To the commenters who answered the test question in my previous vlog), thank you!  For those of you who have not seen my question, here it is:

Look at the word with the underlined letter.  The underlined letter stands for a sound.  Decide which of the other three words has the same sound in it.

castle

 

a.                   quart

b.                  manner

c.                   palm

The respondents to this questions come from varying backgrounds.  This group consists of Canadians and Americans who are Deaf, Hearing and Hard of Hearing, and vary in age.  The average age would be 30’s to 40’s.

One incredulous Deaf commenter asked, “Shel, you’re *inviting* hearing people to take this test? Wouldn’t they ace your test?!”  That was also my basic assumption… that they would have an easy time of it.

Surprisingly, that didn’t turn out to be the case.  Some of the Hearing folks struggled in answering that question. Hearing Americans admitted that they had a hard time, but most chose b. Manner, because the a in manner sounded most like the a in castle. To view their rationales for choosing that answer, read the comments section in my last post.

As for the Deaf commenters, answering the question was quite difficult. They had to resort to guessing, and trying to use their prior knowledge that was obtained from childhood memories of speech lessons.  Some attempted to use their phonological knowledge of syllables to answer the questions.  Some Deaf commenters simply didn’t bother to try because of the heavy emphasis on sound.  To try and figure out the answer to a sound-based question was a daunting task!

What is my own answer to that question?  I don’t know.  Honestly, I have no idea what the answer to that question is!  I am not kidding, folks.  If you notice, Hearing Canadians also found that question tough to answer.  Most of them said instinctively, their answer would be none of the above!  I believe them.

The reason that I am not surprised at the Hearing Canadians’ responses has to do with the issue of accents. Canadian accent is distinct from that of the Americans. According my Deaf ASL-using husband, a product of oral upbringing, he noticed the differences in pronounciations by Americans as contrasted from Canadians due to accents.

Examples:

a) HOT 

Canadians put emphasis on the O when pronouncing hot, while Americans appear to say HAT when pronouncing hot.

b) HOCKEY

Canadians say HOCKEY while Americans say HACKEY

No wonder I find lipreading so difficult!

For the Hearing Canadians to examine the question and come up with an answer was tricky since they knew it was an American question. So, when I saw that question, I was stumped, despite the fact that I’m an educated woman, and a teacher at that!  One reason is that I’m Canadian.  The other reason is obvious.  I’m Deaf!

Ok, from where did I obtain this question?  A friend sent me this question from a 1998 article on the Maryland High School exit exam.  (A high school exit exam is required for HS students to take in order to graduate… whew!  Only ONE exam. Wow.)

When it comes to that particular question (mentioned above), I would not be able to answer it correctly with confidence.

While my Hearing Canadian commenters had trouble with that question, their American counterparts were able to answer it by sounding out the words.  The Deaf Americans had to use other strategies such as guessing the answer, as did the Deaf Canadians. Some Hard of Hearing commenters were able to sound out the words as a strategy.

Oh, by the way, one commenters decided to read my lips for clues on the proper pronunciation so that person could choose the best answer.  A dangerous strategy, seeing as my speech skills aren’t the best. I could quite easily lead that person to flunk that question!

The point here is that Deaf people rely on visual cues in order to give correct answers.  Plus, we were trained as Deaf children to guess answers to questions rather than leave any questions unanswered.

Now, was that castle question fair? My husband (who’s a Deaf Canadian, by the way) is of the opinion that it wasn’t fair.

Why isn’t that question fair?  That is because there is a bias…Hearing bias. Hearing people put much stock on sounds while Deaf people don’t.  So, that question really isn’t suitable for Deaf people, and therefore invalid.

Is a test valid (for the Deaf) if a good portion of the contents is based on sound, such as music?  Tests have content that relate to music although I am certain most of the test include contents from Social Studies, Math, and English curriculum.  If much of the test contain questions that has to do with sound such as music, or information that come from sources like radio, or television and such that aren’t always accessible to Deaf children, how could Deaf students answer those questions?  These students would have trouble,.especially if those questions are not related to the curriculum used to teach Deaf students.

