This article promotes an understanding of how deaf people live in a bilingual-bicultural society.
Introduction
Demographic trends indicate that the Asia and Pacific region account for the largest number of persons
with disabilities. This segment of society was not perceived as a potential contributor to economic and
social development, resulting in its exclusion from mainstream community life and deprivation of the
right to equality.
It is estimated that there are about 13 million deaf persons in South Asian countries, and almost threefourths live in rural areas where proper facilities for health care, education, training and employment
are scarce. Poverty is the main cause of their continuing suffering and backwardness. Unemployment
and over population also add to their misery. Yet another difficulty is the lack of awareness about the
legal provisions they are entitled to. Further, the rural deaf are often not properly organized to look after
their own interests. The plight of deaf females is even worse as traditional barriers create more
difficulties in their social upliftment.
Neglected by society, ignorant of their own potentials, and deprived of facilities of education and
training, the lives of many deaf people are often an ordeal. The absence or limitation of support or
cooperation in today’s highly competitive world means that many deaf people are at a disadvantage.
History of Deaf Education Throughout the world, hearing communities use spoken languages as their primary system of communication, and most have developed writing systems that are based on the spoken language.
However, profoundly deaf individuals, especially those who become deaf early in life, do not acquire
spoken language through normal immersion, and therefore have great difficulty in mastering the written language as well. These deaf individuals usually develop or learn sign languages, which are different from the surrounding spoken languages in structure as well as vocabulary. In many countries, great controversy
has arisen, particularly within institutions of deaf education, concerning the use of spoken language,
written language and sign language. For example, the 1880 International Congress on Deaf Education,
held in Milan, Italy, voted that henceforth all deaf education would be conducted in oral (spoken)
language, and that sign language would be prohibited in the classroom. This decision was enacted
throughout the systems of deaf education all over the world, and led to limitations of opportunities for
deaf people to learn or use their natural sign language. For school-going children sign language became
an underground language, used secretly, and often with punishment if discovered. But within the adult
deaf community, sign languages continued to be widespread, used for everyday communication and for
arts and culture. National Associations of the Deaf (NADS) were formed around the world in an
attempt to establish and protect the rights of deaf individuals to use sign languages.
The prohibition of the use of sign language either within education or in social activities led to young
deaf children being deprived of the early language experience so vital for language acquisition. Over
100 years since the resolutions of the Milan Congress, it is evident that very few pre-lingual,
profoundly deaf people acquire normal language and speech. This is so despite great advances in
teaching methodology, research and technical know-how. Moreover, as 90% of deaf children are born
to hearing families, they do not learn sign language at home (unless, of course, their hearing parents
learn it themselves). Thus, without the facility of learning a well-developed and fluent sign language in
schools or without adequate exposure to adult deaf individuals who sign, most deaf children will have
limited early language experience. NADS around the world have made great strides in maintaining and
strengthening the use and development of sign language for the deaf.
Linguistic research on the natural sign languages used in deaf communities has shown them to be fully
expressive with complex rules of grammar and expansive vocabularies, capable of being comfortable
vehicles of everyday conversation, intellectual discourse, rhetoric, wit and poetry. The natural sign
languages of deaf communities are therefore languages that must be accessible to deaf children, and
whose full usage by deaf adults should be supported and promoted.
Since the Milan resolution, more than a 100 years of ‘oralism’ in deaf education has been implemented.
Accordingly, attempts were made to teach the spoken language to the deaf child during the ‘critical
period’ using speech therapy, hearing aids, a group hearing aid, auditory training, lip-reading, etc. It was
presumed that the deaf child can learn a spoken language with the help of a hearing aid through his
residual hearing and lip-reading. Thus he can become a fully integrated partner in the hearing world. In
other words, the basic idea of oralism is to enable the deaf child to listen and to speak and thus make
him as ‘normal’ as possible.
Linguistic researchers are, however, convinced that the ‘Critical Period Theory of Language
Acquisition’ does not apply to deaf children as far as the spoken language is concerned, because a deaf
child does not acquire the spoken language naturally; he has to learn it consciously. These linguistic
researchers believe that the process deaf children go through in learning a language they cannot hear is
largely an ‘intellectual task’, possibly even a ‘memorization task. Therefore, early exposure to spoken
language should not be considered as critical for a deaf child as cognitive readiness. It is proven beyond
doubt that a deaf child acquires a sign language in the environment supporting it similar to a hearing
child acquiring a spoken language. Children exposed to other deaf children (or deaf adults) who use
sign language acquire their first language (sign language) quite naturally. No special teaching is
required; interaction is sufficient. This is why sign language is called the ‘mother tongue’ or ‘natural
language’ of the deaf. On the strong foundation of this first language, i.e. sign language, the deaf can
later learn a language well.
