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Alayna Souder
Julia Intawiwat
English 112-39
5 May 2016
A Silent Culture
To many people, it might sound odd that a disability such as deafness can be considered
to have its own culture. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, culture is defined as the
integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for
learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations (Culture). There are many facets
to being part of a culture, such as how our history affects us, how we learn, how we behave, how
we communicate, and how we function in our day-to-day lives. In all of these aspects, Deaf
culture is unquestionably different from the hearing world.
It is first important to realize that within the Deaf community, being Deaf is not
considered a disability but an identity. As explained in the deaf authored book, For Hearing
People Only,
We find [labeling deafness as a handicap to be] an unnecessarily restrictive view.
It doesnt take into account what we do with our remaining senses, how creatively
we cope, how we communicate, and, most significantly, the richness and color of
our livesas deaf people. And many of us do not see ourselves as pathological
specimens but as members of a community (Moore 343).
Does it make communication with others a little more difficult? Yes. However, when labeling
deafness as a disability, there is a stigma attached that deaf people are stupid or unable to be
taught, which seems to widen the gap even further between deaf people and hearing people. Of

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course, just because they cannot hear or communicate
through spoken language does not mean that they cannot
understand or communicate in any way at all! American
Sign Language, or ASL, is a full-fledged language through
which total communication and understanding is achieved.
Thus, rather than demoralizing their inability to hear, the
Deaf take pride in their rich culture and history. That is the
reason that there are two kinds of deaf: deaf carries the basic meaning of the inability to hear,
while Deaf encompasses the culture, language, and pride that comes with being a part of the
Deaf community. With this, one can be medically deaf without being Deaf. One such deaf person
may focus less on taking pride in their deafness and more on trying to blend in with the hearing
world.
The Deaf community has not always been how it is today. In the past, deafness was
commonly viewed as a problem that needed to be fixed. In an article in a Dublin newspaper,
Sunday Independent, Lisa Carroll, who is deaf, was interviewed and recalls her days in St Mary's
School for Deaf Girls in Cabra:
30 years ago, things were not as enlightened as they are today. "Mum was told not
to learn how to sign," explains Lisa. "We weren't allowed to sign at school either.
So how was I supposed to communicate with other deaf people? We had to lipread all the time, which was exhausting (Proud to be Deaf).
Almost all deaf schools focused on teaching students how to vocalize and speech read so that
they could fit into the hearing world. Many believed that signing would encumber a students

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progress if they grew to be dependent upon it. Therefore, the use of sign language was strongly
discouraged.
One may ask, if deaf people cannot hear and are naturally isolated from the rest of the
world, do deaf people not enjoy reading? It may come as a surprise that most deaf people do not
enjoy reading because it is so hard for them to understand. Low literacy levels among deaf adults
are common, which works to further augment the stereotype that deaf people are unintelligent by
basing intelligence on how well a person can read. However, American Sign Language is not a
written language and does not require a high level of literacy to enable communication. Reading
has proven more difficult to deaf people for two main reasons, the first being that many deaf
people never learned how to read or write very well. Only a few generations ago Deaf schools
focused more on purging students dependence on sign language and primarily taught students to
speak and lip read, neglecting to teach proficient reading and writing skills. In addition to this,
many deaf children lack exposure to any kind of language early in life because most of them are
raised by hearing parents, giving them no basis for reading or writing. In order for hearing people
to understand this, it can be likened to a person being in a soundproof box. Outside the box,
imagine someone else is trying to teach them Greek through a window. Surely this would prove
to be difficult because it is much harder to learn how to read and write words that you have never
actually heard before (unless, of course, you know Greek). Deaf education shows to be similarly
challenging. The other reason many deaf people cannot read well and do not like to read is
because sign languages are structured differently than spoken languages. In English, sentences
are constructed by first using a subject, followed by a verb, and then an object. However, in
American Sign Language, sentences are structured using an object, then a subject, and then a

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verb. American Sign Language tends to convey more of an idea rather than a word-for-word
translation, making written English seem confusing or out of order to native ASL users.
One of the most obvious differences between Deaf culture and the hearing world is that
the Deaf use sign language. ASL is a visual, spatial language and therefore is processed in the
brain differently, as compared to oral languages. Therefore, the way that Deaf people behave and
communicate varies greatly from oral and aural society. Their outlook and ways of life are
different because they depend on senses other than hearing. As an example, for something even
as simple as getting someones attention, hearing people mostly depend on saying the persons
name or making some sort of noise. On the
contrary, deaf people get the attention of
other deaf people by waving at them, tapping
them on the shoulder, or having someone else who can see you get their attention.
Every day, deaf people face the challenges of communicating with hearing people. This
can prove difficult without someone to interpret and deaf people often feel isolated in a hearing
environment because they do not always understand what is
going on. Some deaf people do not trust hearing people
altogether because some have taken advantage of their
inability to hear. Many deaf people also have to deal with
discrimination on a daily basis in subtle and blatant forms.
One example of this is found in For Hearing People Only:
Blatant discrimination is when a firm refuses
to hire a deaf jobseeker because we need someone who can use the telephone.
Fifteen or twenty years ago, this might have been a legitimate concern. Now, with

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around-the-clock relay service in all statesto say nothing of affordable TTYs,
fax machines, modems, and the boom in Internet and real-time messaging
programsits no longer a good excuse (Moore 475).
Deaf culture does not only affect history, education, behavior, communication, and dayto-day lives, but it encompasses an identity; it embraces differences. That is exactly why I fell in
love with the language and the culture surrounding it. In learning ASL, I have truly found
something that I am passionate about and I look forward to continuing my studies and learning
more about Deaf culture.

Works Cited

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"Culture." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2016. <http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/culture>.
Moore, Matthew S., and Linda Levitan. For Hearing People Only: Answers to Some of the Most
Commonly Asked Questions about the Deaf Community, Its Culture, and the "Deaf
Reality" 3rd ed. Rochester, NY: Deaf Life, 1993. Print.
"Proud to be Deaf." Sunday Independent: 44. Feb 07 2016. ProQuest. Web. 4 May 2016.