an “a group of reformers, in the late eighteen hundreds [threatened] to unmake that community and culture. Central to that project was a campaign to eliminate the use of sign language and replace it with the exclusive use of lip reading and speech, which was known as ‘oralism. ‘(Baynton 4). ” Oralism was added to the education system , but this didn’t satisfy the Oralists. The reformers intended to eradicate the use of ASL entirely. The deaf community blatantly rejected their proposal, ASL was so intertwined with their life, how could they Just stop?

Alas, the deaf community’s cries were ignored, ironically having little influence in their own educational system. The abolition of sign language was quite a success , oralism was favored more as time went on and by WW1 the great majority of students were taught exclusively without sign language. In 1960 Dr. William C. Stokoe, Jr. , a professor at the Gallaudet University changed everyone’s views of Sign Language and proposed instead that “ASL was, in fact, a fully formed human language in the same ense as spoken languages like English.. .

Stokoe’s published works won wide acceptance in the linguistic community and ultimately among educators of the deaf, such that ASL is now widely recognized as an appropriate language of instruction for deaf students. ” (“William”). Stokoe’s tireless work ultimately led to a greater awareness of ASL and provided critical support in it’s explosion of popularity, it even led to teaching ASL in high schools ancd colleges. Stokoe’s research was also a major consideration when a “Report to Congress on oral deaf education… concludes that [Oralism] has been a ‘dismal failure'(“Deaf History).

With the issue of this report the age-old battle of oralism versus sign language was finally put to rest. Those who advocated for oralism thought the deaf as an inferior race. Oralists were totally unsympathetic and completely ignorant to the deaf community and how difficult it would be to learn how to speak without being able to hear. Their ideas were based off of delusions that all deaf people could lead the same lives as hearing people, not realizing that signing lead to the life that they were dreaming of. Their goal had good intentions, they wanted to homogenize deaf and hearing people by having the deaf ppressing the minorities.

Sign has been around for quite a long time, a sequence of events starting with the persecution of deaf people and sign language, the workings of Abbe De L’eppe, the creation of deaf schools around the world, the fight for manualism and the “Deaf President NOW’ movement. Through it all sign endured, and even reached the state of an “official” language. The future of ASL is promising as community continues to grow. ASL is now the third most used language in America. This gain in popularity will only continue to bridge the gap between the vibrant cultures of America.

Works Cited Arcelao, Sherylynn. Personal Interview. 2 October 2013. “ASL Timeline. ” DeafJam. N. p.. 6 Sep 2013 Web. Baynton, Douglas C. Forbidden Signs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Riekenhof, Lottie L. The Joy of Signing. USA: David Johnston,1963 Printing. Sharner, Wendy. “ “American Deaf Culture Historical Timeline. ” College of the Canyons, n. d. Web. 4 September 2013. “ “Timeline of Deaf History . ” Sound and Fury. PBS. n. d . Web. 6 Sep 2013.. “William C. Stokoe, Jr Founder of Sign Language Linguistics. ” Gallaudet University. n. p, May 4 2000, Web. 4 August 2013.

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History of Sign Language Essay

ESSAY SAMPLES , Essays on History

Sample Essay

Words  2,147

Introduction

American Sign Language (ASL) is the visual language which is the keyway of communication of hearing-impaired people in America and parts of Canada. Some approximations show that that between 100,000 and 500,000 people use ASL. This includes local signers who have studied ASL as their first language from deaf parents, hearing children of deaf parents who also learned ASL as their indigenous language and articulate signers who have been taught ASL from deaf people.

The actual and representational significance of sign language remains at the root of Deaf people’s individuality. Since the launch of schools for deaf students in America, the application of sign language as the principal method of classroom interaction has facilitated students’ easy access to understanding. It suits the visual needs of individuals who cannot hear and for whom reading lips is awkward, if not impossible. Sign language’s educational connotations -the meaning of sign language-goes beyond the classroom. Deaf people, in the past and even today, consider it as the clearest feature of their society. They have come to describe themselves principally as a linguistic group. In many ways, sign language narrows the perceived and real differences between this group and mainstream society.

