Empowering the Deaf
Empowering the Deaf
There are may be about three hundred sign languages in use around the world today. The exact number is not known. All these languages are different from one another on the basis of country, spoken language, place & culture etc.
Deaf people, as a community or culture, can be considered a linguistic minority, and as a result, some members of this community may feel misunderstood by those who do not understand sign language.
It is the set of social beliefs, behaviours, literary traditions, history, values, and shared beliefs among institutions of communities influenced by deafness and using sign languages as the primary means of communication.
Deaf Culture supporters say that recognising Deaf-mute people as a minority culture with their own language and social norms promotes Deaf people’s right to collective space within society to pass on their language and culture to future generations.
Participating in the Deaf community and culturally identifying as Deaf has been shown to significantly increase positive self-esteem in Deaf-mute people. Hearing family members of deaf people and sign-language interpreters who identify with Deaf culture may be part of the community.
The term ‘hard of hearing’ refers to people who have mild to severe hearing loss. Some hearing capability is still present in hard of hearing people and they usually communicate through spoken language. Hearing aids, cochlear implants, and other assistive devices, as well as captioning, can help these people with hearing loss.
When referring to deaf people who do not speak, the term “deaf and dumb” (or simply “dumb”) is considered offensive.
Because many Deaf people do not use a spoken language, they are considered “mute”. The term “dumb” has an archaic meaning that means “mute”. Of course, the term “dumb” now has a more common meaning that implies stupidity, which certainly does not apply to Deaf people. Being Deaf is not a mental illness; it is simply a problem with their hearing, which can impair their ability to speak clearly or, in some cases, at all.
Given the long history of deafness and the fact that Deaf people have been wrongly assumed to be mentally deficient simply because they do not speak, it is understandable that most Deaf people dislike being labelled “Deaf and Dumb.”
Deaf-mute is a term used to describe someone who is either deaf and uses sign language or is both deaf and cannot speak. The term is still used to describe deaf people who cannot speak an oral language or have some degree of speaking ability and communicate through sign language. Outside of its historical context, some consider it a derogatory term; the preferred term today is simply “deaf.”
A hearing loss that prevents a person from understanding spoken language, it is considered an audiological condition.
It refers to those who communicate primarily through sign language ,regardless of hearing ability, such as children of deaf adults.
It is a very generalised perception among people that sign language all over the world is same. But, it is not true, sign language changes from one country to another also from one region to another within same country for example : in India where spoken language changes every 100kms so the sign language.
This means that the sign language used in India is different from the sign language used in America or Japan.
Sign language is iconic in nature means that there is a relationship between sign and its meaning.
Generally single sign is used to signify a word such as : thumps up means good. But sometimes two or more signs are used to signify a single word.
Sign language does have a grammar and follow certain grammatical rules which is different from spoken language.
Sign Language is not concrete and complex ideas can be presented and expressed easily. As it is continuously evolving we can explain past, present and future in sign language. It has its own grammar, creativity, systemic, semantic and pragmatic rules.
It is not true. Because sign language is continuously evolving like any other language ( for example: new signs are evolving every now and then in sign language like new words evolves in any spoken language ) having its own grammar and follow certain language rules also we can explain anything and everything in sign language. So, it can be said that sign language is at par with the spoken language.
This is not true, but finger spelling constitutes a very important part of sign language such as to spell name, place or word but for explaining bigger sentences and paragraphs proper sign language with well devised signs are used. So, we can say that sign language is much wider term which doesn’t depend on finger spelling.
It is also a misconception, Sign language does not depend on spoken language. As it has its own grammar and linguistic rules.
Sign English means to sign as per the English sentence word by word.
Sign language does not follow any spoken or written sentence word by word. It follow’s its own rules for communication.
The National Curricular Framework (NCF) gave sign language education some legitimacy in 2005, implying that sign languages may qualify as an optional third language choice for hearing students. NCERT published a chapter on sign language in a class III textbook in March 2006, emphasising that it is a language like any other and “yet another mode of communication.” The goal was to foster positive attitudes toward the disabled.
Deaf communities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), researchers, and other organisations working for people with hearing disabilities, such as the All India Federation of the Deaf (AIFD) and the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), have made significant efforts to promote ISL. There were no formal classes for teaching ISL in India until 2001.
