I was discussing the NAD with my high school students today!
If you haven’t seen this, you should watch it! This is George Verditz, president of the NAD. This was made in 1913, and this was the first (known) filming of American Sign Language. I love that we can still view this moment in history!
A reminder: in 1880, a ban was placed on using sign language in institutions across the United States and Europe. That same year, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Deaf people fought back and created the National Association of the Deaf.
“The Preservation of Sign Language” by George Verditz, 1913, transcript
from Anon:
Hi! I don’t mean to be ignorant but Mike just rejected my question about his thoughts on SAB.I really want to know your thoughts. Because I have to write an essay about SAB for my final.
My response:
SAB is a touchy subject for many-a-Deaf-person.
Frankly, I don’t think it’s that great. They miss the mark more often than they hit it.
Firstly, it started this kind of trend to have a Deaf/deaf boyfriend/girlfriend/friend. Like we were the new accessory. I don’t necessarily think that you can blame the show for that. It got popular, and thus so did having a deaf friend. But it’s annoying being constantly compared to a fictional TV show. That’s not real life. It’s fiction. Most of our lives aren’t the complicated, and we don’t all want what those characters want.
The show is supposedly meant to support and raise awareness of Deaf culture and deafness. Yet it’s made for hearing people. They don’t keep the camera on the person who’s signing (unless it’s one of the hearing people signing….), but instead pan to the person they’re talking to. So if you actually KNOW AND USE ASL, you can’t see what they’re actually saying. OR they place the subtitles over the signer, obscuring the view of the signer’s hands. They “support” deaf culture, but don’t actually want you to see the Deaf people using ASL fully. Just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I don’t like Katie Leclerc as a choice for the deaf daughter. She’s hard-of-hearing, not Deaf. While she does sign, she signs more PSE (not that big of a deal.) However, she also tends not to sign in interviews. If you’re going to parade a show about exposure and awareness for a disability, you should be doing that on and off screen! Sign! It would help the Deaf community respect her a bit more. Many Deaf people feel that they should have cast an actual Deaf person to play the part of Daphne. I agree with them.
They misrepresent the struggles in everyday life. I’m not saying my life is hell or anything. It’s not. But they do like 1 episode where Emmett has to struggle to lipread. After that, he’s a lip-reading god! People will say really odd things to him, and he picks it up without a problem. Lipreading doesn’t work like that. It’s a lot of work, and the amount of guess work it involves is huge. He doesn’t use hearing aids or any other type of listening device, so theoretically he can’t hear anything/almost anything when listening to someone. But he lipreads like a pro! It’s just not that easy. He never seems confused.
There’s an episode where Daphne is by a lake and Wilke throws her into it. No one with hearing aids is going to be careless enough to leave their hearing aids on a dock that extends into water. Those things are EXPENSIVE! I would freak out if I was near a large body of water with them (and often do!).
That being said, they do get some things right. I like that they portray Carlton (the school for the Deaf) as struggling financially. Most deaf schools are right now. There are maybe a handful that are honestly secure when it comes to money. They show Kyle (I think that’s his name… I don’t remember) as having a sort of sucky home-life. No one in his family signs, and they all just kind of scream at him. That’s pretty common. Not overly common (I hope) but it definitely happens. Kyle’s attitude is not an uncommon one in the Deaf Community.
I watch the show. I’m interested in where it’s going. I don’t like that it’s like a Soap Opera more than half the time, but there’s really no helping that. I wish they would take a bit more care with the show. It’s not very realistic. I’ve done other posts about it in the past. I’m sure you can find them if you search my blog tags for it. (I usually spell it out though, rather than say SAB).
I think it’s doing some good. But I also think it’s doing some harm. If Emmett can lipread so well without hearing aids, why can’t I when I have them? Things like that. It doesn’t always give an honest representation of Deaf culture or deaf people and the struggles we are up against sometimes. I don’t like being treated like an accessory. I don’t like seeing “omg! I want a deaf friend so much!”. You shouldn’t want a friend just because they’re deaf. That’s not a friend.