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American Sign Language and Its Importance Essay

Deaf people cannot speak, communicate, and perceive the world fully. They are limited in their perception: vision and sensation are the only primary channels for them to obtain information about the world. However, one of the main problems is the absence of language, which is crucial for developing higher cognitive skills. However, sign language helps maintain and develop the cognitive abilities of deaf people; in that way, they must be taught sign language.

Language deprivation is a significant danger for deaf people: it results from the absence of language learning during childhood. Imagine that the child is growing up in wild conditions, where they cannot hear any speech, any word of mouth. This is what happens to those deaf children who have not learned sign language when they are primarily open to this (N. K. Caselli et al., 2020). All children have increased neurological sensitivity to language learning, which is why they learn languages easier than older people. If they do not learn a language in this period, their cognitive abilities become impaired, not only memory but also the ability to form conscious thoughts. They become more like animals, not humans; this may sound dreadful, but this is the reality of kids who cannot think consciously and memorize what they see. If deaf child is not taught sign language, they must rely only on their vision and fundamental patterns, such as objects’ forms, colors, and quantities. They are similar, in that way, to primitive people who were not able to speak.

Deaf people have weaker memory due to their inability to communicate using ordinary language. Teaching sign language from childhood may help prevent these problems and restore normal memory development. However, their parents, especially those who are hearing, usually have low proficiency in sign language (Bansal et al., 2021). Sometimes they are not bothered to teach their kid sign language, but the consequences of such inactivity are awful. Their working memory becomes weaker, and they cannot operate by word constructions that are accessible to their hearing mates. Compare, thus, the opportunities for such deaf people when they become teens and adults: they will be much worse than those for hearing people. Deaf person is limited not only in their perception but in their language and cognitive abilities; however, this issue may be solved by teaching American Sign Language from childhood.

Consider that American Sign Language is essential for deaf people: probably, even the most necessary skill at all. It allows them to close the gap of language ignorance and learn how to speak even without the ability to hear and produce conscious voices. This is why systems that help deaf children to learn American Sign language are in demand: an example is CopyCat, a sign language recognition system that is easily managed via its visual interface (N. K. Caselli et al., 2020). When deaf children start to learn sign language in early childhood, they have a vocabulary comparable to hearing children (N. Caselli et al., 2021). Thus, it solves all cognitive problems which threaten deaf children, enabling them to grow up as fully conscious human beings with opportunities equal to those of hearing ones.

To conclude, I would emphasize the necessity of American Sign Language development and distribution: without that, our deaf children are fated on ignorance and even semi-wildness. Language is a crucial element of humanity; it is necessary for brain development, as neither memory nor higher brain functions can work without it. Sign language closes the gap of language ignorance, enabling deaf people to learn how to speak and form conscious thoughts. American Sign Language is crucial for the United States deaf community, as it helps them avoid language deprivation and master conscious thinking.

Bansal, D., Ravi, P., So, M., Agrawal, P., Chadha, I., Murugappan, G., & Duke, C. (2021). CopyCat: Using sign language recognition to help deaf children acquire language skills. Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems .

Caselli, N. K., Hall, W. C., & Henner, J. (2020). American sign language interpreters in public schools: An illusion of inclusion that perpetuates language deprivation . Maternal and Child Health Journal , 24 (11), 1323–1329.

Caselli, N., Pyers, J., & Lieberman, A. M. (2021). Deaf children of hearing parents have age-level vocabulary growth when exposed to American Sign Language by 6 months of age . The Journal of Pediatrics , 232 , 229–236.