Imagine, that one single exit exam is sufficient to limit Deaf students’ future! Remember, those high school exit exams are required for graduation. If those students don’t pass that exit exam, they may be unable to enter university.

Unfortunately, Deaf people are not the only ones affected by the test bias.  People who speak English as a second language are impacted as well, such as  “Non-Americans”, or immigrants from Asia, and non-English-speaking European countries.  Even students from other English-speaking countries like Canada are affected due to accent differences.

Recently, my Hearing Canadian commenters have proven that accents could make it difficult to answer questions that has to do with sounds and phonological awareness. So that means my short test wasn’t fair because it has a bias.

In my next vlog, I will discuss test bias and how that test bias has already impacted another cultural group, and still impacts Deaf people today.

Can you do this very short test?  This is only ONE question.  Easy!   See if you can answer the question in English text, to be found in the very beginning of the video above.  When you have read this question, please feel free to answer it in the comments section below.  Once you have selected your answer, please justify your answer.  Then, tell me whether this question was easy or difficult and explain why.

Thank you for participating.  There will be a follow up post on this test.  In the meantime, enjoy this test!

CORRECTION OF ERROR:  It’s been brought to my attention that I had underlined both AS in the word castle when it should have been A only.  So, it’s actually castle.  My sincere apologies for the confusion.  I owe my thanks to some eagle-eyed commenters!

STOP!  Before you read this further, be sure to read my post on the not-so-quiet death of Newfoundland School for the Deaf first.  This is so you would understand why a former Deaf politician felt compelled to write a letter to Newfoundland’s Minister of Education Darin King urging him to reconsider his decision to close the school.

I was fortunate enough to obtain this open letter directly from Gary Malkowski.  This letter was dated August 7, 2010.  Read on below, please.

Hon. Darin King

Minister of Education

Department of Education

3rd Floor, West Block
Confederation Building
100 Prince Philip Drive

St. John’s, NL A1B 4J6

education@gov.nl.ca

DarinKing@gov.nl.ca

Dear Hon. Dr. Darin King, Minister of Education

Re: Newfoundland and Labrador’s Provincial School for the Deaf Closure

As former Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for York East and Parliamentary Assistant to Minister of Education, 1990-1995, I am taking this moral duty to write this letter of concerns and recommendations to reserve the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador’s decision regarding Provincial School for the Deaf in St. John’s in the light of the Government of Canada’s ratification of United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (March 11, 2010), 21st International Congress on The Education of the Deaf 2010 Vancouver New Era Accord, (July 19, 2010) and Charter of Rights and Freedom (i.e., Supreme Court of Canada’s Eaton decision regarding the need of continuum of educational placements, including provincial school).  See details at http://www.queensu.ca/humanrights/hreb/disabilities/mainpages/Grismer_opp.htm for your background information.

I wish to express grave concerns of the decision of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Provincial School for the Deaf closure and its serious implications without having proper consultation with Deaf community, parents of deaf and hard of hearing children in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and external experts on Deaf Education issues. Furthermore, you may not get full accurate and professional information provided by your own civil servants, Minister’s office,  Premier Office, and groups who may engage in the practices of ideology of Education of the Deaf (i.e., downsizing, discouraging, eliminating or depriving sign language and Deaf school without knowing its serious implications; many new parents of deaf children are not aware of potential risks/side effects of Auditory Verbal Therapy (AVT) educational programs in school boards until their children experience mental health and language problems in their later life. There is no checklist for teachers of deaf and parents of deaf children to identify mismatched communication and acting-out behaviours).

