Sara

Sign Language changing…. ?!?!?!?

 Posted by on Sun, 11/6 at 10:28pm  ideas, reading  No Responses »
Nov 062016
 

This week I began doing research on a new language that is developing for the Deaf and Blind. if you have ever seen Helen Keller, the way the teacher was teaching her words is pretty similar to this new form of Sign Language. It will be called Tactical-Sign Language. This form of sign language will involve an interpreter who will hold the hand of the Deaf-Blind person and do sign language with a mix of actual signs, a few new ones, and finger-spelling. However what makes this new language different is the interpreter will actually be doing sign language, or at least a form of it. The signs are much smaller and stay pretty much below the chin. This differs from ASL because a signers defined sign space is from a bit above their head, to a little below their chest. Most people who are deaf as well as bind, do mostly use finger-spelling in hand as a form of communication. However this form of tactical sign language will revolutionize the speed and accuracy of ASL for the blind. This is all being studied and developed at Gallaudet University, which is our current all deaf university in the country. Which does really narrow a deaf persons options.

With all this being said, with this new increase in ASL and now this new form of ASL, I wonder if anyone is going to take the time to learn this. Like will this be like the development of ASL in this country or will it just kinda lay low. If you go onto youtube right now and look up ASL, so many different things come up, but I watched a few things and I am noticing they are all being produced by hearing people. (You can tell because most hearing people move their mouth and mouth out words while they are signing). However this makes me question so much, is the deaf community good with all of this commercial asl or not. In the past year I have seen a few songs come out with ASL videos which is great, but it is all being done by hearing people in PSE not not real asl. To bring this full circle, ASL is becoming commericalized but with this, there are alot of people just using the language for fun, but now that this new form of asl is coming out I wonder if people will learn this more difficult form of asl or is it just going to be used by those who need it. Is ASL a language only for the deaf or are more people going to use it because the rise of shows like SAB. Who knows?!?!?

Heuristic of the Deaf for the Hearing

 Posted by on Tue, 11/1 at 7:49pm  artifact networks & relationships  No Responses »
Nov 012016
 

1. My chosen artifact is a cochlear implant.

 

2. My artifact is a small device that has two pieces, an external and internal piece. The internal piece connects the damaged nerve to the brain by using a wire to create “fake” hearing, while the external piece interprets the sound. An official definition is:

Image result for define a cochlear implant
A Cochlear Implant is a device that can be surgically implanted into a person’s cochlea to stimulate it to cause hearing. It consists of a tiny receiver which is placed under the skin in the bony part behind the ear.

3. This device can be compared to a hearing aid, however there are some differences as well. First the obvious is they both aid hearing, however the “Profoundly Deaf” cannot benefit from a hearing aid.  If a person has any hearing to begin with, a CI will damage that hearing, causing the person to become completely deaf, while a hearing aid will not damage any existing hearing. While the external piece of a hearing aid and a ci are removable, the internal piece of a ci is not.

 

4. A device to cure an illness of the world.

 

5. This device can be classifieds as two ways, by the Deaf , this piece of machine takes away who you are, by the deaf or hearing, a device that “fixes deafness”.

 

6. Deaf people can do anything but hear.

7. Again it depends who you are talking to, the Deaf would say that this device takes away your deaf culture and identity, while other people will say it fixes hearing. However, this device does not create “normal or perfect” hearing, but instead a very robotic hearing.

8. I guess the only Doctrine would be that if you are Deaf and get it then you really aren’t proud of your deaf identity.

 

9. A cochlear implant takes away a Deaf persons true “deaf” identity, while the implant does not actually make you hearing.

Should SAB Be Stopped?!?!?!?