During this time, an ISL cell was established at the Ali Yavar Jung National Institute of Hearing and the Handicapped (AYJNIHH) in Mumbai. It began a programme called “Diploma in India Sign Language Interpreter Course.” The course curriculum aims to develop professional communication in Sign language as well as the ability to interpret professionally. It also covered the fundamentals of the Deaf community and Deaf culture. Later, the course was made available in regional centres.
Aside from AYJNIHH, organisations such as the Mook Badhir Sangathan in Indore and others provide ISL classes. Many NGOs in India use ISL to teach English as well as other academic and vocational courses. Among these non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are ISHARA (Mumbai), Deaf Way Foundation (Delhi), Noida Deaf Society and Leadership Education Empowerment of the Deaf (LEED) (Pune), Speaking Hands Institute for the Deaf (Punjab), and others (Randhawa, 2014). The Association of Sign Language Interpreters (ASLI) and the Indian Sign Language Interpreters Association (ISLIA) were founded in 2006 and 2008, respectively, for the professional development of interpreters in India.
Two schools in India have been established to teach deaf students using a bilingual approach.The schools are Dehradun’s Bajaj Institute of Learning (BIL) and Indore’s Mook Badhir Sangathan. Aside from the establishment of organisations that serve Deaf people, there has been a surge in sign language research in India. Recent research developments include studies by Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and University of Delhi research scholars such as Wallang, 2007; Sinha, 2003, 2008/2013; Hidam, 2010; and Kulsheshtra, 2013.
Aside from these, scholars have continued to work on linguistic aspects of ISL varieties (Zeshan and Panda 2011, Panda 2011, Panda 2012). The establishment of the ISLRTC is among the steps taken by the Government of India to promote sign language. However, the autonomy of the Research Center is currently a contentious issue that has yet to be resolved.
In the history of Indian literature, the discussion of sign languages and the lives of deaf people is extremely rare but we do find few references to deaf people and gestural communication in texts dating from antiquity. Religious contexts in Hinduism and Buddhism for many centuries, have been employed symbolic hand gestures known as mudras. In addition, Kathak & Bharatanatyam are few forms of classical Indian dance and theatre which employs stylised hand gestures with particular meanings.
In India, from the 1830s many mission schools and orphanages started deaf education as welfare services which is documented, and “they initially worked with locally-devised gestural or signed communication, sometimes with simultaneous speech ( a technique sometimes used by deaf, hard-of-hearing or hearing sign language users in which both a spoken language and a manual variant of that language are used simultaneously).” Residential deaf schools (schools with dormitory facilities) were founded later in the 19th century, although they tended (increasingly) to favour an oralist approach over the use of sign language in the classroom.
The Bombay Institution for Deaf-Mutes, founded by Bishop Leo Meurin in the 1880s, was one of these schools, as were schools in Madras and Calcutta in the 1890s.
Other residential schools quickly followed, including the “School for Deaf and Dumb Boys” in Mysore, which opened in 1902, a school in Dehiwala, Sri Lanka, which opened in 1913, and in 1923 “The Ida Rieu School for Blind, Deaf, Dumb, and Children with Other Disabilities,” opened in Karachi, which is now in Pakistan.
While many students who find it hard to learn via the oralist method were assisted and taught with signs, but the frustrating part for their teachers was students preferred to communicate with each other via sign language as it was easy to learn for them and serves as a important medium of communication. In 1928, British teacher H. C. Banerjee conducted the first study of these children’s sign language, which is very certainly related to modern ISL.
She went to three residential schools for deaf children in Dacca, Barisal, and Calcutta, noting that “the teachers in all these schools have discouraged the growth of the sign language, which has thrived and prospered despite this official rejection.”
Deaf schools in India still continue to be highly Oralistic in their approach. Deaf communities are still fighting for sign language to be recognised as a minority language. It is also not officially used in schools for educational purposes.
In Sign Language, fingerspelling is extremely important. A particular sign is there for each letter of the alphabet.
On your hand, you can use these letter signs to spell out words – most commonly names and places – and sentences. If you don’t know or can’t remember some signs, fingerspelling is a simple way to communicate.