Provincial Court of Saskatchewan (August 19, 2005) Judge Orr recognized that physicians and medical personnel, audiologists, educators, child protection workers and others are undoubtedly caring and capable professionals. It was clear that, throughout, as they should, these people acted in strict accordance with the policies, directives and mandates of the governmental or other bodies for which they work.  Unfortunately, the best efforts of these fine people failed to avert a terrible disaster in the life of a little deaf boy.

The judge ruled that American Sign Language (ASL) must be offered to Deaf children as a communication option in the early years. This the clear message contained in a landmark Saskatchewan court decision. At issue in this court is the philosophy of Saskatchewan Pediatric Auditory Rehabilitation Centre (SPARC), the publicly funded pre-school program offered to deaf children in the province. SPARC follows the the restrictive “auditory-verbal” approach which focuses only on restoration and remediation of hearing and speech.

You may not realize or may not be aware of that your Ministry of Education is promoting a one-sided system – auditory-verbal supports and education that do not make ASL resources and services available to Deaf children available in School Boards across the province of Newfoundland and Labrador while Provincial School for the Deaf in St. John’s is only ASL resources and services available to Deaf children in the province.

In Ontario, Akamatsu, Musselman and Zweibel, 2000*, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto research studies have showed that there were 93% of Deaf children are initially enrolled in auditory oral programs. By preschool, down to 67% are educated orally; by elementary, down to 58% are educated orally;

By adolescence only 31% are educated orally; and 62% shift from oral to signing programs for Deaf children between the early preschool years and adolescence.

(*BLOGGER’S NOTE: The Akamatsu et al link leads to a bar graph I made as a visual representation of the statistics Malkowski used from the OISE research.)

The Canadian Hearing Society (CHS), a social service agency, serving deaf and hard of hearing consumers reported that there is growing higher number of demands of that deaf and hard of hearing students and youth received CONNECT Mental Health Services, General Support Services, Employment Services and Literacy Programs as a result of inappropriate educational placements (i.e., without appropriate sign language supports in school boards and lacking of “first” language mastery has life-long negative effects). This translates into the high cost of inappropriate educational placement including the educational costs, employability costs, emotional costs and financial costs for social support services (i.e., prison, mental health services, underemployment, unemployment, and social assistance).

CHS documented information that many parents of deaf and hard of hearing children, deaf and hard of hearing youth and teachers of deaf reported their experiences of reported inaccessible communications and attitudinal barriers in the classroom in school boards in several provinces across Canada. The examples of students’ experiences include mismatch communications between student and his/her parents and family, inaccessible communications between student and his/her teachers, low expectations, mislabeling, social isolation, cyber bulling, bullying, harassment and discrimination (i.e., denial of communication access services such as sign language interpreters, captioning services, lack of captioning in any media format).

Deaf school and natural sign language are clearly a human right and educational right of Deaf children. See the World Federation of the Deaf’s Policy Statement on Education Rights for Deaf Children at http://www.wfdeaf.org/pdf/policy_child_ed.pdf

For your latest background information, please refer to read International Congress on the Education of the Deaf (ICED)’s press release at http://www.iced2010.com/pdf/Press%20Release.pdf** and ICED Vancouver 2010 Accord on New Era: Deaf Participation and Collaboration and its Statement of Principle at http://www.deafcanadian.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/NewEraBCcopy0001.pdf **

(**BLOGGER’S  NOTE: These are not the original links Malkowski used, but www.ICED2010.com is closed.  I replaced the link with ones that will lead you to the PDF copies of the documents. )

In response to the Government of Canada and Newfoundland’s ratification of United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ICED Vancouver 2010 Accord and Charter of Rights and Freedoms, may I make a recommendation for Newfoundland and Labrador Ministry of Education to reserve the decision of Provincial School for the Deaf  closure and establish Advisory Committee to Minister of Education on Future Direction of Provincial School for the Deaf, including appropriate representatives of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Deaf Community, external experts on Deaf Education issues, and Parents of Deaf Children group who wish to send their children to Provincial School for the Deaf to ensure that the continuum of educational placements including Provincial School for the Deaf are available to meet the actual needs of all Deaf and hard of hearing children and students in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador ?