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History of Sign Language Interpreting Essay Example

• Pages: 7 (1700 words)
• Published: June 19, 2017
• Type: Research Paper

In the ancient days, sign language interpreters were friends, family members, and colleagues with the hearing ability. These interpreters did not have any formal training. However, they had some qualifications including some sign language, the willingness to step in, and the knowledge of English. Most of these interpreters were children who were conscripted into the role of interpretation from an early age. Many interpreters in the present days started to play the role as unofficial interpreters.

Deaf people and interpreters have always had an intimate relationship since the beginning of history. In the past and some cases today, interpreters have been present during various events such as burials of a loved one and birth of a child by a deaf mother. Today, interpreters interact a lot with deaf people even after the work assignment. The history of sign language interpre

ting involves several activities that have significantly enhanced the interpreting profession. The American Sign Language (ASL) was first recognized in the 1960s as a bona fide language.

The first linguistic study of the ASL was published by a linguist known as William Stokoe in the year 1960. Sign language interpreters in the United States formed a national professional organization in the year 1964 known as the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID). During this time, interpreter certification standards were established by the RID and codes of ethics for the practitioners put into place (Dean & Pollard 2011). Interpreter trainer programs (ITP) were then established in the early 1970s. These programs took a duration of six to seven weeks.The programs had a primary focus on the settings in which the interpreters worked such as medical, religious, courtroom, and

Additionally, the programs had a linguistic component of vocabulary building. Discussions concerning physical, mental, and emotional processes were limited since there was limited availability of scholarly materials. The programs were not equipped well enough to support knowledge, ability, and skills that enabled the effective performance of the interpreters (Premaratne, 2014). However, it was better to have the programs than having no programs at all.

Moreover, this was just a start. In the 1970s, there was still a low understanding of the complexity of interpretation task. The interpreters, therefore, recognized the need for further development of the profession, seeking support from the established organizations, and acquiring more knowledge through conferences, workshops, and mentoring relationships. As at today, the ITPs run for two to four years, and award certificates and degrees upon completion.

In America, there are several programs at postgraduate levels throughout the country.The American society labels the deaf and hard to hear as disable. This causes stigma that places the deaf and hard to hear in the inferior role in the American society. Moreover, the individuals working with the deaf and hard of hearing people are most of the time thought to be helpers or charitable when providing the services. As at the past decade, this was the case with many sign language interpreters throughout the globe. However, in the recent years, the sign language interpreters are required to possess certain credentials to perform the interpreting tasks.

Today, it is common for a professional perform the interpretation task rather than in the past where the clergy, family members, and friends commonly provided the interpretation services. There are various events that have helped in shaping the profession of interpretation.

These include interpreter associations, American Sign Language research, interpreting related graphics, education, information and resources on deafness, disability advocacy associations, and state laws and regulations among others. These events have significantly enhanced the profession in various ways.Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf has played significant roles in the shaping of this profession.

This includes maintaining a registry of sign language interpreters so as to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in the interpretation system (Dean & Pollard 2011. The organization has played a key role in ensuring quality for the interpreters and translators. The organization encourages the growth of interpreting profession, ensures equal opportunities and access for all individuals, and educates the public on the vital roles of interpreters and translators.Interpreter associations include the national alliance of black interpreters that gives support to sign language interpreters of the African community.

The international association of conference interpreters represents all the interpreters of the professional conference from all languages. American Sign Language research includes research papers and publications that regard the ASL linguistics. These research publications contain information that can be used to enhance the interpreting profession. The interpreting graphics involve videos that show how the words in ASL are signed.Information and resource of deafness have a mission of providing every deaf or hard of hearing individual with equal access to learning and communication by using supportive collateral materials and captioning information.

Education, on the other hand, plays a major role in creating awareness among all people. This is made possible by various courses offered at different educational institutes concerning the deaf and hard of hearing. The students are taught how to treat the deaf and hard of hearing as their equals

rather than as disabled people.During these courses, the students learn interpreting skills and can enhance their interpreting careers. The state laws and regulations contain the rights and guidelines on how to interact with the deaf and hard of hearing.

