Page 98 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

American Deaf Culture 83

attitude toward the hearing teachers and staff. Often the few chil-
dren from Deaf families who had already learned ASL at home
acted as language models for the others. In other cases, children
who had more intelligible speech, better lipreading skills, or some
residual hearing assisted the others in understanding the teacher
or vice versa. These students were accepted as part of the group
despite a possibly smaller decibel loss. Conversely, if students used
their hearing or speech skills to advance their own standing with
the teachers to the detriment of their peers, they were often
shunned. This is one example of the fact that it is not the extent of
hearing loss that defines a member of the Deaf community but
the individual’s own sense of identity and resultant actions.
When the children entered the upper grades of some residen-
tial schools, they were finally allowed to sign in the classroom and
gained greater exposure to Deaf adults among the school staff. As
their mastery of ASL grew, so did their involvement in the Deaf
community. Thus did their identity as being Deaf become more
solidified.

Recent Developments
During the 1970s the popularity of oralism waned as it was gradu-
ally replaced in school settings by one of the forms of manually
coded English (systems whereby signs that represent English words
are used in an English grammatical order, often referred to as SEE
signs). “Many Deaf people feel that it [SEE] is an unnatural, stiff
way to communicate” (Rexroat 1997, 21). In addition, mainstream-
ing became the preferred option for parents who wished to keep
their deaf child living at home. Instead of being sent away to a
residential school with its large population of deaf students, a
mainstreamed deaf student may be the only deaf person in the
entire school. Although signing is usually permitted, for some deaf
students their classroom interpreter may be their only language
model. Others may sign at school with their teachers or at home
with their hearing parents, an increasing number of whom have
learned SEE to communicate with their deaf children. On the sur-
face, this may seem like an improvement over past oppression
and isolation, but in reality ASL and Deaf culture are rejected in
favor of English-like signing and integration. As a result, the val-
ues dear to the Deaf community (ASL, traditional folklore, partici-
pation in social events, and group identity) are now lost to these
children.

05 MINDESS PMKR 83 10/18/04, 12:00 PM