I look forward to receiving a prompt response from you soon. Thank you for your time and serious consideration to reconsider your decision,

Sincerely

Gary Malkowski

Canada’s only Former Elected Deaf Parliamentarian

gary.malkowski@sympatico.ca

cc: Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General, United Nations

Markku Jokinen, President, World Federation of the Deaf

Rt. Hon, Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada

Hon. Michael Ignatieff, Federal Liberal Leader of Official Opposition

Jack Layton, Federal Leader of Canada’s NDP and M.P. Toronto-Danforth

Premier Danny Williams, Newfoundland and Labrador

Yvonne Jones, Liberal Leader of Official Opposition, Newfoundland and Labrador

Lorraine Michael, NDP Leader, Newfoundland and Labrador

Hon. Diane McGifford, The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada

Dr. Andrew Parkin, Director General, The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada

Jim Roots, Executive Director, Canadian Association of the Deaf

Chris Kenopic, President  & CEO, The Canadian Hearing Society

Jennifer Sooley, President, Newfoundland and Labrador Association of the Deaf

As I stated earlier, this letter was written August 2010, so this is hardly current event news anymore.  However, this letter is essential so that you can better understand the issues involved in the closure of NSD. This is only the most recent chapter in the long history of systemic audism against the Deaf. In my next post, you will read Hon. King’s response to Malkowski’s letter and learn why that offensive and ignorant response ignited my ire as an educated Deaf Canadian citizen.

Myth A:  ASL is an alternate communication.

Myth B: Bi-Bi allows voice off while bilingual allows the usage of voice when signing.

Oh goody!  Myth Debunking Time! *rolling up my sleeves*

ASL is a language, not an alternate communication. I have never heard anyone refer to English or other spoken languages as “alternate communication.”  Yet, ASL is constantly demoted from the status of language to mere communication, like telegraphing, gestures, and yes, semaphores.  What is communication anyway?  Is it language?  Nope. Read on…

Communication is the imparting of messages in spite of barriers.  Barriers could include distance and/or language differences (i.e. two people from two different countries that don’t speak the same language.) Communication forms include Morse code through the telegraph, semaphores, light signals, radio, ad nauseam.  These forms were devised to overcome distance barriers.

Languages are not communication.  They are what people of one language group use to communicate ideas, concepts and thoughts with others of the same language group.  Languages all have linguistic principles, grammar syntax, structures, phonology and morphology that are particular to specific languages. (No two languages have the same syntax, structure or other linguistic principles.)

What happens when language barriers arise?  You have translators (interpreters are communicative devices–radical concept, I know ).   You also have gestures, to transcend language barriers.  You could also draw pictures as well.  I am certain you can think of other examples that overcome language barriers.

ASL has been proven to be a bona fide language.  The first person to validate ASL as a language was Willam Stokoe. Other linguists since then have continued to find more evidence that ASL is a language.  According to linguists, language and communication are NOT synonymous.  Language and communication are two distinct things.  Try googling linguistic terms. You will not find “communication”.  This is because communication is not a linguistic term.

MYTH B: “Bi-Bi allows voice off while bilingual allows the usage of voice when signing. ”

ASL requires the use of Non-Manual grammatical Signals and Non-Manual grammatical Markers (NMS and NMM). The Nonmanual grammatical Signals are the movements of head, shoulder, or leaning of the torso, for example.  The signals are usually linked to the markers.   The eyebrow movements are Non-Manual grammatical Markers that inform the other person of the type of sentence being used, be it a sentence, question, relative clause or conditional phrase, and so on forth.  The lip movements indicate whether a word is adjective, or a verb is modified by an adverb.  The eyebrow and lip movements are called Non-Manual grammatical markers.