Also, learning ASL just to get a deaf friend is total bullshit and I’m willing to bet money that over 2/3 of the people who said tIhey want to learn ASL (in regards to this show) won’t keep it up or go through with it. I kind of feel like it’s the equivalent of Supernatural fan (which I am) saying they want to hunt demons. It’s a cool fantasy, but you’re not really going to do it. Some will, I’m sure. But most won’t.
I’m usually pretty annoyed by it, but am happy when they get things right. It has a good amount of very respected Deaf actors. (Marlee Matlin and Anthony Natale are fantastic! I’ve followed their work for years and have a great amount of respect for both of them).
In general, my feeling is “meh.” It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s pissed me off on several accounts.
Hope this helps. And like I said, it can be a hard thing to answer for a Deaf/deaf person. I know lots of people who don’t want to talk about it. We get asked about it all the time. “You’re deaf right? Don’t you just love Switched at Birth?!” We’re a sensitive community when it comes to this kind of thing. We’ve experienced a lot of oppression over the years, so we’re very careful about how we want to appear to the public at large. The show is popular (great!), but it also projects these assumptions onto the public, and we, the Deaf community, are the ones who have to put up with those projections and the fallout they may bring.
SAB is a touchy subject for many-a-Deaf-person.
Frankly, I don’t think it’s that great. They miss the mark more often than they hit it.
Firstly, it started this kind of trend to have a Deaf/deaf boyfriend/girlfriend/friend. Like we were the new accessory. I don’t necessarily think that you can blame the show for that. It got popular, and thus so did having a deaf friend. But it’s annoying being constantly compared to a fictional TV show. That’s not real life. It’s fiction. Most of our lives aren’t the complicated, and we don’t all want what those characters want.
The show is supposedly meant to support and raise awareness of Deaf culture and deafness. Yet it’s made for hearing people. They don’t keep the camera on the person who’s signing (unless it’s one of the hearing people signing….), but instead pan to the person they’re talking to. So if you actually KNOW AND USE ASL, you can’t see what they’re actually saying. OR they place the subtitles over the signer, obscuring the view of the signer’s hands. They “support” deaf culture, but don’t actually want you to see the Deaf people using ASL fully. Just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I don’t like Katie Leclerc as a choice for the deaf daughter. She’s hard-of-hearing, not Deaf. While she does sign, she signs more PSE (not that big of a deal.) However, she also tends not to sign in interviews. If you’re going to parade a show about exposure and awareness for a disability, you should be doing that on and off screen! Sign! It would help the Deaf community respect her a bit more. Many Deaf people feel that they should have cast an actual Deaf person to play the part of Daphne. I agree with them.
They misrepresent the struggles in everyday life. I’m not saying my life is hell or anything. It’s not. But they do like 1 episode where Emmett has to struggle to lipread. After that, he’s a lip-reading god! People will say really odd things to him, and he picks it up without a problem. Lipreading doesn’t work like that. It’s a lot of work, and the amount of guess work it involves is huge. He doesn’t use hearing aids or any other type of listening device, so theoretically he can’t hear anything/almost anything when listening to someone. But he lipreads like a pro! It’s just not that easy. He never seems confused.
There’s an episode where Daphne is by a lake and Wilke throws her into it. No one with hearing aids is going to be careless enough to leave their hearing aids on a dock that extends into water. Those things are EXPENSIVE! I would freak out if I was near a large body of water with them (and often do!).
That being said, they do get some things right. I like that they portray Carlton (the school for the Deaf) as struggling financially. Most deaf schools are right now. There are maybe a handful that are honestly secure when it comes to money. They show Kyle (I think that’s his name… I don’t remember) as having a sort of sucky home-life. No one in his family signs, and they all just kind of scream at him. That’s pretty common. Not overly common (I hope) but it definitely happens. Kyle’s attitude is not an uncommon one in the Deaf Community.
I watch the show. I’m interested in where it’s going. I don’t like that it’s like a Soap Opera more than half the time, but there’s really no helping that. I wish they would take a bit more care with the show. It’s not very realistic. I’ve done other posts about it in the past. I’m sure you can find them if you search my blog tags for it. (I usually spell it out though, rather than say SAB).