 Posted by on Sun, 10/30 at 10:55pm  ideas  No Responses »
Oct 302016
 

This week I read an article that was bringing up all the issues with ABC Family’s Switched at Birth. This show features a deaf and hearing girl being switched and then finding out 16 years later. For my “ideas” post this week I really wanted to have a conversation with this guys review only because I do think that I, as always, have comments based on my own personal opinion. so his first issue with the show was that Katie Leclerc is not deaf but instead “hearing”. What he fails to mention is that she has BPPV or Begin Proximal Positional Vertigo. This is a inner ear disorder that causes attacks or spouts of dizziness that can last from a few minutes to a few weeks. It can be caused by any number of things from air pressure change to going on a ride at the fair to just sitting and doing nothing. It really just depends on the weakness of the muscles in your ear.  Some of the side effects to BPPV is in fact loss of hearing for a portion to the entire attack. This hearing loss can be temporary but also with each attack, hearing gets worse and worse until it is possibly lost for good.  Katie Leclerc may not be fully deaf, but to do deaf for a few weeks every attack can be an issue. Allow with BPPV she has menieres, which is basically the same thing, just categorized differently.

The other issue he had that I wanted to bring up was the teen drama. THE SHOW IS ON ABC FAMILY all that is shown there is teen drama. I know that this is one of the only shows that have sign language but  the show at its most basic form is a teen drama and lets be real, the tv stations will do almost anything to boost ratings. SO Mr Anonymous, I understand your issues with the show but I request two things from you, PLEASE don’t judge someone just because their hearing impairment doesn’t look like yours. ALSO REALIZE THE  SHOWS TARGET MARKET, ITS NOT JUST YOU.

Switched at Birth Should Be Stopped?!?!?!?

 Posted by on Sun, 10/30 at 10:39pm  reading  No Responses »
Oct 302016
 

This week I read a review of a show called Switched at Birth, a TV drama on ABC Family the shows a story of a deaf girl and a hearing girl being switched at birth and then realizing it 16 years later. The review was written by a man who is Deaf and has his PHD in Deaf Studies. This man makes his list of reason why he may like or hate the show. The first reason was the skimming over the concept of a cochlear implant. In the show, it was brought up in the first episode, then the cultural aspect of Deaf Pride came up and they have not brought up the concept of a CI again. This man’s next issue is the fact that the actress, Katie Leclerc, playing the main Deaf girl is not “actually” deaf. Leclerc actually has BPPV which is an inner ear disorder, one I also suffer from, that causes you to be partially or full deaf at the time of the attack, but it is not a constant thing.  He says her sign language does not show the smoothness of a “deaf from birth” person or the fact that she had to learn how to stimulate deaf speech. The next thing he has an issue with is the SimCon which is the use of speech while signing. This is very understandable since in deaf culture there is no need to use your voice while signing, also since voice is used a lot of the time, the sign language is not correct or full grammar. Next is because there is a lack of deaf adults paired with the “friendzoneing” of the two deaf males by the main hearing character.  These issues and more are the main reasons why he believes that this show may do more harm than good when it comes to the Deaf culture and community.

Deaf Culture to infinity and beyond

 Posted by on Sun, 10/23 at 8:57pm  ideas  No Responses »
Oct 232016
 

Within Deaf culture there are so many aspects that make its own. But even sign language itself has its own “rules” that makes it a language unlike any other. For this post, I’m going to be talking about American Sign Language only. Other sign language have their own things that set them apart. So in ASL there are certain words that they just don’t use like and, is, of and or. However there is a way to compare things within the language and that is a shoulder shift. Shoulder shifts allow you to say the word and without finger-spelling it. I’ve attached the video below that shows an example of shoulder shifting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okjDOgaxHIM

Another aspect of sign language is eyebrows up or down questions. So when asking a question, you need to either put your eyebrows up for a yes/no question, and eyebrows down for any other question. The next two attachments are examples of the eyebrows question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axQPGskTxus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8baQwYZYhM

The last aspect of ASL that i wanted to bring up is the grammar. So in ASL the grammar is structured “TIME TOPIC COMMENT”

For example to say Do you want to go with me to the movies tomorrow night?