This is why people are told to turn off their voices when using ASL.  When you voice and sign simultaneously, you’re using Simultaneous Communication, a method used to teach English.  Any one who has studied ASL linguistics would know it is impossible to use ASL OR English accurately when sim-comming.  When you sim-com, you’re combining two languages in a way that violates the grammatical structures and features of BOTH languages.

How is that so? At the risk of repeating myself, here is the explanation.

As I stated above, the nonmanual grammatical signals and markers include body and head shifts (those are nonmanual grammatical signals) as well as shifts of eyebrows, narrowing or widening of eyes, and various pursing of the lips, puffing or sucking of the cheeks (those are nonmanual grammatical markers.  The eyebrow movements indicate the type of ASL sentences—yes/no questions, wh-questions, topicalization…which are the ASL version of what you know as punctuation.  The lip movement and puffing/sucking in of cheeks are adverbs and adjectives).  Therefore, to correctly model ASL, you CANNOT voice because that requires lip movements that renders impossible the modeling of adjectives and adverbs in ASL.

Simcomming would also adversely affect the modeling of spoken English.  What happens is that some English words get dropped, and this results in fragmented sentences, or grammatically nonsensical sentences. If one simply taped the voicing of English while using ASL at the same time, and then later listened to that tape, you would find the English used to be incorrect, and more difficult to understand.  I was told that this experiment was attempted, and that the result was that the speaker sounded like a veritable idiot.   Try this and see.

Now that we understand that using voice-on while signing is sim-comming and violates both languages, we can conclude that sim-comming is not being bilingual.

Being bilingual means having the ability to use two DISTINCT languages, in different contexts.  People who are bilingual have the ability to switch between the two languages, for various reasons. This is true of Spanish bilinguals in the USA, and francophones in Canada who are usually able to speak English as well.  The same is true of bilingual-bicultural programs that includes the use of English and ASL.

What is Bi-Bi?  It’s the Bilingual-Bicultural philosophy that promotes the use of two languages, and encourages children to grow up bilingual.  Bi-Bi philosophy also promotes mutual respect of both cultures through the bilingual approach.   When one speaks of Bi-Bi, one is usually referring to programs where ASL and English are used as languages in schools. These programs usually practice the voice-off policy, to avoid the mangling of both languages which occurs when one voices and signs at the same time.   When one understands that two languages have distinct linguistic principles, one understands the reasoning behind the voice-off policy.

Myth Debunking Time is over… until next time.  There WILL be a next time, guaranteed.

English transcript will be typed at a later date. Thank you for your patience.

The English  transcript will be done at a later date.

English transcript to come at a later date.

English Version:

Hello, everyone. I have just arrived from Vancouver, B.C. yesterday, and am still jetlagged. My body is on Pacific Time, and haven’t adjusted to Ontario (EST) time yet. I was in B.C. for three reasons: Deaf Canada Conference and ICED 2010.  I gave some presentations at both conferences, but only attended the latter conference for one day as that conference is quite expensive.  The last reason is to give my eldest son his early 13th birthday present (which is a trip to Vancouver).  I was in the city for 7 days.

Over the course of the past week and a half, I have not viewed any vlogs or blogs even though I knew that opinions were being expressed on the announcement of the ICED 2010 committee regarding their rejection of the Milan 1880 resolution.  I wanted to hold off on the viewing until I have shared my views and experiences from that day, as well as the evenings of July 19th and 20th (Monday and Tuesday).  Once I have done this, I will view all the other v/blogs on the subject.   The sharing of my views/experiences will likely result in two or three v/blogs since I have much to cover.

The topicsI wish to discuss are:

a) what happened during the opening ceremony at ICED 2010.

b) the outcomes of the meetings on Monday and Tuesday nights at Douglas College where the BC Deaf community and international Deaf  congregated.

