Return-Path: <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id fAIKqX005661; Sun, 18 Nov 2001 15:52:33 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 15:52:33 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <2d.144639b1.292978b0@aol.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: KathleenBombach@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-ld@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-LD:3780] Re: Deaf, communication issues X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: AOL 7.0 for Windows US sub 10021 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="part1_2d.144639b1.292978b0_boundary" Status: O Content-Length: 3160 Lines: 47 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Steve: I found some information on teaching reading and writing to the deaf as a second language, which I think is a shorthand way of describing what happens when deaf ways of cognition and language use are understood and worked with rather than against in curriculum and instruction, at various deaf websites I found by using a search engine. I looked at the websites that deaf themselves had created, including those of their associations and groups. Deaf are the only people who are not allowed to develop their own languages spontaneously and historically. But of course, deaf do so anyway. Who are we to tell them what language they must speak? Most deaf do want to know how to communicate and function in the hearing world, hence the notion of learning to read and write in English. But why teach Signed Exact English, an artificial language created by hearing people, to deaf to communicate with other deaf people? Is this not the most egregious example of language imperialism possible? To teach a sign language that does not mirror deaf cognition, but instead mirrors that of hearing people? It reminds me of the Indian boarding schools, where children were removed from their own cultures to not just learn the white man's language and body of 'knowledge' but to actually eradicate non-white ways of thinking. Kathleen Bombach
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