I think it’s doing some good. But I also think it’s doing some harm. If Emmett can lipread so well without hearing aids, why can’t I when I have them? Things like that. It doesn’t always give an honest representation of Deaf culture or deaf people and the struggles we are up against sometimes. I don’t like being treated like an accessory. I don’t like seeing “omg! I want a deaf friend so much!”. You shouldn’t want a friend just because they’re deaf. That’s not a friend.
Also, learning ASL just to get a deaf friend is total bullshit and I’m willing to bet money that over 2/3 of the people who said tIhey want to learn ASL (in regards to this show) won’t keep it up or go through with it. I kind of feel like it’s the equivalent of Supernatural fan (which I am) saying they want to hunt demons. It’s a cool fantasy, but you’re not really going to do it. Some will, I’m sure. But most won’t.
I’m usually pretty annoyed by it, but am happy when they get things right. It has a good amount of very respected Deaf actors. (Marlee Matlin and Anthony Natale are fantastic! I’ve followed their work for years and have a great amount of respect for both of them).
In general, my feeling is “meh.” It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s pissed me off on several accounts.
Hope this helps. And like I said, it can be a hard thing to answer for a Deaf/deaf person. I know lots of people who don’t want to talk about it. We get asked about it all the time. “You’re deaf right? Don’t you just love Switched at Birth?!” We’re a sensitive community when it comes to this kind of thing. We’ve experienced a lot of oppression over the years, so we’re very careful about how we want to appear to the public at large. The show is popular (great!), but it also projects these assumptions onto the public, and we, the Deaf community, are the ones who have to put up with those projections and the fallout they may bring.
Hey! check out this “sign language lady!”
Wow! I really don’t know how to respond to some of these comments…
“I don’t understand why she’s adding so much flare to his relatively flat delivery. Seems like she’s “hamming” it up more…
Wouldn’t do much, unfortunately. I mean the external part of our ears really doesn’t do much but help to funnel sound. You can actually hear fairly well without it. We pretty much use them to hold our glasses up now-a-days. But I definitely understand the sentiment.
And thinking about the comment they made makes me want to tell them to “try harder”. We get told to try harder to hear all the time. “I’m sorry; I can’t hear you. I’m deaf.”
“Well just try harder and I’m sure you’ll be able to get it. Pay attention.”
Except if we were to say the same thing to them, it would actually work. They would be able to focus and get it because they can hear and see at the same time. We, however, can only do one of the two, no matter how much we concentrate or focus.
The ability to see things from another person’s perspective is apparently un-American now. We seem to not value empathy at all. It’s rather sad, really.
Someone asked me today if I speak Braille. I think because they saw me signing. Lol whut? No. I can’t even list the issues there are with that. That’s just too much ignorance in one statement.
I don’t know whether to face palm or laugh.
Or just face palm and laugh at the same time.
I’ve definitely had that happen to me before. I don’t think people think before they speak. They worry me, sometimes.
SERENITY PRAYER IN ASL
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
NOTE: Because this is a common prayer, it is a FROZEN TEXT. That means that while the signs are conceptually ASL, it is signed in the same order as the prayer is when spoken in English. The same is true of things like the National Anthem, Lord’s Prayer, and Pledge of Allegiance.
You Need Me, I Don’t Need You by Ed Sheeran
I honestly don’t know how I feel about this….
On one hand, the cinematography makes it kind of hard to understand him (the jerkiness of it), and on the other I’m very very intrigued….
I think… I think I like it?
There are so many…many different ones for each country.
Africa
There are at least 25 sign languages in Africa, according to researcher Nobutaka Kamei.[1][2][3] Some have distributions that are completely independent of those of African spoken languages. At least 13 foreign sign languages,…I have to wonder how many of these are recognized languages (recognized by their goverments as actual languages) and how many more are out there that are NOT recognized.
Thoughts to ponder…
And as you can see, ASL is NOT universal! c:
(Source: answerbag.com)
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