Now, onto the subject of the Monday morning opening ceremony events.  Allow me to describe the set up of the room, where the ceremony took place.  It was packed with about 725 attendees sitting in rows.  At the front of the room were three giant screens.  There was a stage set in front of the screens where the speakers sat facing us in rows.  Dr. Joseph McLaughlin stood at the podium giving his speech.  The screen behind him showed powerpoint presentation slides.  In the screen at the right of that screen, the ASL interpreter was shown.  The third screen, to the left of the central screen, was set up for the LSQ (lengua signes quebecois) interpreter to be seen.  In the audience, there was a translator who used International Sign, and/or Swedish Sign language (I am not sure which just yet, so I will need to confirm) with the International Deaf professionals.  I was sitting in the middle to right of the room with a friend whom I had not seen for years.

Dr. McLaughlin explained the statement of principle contained in the document titled A New Era: Deaf Participation and Collaboration (my copy of the document is shown in the vlog above)  The document is posted at the ICED 2010 website, I believe. Once Dr. McLaughlin was done his part, he passed the document on to Marguerite Henderson (whose brother is Deaf).  She read from the document:

Therefore we (ICED 2010 Committee):

• Reject all resolutions passed at the ICED Milan Congress in 1880 that denied the inclusion of sign languages in educational programs for Deaf students;
• Acknowledge and sincerely regret the detrimental effects of the Milan conference, and
• Call upon all Nations of the world to remember history and ensure that educational programs accept and respect all languages and all forms of communication.

I was absolutely floored at  the announcement of the rejection of the Milan 1880 resolution.  My brain immediately seized so that I was unable to register the next two lines.  Honestly, I had absolutely no idea what the last two statements were.  I was still reeling at the fact that they actually rejected that 1880 resolution.  The word “reject” was so powerful that my friend and I stared at each other in disbelief.  I asked her if they actually announced that.  She said, “yes.”  I still sat there trying to process that information.

Then people–both Deaf and Hearing– stood up waving their hands in the air.  That was when I finally realized it wasn’t a figment of my imagination, and that the repudiation of the Milan 1880 Resolution actually happened during my lifetime! Overjoyed, I stood up and waved my hands along with the others.  Immediately, emotion overcame me and tears formed in my eyes. Reject. Just a word, but what a wallop that word packed!

I know that there are people who demand that the word “apology” be used in the second line in conjunction with the detrimental effects of the Milan conference.  But, for us, both the BC Deaf community and international Deaf participants in that room,  the importance of the word “apology” quite paled before the sheer emotional impact of the word “REJECT” that was used in the beginning of that announcement.    We all became very emotional… yes, ALL OF US.  As I looked around the room, I saw many Hearing allies…Ah, what a historical moment!

During that day, even when I gave two presentations, I was still processing the momentous announcement in the back of my head. I STILL had no idea what the other two parts of that announcements were.   Later, when I found out what the last two lines were, I was thrilled that they called on all nations to respect all sign languages, although I wasn’t too crazy about the part “all forms of communication.”  Still, the point is that they called for respect towards sign languages, whereas before that day, there was absolutely NO official respect whatsoever.

In the next vlogs I will describe the events at the meetings at Douglas College where an interpreting program is run.  That is where the BC Deaf community and international Deaf gathered.  That was a incredible experience, which I will tell you about next.   See you then.

a) “In Holland, I was told by deaf parents that their child would be placed in a mental institution if CI is not given to him.  This occurred in 2009. ”

b) “I know of a family of two deaf children being threatened by the state social worker to take away their children for refusing to enroll them in a public school as they wished to put their children in Fanwood, New York in 2004″

“We had a hard time to enroll our daughter who is hard of hearing in Montessori Children’s House because the school district didn’t agree with the curriculum for our daughter. It took us almost one year after enrolling her there to get the school district off our back. A lot of papers sent “fro and back” … Totally unnecessary.” This was in 1990.

“Oregon School for the Deaf is not permitted by the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) to deal with deaf children under the age of 5. They are referred to their own school districts, and the parents are educated about various modes of communication. There is absolutely no ASL specialists in these school districts. ODE prides in the fact that they know nothing about ASL. There’s no one in this state department who is well honed in the language and culture of the Deaf.”

