Impressions of the Deaf Culture and Community
Abstract
The deaf culture is one that I am not familiar with. No one in my immediate family or none of my close friends are deaf so I have not been exposed to it during my lifetime. I decided to take an American Sign Language course in high school to not only learn the language, but to learn about the deaf culture as well. I would like to someday be fluent in sign language so that I can cater to the deaf community while conducting business. Conducting research, I learned a lot about to deaf community. Deaf people are presumed to have a disability because they do not have the ability to use all five senses. The Deaf community is a cultural group, sharing common experience, concerns, and language
Main Body The deaf community share common experiences. Many people have misconception of the deaf community. Many people assumed that deaf people are dumb because they cannot hear. It is assumed that because they can’t hear, their understanding of the world around them his somehow lessened. Many hearing people have this mind frame and tend to treat deaf people as such. High percentage of deaf people has experienced this at least once in their lifetime. I did not agree with some of the facts that I found out about this. Just because one cannot hear, should not have anything to do with his or her intelligence. Deaf people learn the same way was hearing people and can comprehend things just as well. Intelligence depends on the individuals person drive and their willingness to learn, not the fact if they can hear or not. Sometimes hearing people assume that people who are deaf would like to hear if they were able to. In some cases that is not necessarily true. Sometimes deaf people do seek treatment for their hearing loss and some receive implants. Other deaf people have no desire to be hearing. Some deaf people consider themselves having an advantage over hearing people. They turn this “negative” stigma into a “positive.” The deaf culture wants
The deaf culture is one that I am not familiar with. No one in my immediate family or none of my close friends are deaf so I have not been exposed to it during my lifetime. I decided to take an American Sign Language course in high school to not only learn the language, but to learn about the deaf culture as well. I would like to someday be fluent in sign language so that I can cater to the deaf community while conducting business. Conducting research, I learned a lot about to deaf community. Deaf people are presumed to have a disability because they do not have the ability to use all five senses. The Deaf community is a cultural group, sharing common experience, concerns, and language
Main Body The deaf community share common experiences. Many people have misconception of the deaf community. Many people assumed that deaf people are dumb because they cannot hear. It is assumed that because they can’t hear, their understanding of the world around them his somehow lessened. Many hearing people have this mind frame and tend to treat deaf people as such. High percentage of deaf people has experienced this at least once in their lifetime. I did not agree with some of the facts that I found out about this. Just because one cannot hear, should not have anything to do with his or her intelligence. Deaf people learn the same way was hearing people and can comprehend things just as well. Intelligence depends on the individuals person drive and their willingness to learn, not the fact if they can hear or not. Sometimes hearing people assume that people who are deaf would like to hear if they were able to. In some cases that is not necessarily true. Sometimes deaf people do seek treatment for their hearing loss and some receive implants. Other deaf people have no desire to be hearing. Some deaf people consider themselves having an advantage over hearing people. They turn this “negative” stigma into a “positive.” The deaf culture wants
References: Gregory, S. (2002). Constructing Deafness. New York City: Continuum International Publishing Groupe. (Original work published 1991) Senghas, R. (2002). Signs of Their Times: Deaf Communities and the Culture of Language. Annual Review of Anthropology, 31, 69-67. Retrieved November 26, 2011, from the JSTOR database.