Now a word about ‘Total Communication’. There are a few schools in India that are adopting this
method. Total Communication is a philosophy defined as ‘the use of any and all modes of
communication’. It includes speech and finger-spelling, lip-reading, amplification, gestures, facial
expression and body language. Sign system and sign-supported speech, viz., sign English and signsupported English, can be considered as specific examples of Total Communication. However, sign
language, due to its very nature, was not made a part of Total Communication because it was neither a
spoken nor written language.
This philosophy of Total Communication came into existence in the late 1960s. It soon became the
method’ of teaching language as well as social and academic skills to deaf children. Parents and
teachers generally claimed that their communication with deaf children improved tremendously.
Suddenly through visual means-deaf children were able to participate in conversations and were able to
communicate their questions, emotions and needs through created linguistic Although the communication between deaf children and hearing surroundings improved greatly, their spoken language skild improve the extent. Above all, they to communicate among themselves and with deaf adults in system completely different from the used their hearing parents and teachers system that teachers and parents could not understand. Deaf children felt ease with visual language Later, after study and that this visual system actually language its right, with phonological, morphological Thus, the hearing world came a deeper understanding respect of sign language, which bilingualism deaf be propagated.
Bilingualism For the majority deaf children, oralism a failure and consequently they did not acquire social, academic cognit skills. has been documented repeatedly deaf children substantially behind their hearing age mates virtually measures of academic achievement. Gentile (1972) found the performance of deaf
students the Stanford Achievement (SAT) was markedly less in spelling, paragraph comprehension
vocabulary, mathematical concepts, mathematical computation social studies and science. Such
documentation represents failure of oralism.
It is also repeatedly observed that group deaf children whose deaf parents use sign language are
superior deaf children whose hearing parents provided with early and intensive oral training in
communication and language.
The superiority was evident in:
(1) linguistic skills,
(2) academic skills,
3) maturity, responsibility and independence,
(4) sociability and
(5) appropriateness of sex-role
(6) ability to react appropriately any situation.
A recent research finding Birgitta Soderfeldt in her thesis titled “Sign Language Perception studied Ne
Imaging Techniques’, there many similarities between the spoken language and sign language. Both
seem acti almost the same areas of the brain. Probable that language does depend on the language
system she also found that despite similarities language systems were, however, some differences. Sign
language activates to higher person’s there were however, some difference, Sign language activities to a
higher. Degree those areas of the brain which code and decode visual perception. This holds true even
when sign language is compared with spoken language with simultaneous visual stimulation (a speaker
on video).
Moreover, the test group ‘deaf persons with deaf parents’ was different from other sign language users.
Their right cerebral hemisphere showed a higher degree of activation. An explanation for this is that
they really are genuine sign language users and utilize localization information better than other test
groups, as they get natural language immersion from their parents. This hypothesis strengthens the
available information about sign language, and presents reasons for early contacts with sign language
users for deaf children. Hard-of-hearing persons included in the study revealed that those who were
skilled signers were also good at lip-reading. This finding disproves the statement that sign language
destroys lip-reading skills.
Considering all these facts, should not the aim of deaf education be that the deaf student leaves school
with the same amount of knowledge, the same degree of personal maturity and self-confidence, and the
same level of social adjustment as is expected for a hearing student? To achieve this aim, the bilingual approach is recommended. The bilingual approach means that deaf children have sign language as their primary language. Later on they will learn spoken language as their second language, which will be taught using principles similar to teaching a foreign/second language.
Here sign language is used as a medium of instruction in teaching the spoken language. Sign language
and spoken language are given equal status. However, it is important that people are aware of the
differences between the two languages.
In the bilingual approach, speech is regarded not as a means of learning the language of the society, but
as a means of facilitating everyday interaction with it. It is good to remember that the linguistic
functions that speech can fulfil for the deaf are very restricted. All pupils acquire a basic knowledge of
the workings of speech. Actual speech-training is individualized and based on each individual pupil’s
aptitude and interests, as well as on the language mastered by the individual.