All these events work to enhance the profession of interpretation. Since the RID was established in the year 1964, there have existed biennial conferences that are used to bring together interpreters from various parts of the United States and Canada. The interpreters come together to discuss theories and techniques of the interpreting profession.During these conferences, the interpreters get to interact with each other and exchange their skills (Dean & Pollard 2011). The conferences enhance the acquisition of demographics of the interpreters. During the conferences, the participants break into two main functions.

The first group is that of individuals who became interpreters because a member of their family, a friend, or someone close to them was deaf. The second category is that of interpreters who went for some training in sign language interpretation as a result of their passion for assisting the deaf and hard of hearing.The two groups interact to exchange ideas and skills that have major impacts on the deaf community and the interpreters themselves. The skills acquired in these conferences enable the interpreters to provide better services to the deaf community. The deaf community, therefore, benefits from quality services. American Sign Language research has had major impacts on the deaf community and the interpreters.

Research activities involved include medical and psychological research on how to improve the interpretation activities. The findings of the research when implemented improve the quality of services offered to the deaf community. Additionally,

the activities increase the skills and knowledge of the interpreters, hence improving the interpreting profession as a whole. Interpreting related graphics are designed in a way that they enhance the skills and knowledge of the interpreters. In turn, the acquired knowledge and skills improve the quality of services offered to the deaf community. State laws and regulations contain rules that guide the quality of services offered to the deaf community.

The regulations also entail how to treat people from the deaf community, what to do and what not to do. These regulations, therefore, work to eliminate discrimination against the deaf and hard of hearing and enhance the provision of equal opportunities and access to these individuals. On the other hand, the laws and regulations work to enhance the quality of skills and knowledge that the interpreters have. This is possible since the regulations apply to the learning institutions and in many states; an interpreter acquires a license for hi, or her to practice.Technology improvements are positive changes that have affected the deaf community and the interpreters.

In the ancient days, there was a low level of technology. The interpreters only used signs to interpret information from and to a deaf individual. Some of these interpretations did not have clear and understandable meanings. Additionally, most of the interpretations were not accurate.

However, this changed to the positive with technological advancements. In the current days, there are technological appliances that are used to interpret sign words.In some cases, the deaf does not need a human interpreter to communicate. Technology has made communication easier for the deaf community (Mindess, 2014).

On the other hand, technology has enhanced the interpreters’ skills by facilitating

the acquisition of interpreting knowledge. Interpreting graphics are used by the interpreters to acquire more skills and enhance their accuracy. With technology, the deaf community can acquire equal education and other opportunities as other members of the community.Social influences have also positively impacted the deaf community and the interpreters. The deaf community, in many regions of the continent, has leadership that ensures the survival of its members. Leadership is necessary for contesting the dominance of a rational management.

Leadership in the deaf community has worked to eliminate traditional discriminative attitudes towards deafness (Premaratne, 2014). Leadership has worked to change the assumption that deaf people are disabled and that their activities are under the control of the hearing.There is a critical necessity to consider and issue the deaf community and leadership with a place in developing public policies in medical interventions, education, genetics, and other policy areas that affect the wellbeing of the deaf community. Sign language interpretation is a field that requires quality skills to provide quality services to the deaf community. The sense of self in interpreters is generated by interactions with each other and with other people. The national organization of interpreters known as the RID has worked with the interpreters to improve the quality of services offered to the deaf community.

There are many efforts made to improve the welfare of the deaf community and to facilitate the services provided by the interpreters. Technology and social interventions have significantly enhanced communication in the deaf communities. It is important that deaf people are not treated as disabled people and that they are given equal opportunities as any other member of the society. The interpreters acquire

skills and knowledge through technology and interaction with each other during conferences.

The interaction enables the interpreters to provide quality services to the deaf community hence improved communication. References

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