Even as I type, I am getting more examples of  Deaf parents’ rights to make decisions for their Deaf children being trampled.

Readers, if you have further examples, you are welcome to leave them here.

My point here is: that decisions like producing and voting on  AB-2072, should NOT be done WITHOUT the input of those affected, which happen to be us… the Deaf community, especially Deaf children in this generation and future generations.  Remember the rallying cry of the Blacks during Civil Rights Movement: “Not about us, without us!”

Hello!  Now that I’ve made my confession re: dysconscious linguicism in my previous vlog, I will discuss what linguicism and dysconscious linguicism are.  They are kind of complex concepts, so I will attempt to simplify them and keep this post short and sweet.

LINGUICISM:

What is it?

It’s a form of prejudice that involves an individual making judgments about another’s wealth, education, social status, etc, based on the other’s choice and use of language.  (Wikipedia)

It’s a form of prejudice, an “-ism” , along the lines of racism, ageism, sexism, classism and audism.  (Wikipedia)

This concept is best described in this way:

SCENARIOS:

Two persons are talking. During the course of this conversation, one of the persons is assessing the other’s wealth, quality of education, status in society based on the other person’s use/choice of language or dialect.

A) If the other person shows an excellent command of English, the assessor assumes he is quite well-educated, possibly from a wealthy family, which then indicates an elevated status in society.

B) If that other person shows poor command of the English language, or uses another language, the assessor assumes that  he’s ill-educated, poor, possibly  from a ghetto and therefore from the lower classes in society.

The scenarios described above is linguicism, pure and simple.  How does linguicism as described above apply to the Deaf?

A) When a Deaf person is able to speak English with his voice, or write excellent English, he gets lauded as intelligent and well educated.  This person is considered successful in life.

B) When a Deaf uses ASL (no matter how fluently), but writes mediocre English, and cannot speak English, he is considered intellectually inferior, ill-educated, and guaranteed to fail in life.

This judgement is blatant linguicism.  What is worse, we internalize this attitude and apply it to our own people!

DYSCONSCIOUS LINGUICISM:

What is it?

I will use the terms of racism and audism to aid in understanding the term dysconscious linguicism.

DYSCONSCIOUS RACISM:

A form of racism that accepts dominant white norms and privileges. (Pewewardy)

If one is Black, Aboriginal, or other, one allocates a high degree of respect to the dominant White majority at the expense of one’s esteem of one’s own racial group.   This individual desires to “be as White as possible” and renounce his own racial heritage and norms.  (Pewewardy describes it another way:  If you have seen these racial antics and negative behaviours … for most of your life, you may become absolutely numb to it.)

DYSCONSCIOUS AUDISM:

A form of audism that accepts dominant hearing norms and privileges.  It is the attitude of a Deaf individual that Hearing people are better than Deaf people. ” To hear is better than to be deaf.”  It is the desire to be as Hearing as possible.  I will apply Pewewardy’s explanation here: If you have seen  (audist) antics and negative behaviours for most of your life, you may become absolutely numb to it.)

DYSCONSCIOUS LINGUICISM:

(The definition is similar to dysconscious racism and dysconscious audism.)

A form of linguicism that accepts the dominant language as superior to own minority language.

It is the attitude  that English is superior to ASL (or Spanish, or other… insert language here).

Remember my previous vlog that described my perception of ASL as broken English, and how the ASL-using Deaf weren’t smart and required support because they had low-quality education?  Well, that was an excellent example of dysconscious linguicism,   When we have dysconscious linguicism in the Deaf community, that usually comes hand in hand with dysconscious audism.   You might recall the hard of hearing students in the last vlog who thought they were privileged to go to public schools because they could hear and speak better than the rest of us? Those same students also viewed ASL as broken English!