Some proudly oralist rather vocal on their Vlog in DeafRead and subtitled their “Oral communication” for those that cannot read lips or for those that wanted to know what this deaf Oralist were trying to say. I thought that was nice for these kind of people but….
They start demanding other Deaf people to start subtitling their ASl Vlog for English-only (monolingual) minded individuals that does take a lot of time to do it.
Many of the Deaf Vloggers have already started doing that but they realize that it is taking a lot of their time to do it, especially in DEAFREAD.COM and gave up on it.
If these monolingual or semi-monolingual could do their effort to start a subtitling ASL(video) for those that don’t have the skills to read English subtitles… like those 30 to 50 million hearing “American” people in USA that are illiterated, then maybe the Deaf Vloggers will understand why they should do the same for those monolingual that have a hard time understanding ASL.
But at the same time we need to think for our Deaf-Blind friends too and technology will help us to improve our ability to do this in the future for them.
Please remember that those that don’t have the English skills is because they did not have a cognitive language(ASL) being with and was “forced” to learn the monolingual method(oral English only) rather than the bilingual method(ASL and English-reading and writing).
The “Monolingual Method” is the AGBell ideology for the deaf which has failed in the past 128 years.
Am I making sense?
Blue Eyes
4 responses so far ↓
kim // February 14, 2008 at 9:03 am
Yes–It makes perfect sense. I would respectfully like to suggest someone needs to clarify some rules of respect.
1)NO deaf/Deaf/deaf-blind/HH person should ever criticize another deaf/Deaf/deaf-blind/HH if their English skills are lacking when that person makes an effort to subtitle his/her vlogs or writes a blog or transcribes a vlog. It’s unproductive and only serves to divide our community.
2)Likewise, no deaf/Deaf/deaf-blind/HH should criticize another for having poor ASL skills –especially if that person is late-deafened or oral deaf and grew up without the benefit of ASL — because criticism is unproductive and only serves to divide our community.
3) No one–deaf/Deaf/deaf-blind/HH/oral deaf should ever criticize anyone’s speech. Again its unproductive and only serves to divide our community.
4) Let us recognize that people within our community may prefer to communicate differently. Some choose to communicate with ASL. Others–those who are late-deafened, those with CI’s, those who are HH, oral deaf who were raised without the benefit of ASL, those unable to sign because of paralysis. . . Some of us choose to communicate orally because we aren’t proficient in ASL, or perhaps some are simply MORE proficient in speech. Our preferences for speech have nothing to do with being “uppity.” Our reasons for speaking are personal and varied, but usually has a lot to do with the onset of our hearing losses and how we adapted or were taught to cope, and mostly these choices were out of our control for whatever reason.
5) Let’s recognize that speech has nothing to do with intelligence. Writing has nothing to do with intelligence. The fact that someone grew up hearing does not mean that person thinks he or she is better than everyone who uses ASL or can’t speak or write well.
OK?? Can we all just RESPECT each other??
Dragom4n // February 14, 2008 at 9:28 am
And what… English-language blogs (e.g., this one) should have to translate their entries in ASL, or any other language? For that matter, should poorly-articulated podcasts by oralists come with captions so we might have a shot of understanding them?
Hell, why not? The results should at least be interesting…
Terry // February 14, 2008 at 9:51 am
I like how you say, “Monolingual Method”.
I think people are seeing the real Alexander Graham Bell and his ideology about no sign language and just oral only.
We need to learn more about this organization, Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf. Are they really for the deaf or use the deaf to generate money for themselves.
Terry
Terry // February 14, 2008 at 10:09 am
Dragom4n,
Yes, this is how you read it in Deafread which is… as is.
This is Deafread and if someone chooses to translate…so be it.
Just don’t tell them what to do…in DeafRead.com.
This(DeafRead) is the real DEAF blogsphere.
And this is how we should see(respect) it.
Terry