You would sign Tomorrow Night Movies Go-To Want You,

Now some deaf people do use PSE which is a form of Sign Language but it uses word for word English Grammar.

The Cultural Artifacts that Circle the Deaf community

 Posted by on Sun, 10/23 at 2:43pm  artifact ideas  1 Response »
Oct 232016
 

Cultural Artifacts

 

  1. Kelly Greer’s version on Jar of Hearts in American Sign Language:

This YouTube video is Kelly translating Jar of Hearts in ASL. She not only has very descriptive facial expressions in the video but it also teaches the watcher about how to sign a song. Showing that sometimes you have to just act out the exactly what you are trying to say but also that you do not have to remain in your “sign circle”, the box from the top of your head to mid stomach that when you are signing is where you should keep the signs. In signing a song, you can be all over the place to act out the song. But this song she is doing, even a hearing person can see the pain she is expressing and the emotion she wants to convey. This is one characteristic of a really good song in ASL.

 

  1. A Paper Gloss in ASL.

In sign language, when a hearing person wants to sign a song in the correct grammar in asl, what they would do is gloss it. An example from the song humans by Christina Perry looks like this:

I can hold my breath

BREATH STOP CAN
I can bite my tongue

TALK STOP CAN
I can stay awake for days

DAY++ AWAKE CAN ME
If that’s what you want

IF WANT YOU

English and Sign Language don’t have the same amount of words, so a gloss allows a hearing person to interpret what the song is saying and convey that in ASL. A gloss allows you to talk about the direction a sign should go, the facial expression that should be paired and say if listing somethings, it allows you to say how long of a list you have. Any song can be glossed but from signer to signer the gloss may look different. It truly just depends on how the song is being interpreted.

  1. Cochlear Implant.

This is a small device that takes a wire and replaces the cochlear nerve to the brain causing artificial hearing. Some of the issues that come with this device is if a Deaf or hard of hearing person had any hearing before, that would be destroyed in the process of the procedure. The implant can also not function correctly, causing the person to have spent around $ 10,000 for nothing. However, there is an argument circling the implant because of the idea that it takes away your Deaf identity. There are some Deaf communities that won’t even accept a person after they have had the procedure because they are rejecting something that causes them to be a true Deafee. Another problem that comes with the procedure is that for it be as successful as possible, it really should be done before the age of 2 or even 1. This means that the parents of the Deaf child need to make this not only physical but a cultural decision for the child, before the child can have any input. This causes the community to be very split on the topic.

 

Words have other meanings then what they mean?

 Posted by on Fri, 10/14 at 11:09am  ideas  No Responses »
Oct 142016
 

Okay so this week I did some (external)research on why words are important.  So I wanted to comment a little on that and then bring some other ideas into it. So her first point was it connects us to others. For that point I feel like ive really been driving that one in. Without any form of language we would go back to the time when we didn’t have language and would just cry. Her next idea was that words give us the ability to explain the abstract. This idea that without words we couldn’t explain things in the abstract. I guess that’s true, I don’t know how I would explain the philosophical theory of cosmology without words. The next is the idea of being able to tell a full story. Which makes a lot of sence, without words I could not explain a full story, even if it was like the words podcast, and acting it out, I would not be able to explain a story in full. The last one was to expand our imagination, but what I want to look at is the fourth one, connecting us to one to tell about the other. I mean think about that, you can’t tell someone about someone else’s history without connecting to the other. That’s crazy, if that were the case we would lose all sence of history with each passing generation. This idea can do one of two things, it could either allow us to spend maybe a one hundred year span and then just poof start over or it could lead to the death of all humanity because we would not know what killed who before us. I think that would be a cool theory to look into. But one concept I want to bring in is the concept that words have meanings other than what they mean. For example, I just spent the last hour taking a test on grammar, this idea that if a word changes place or tense it could mean a whole different part of speech. That’s pretty cool that everything means one thing, but it could mean another, but in the general sence of society it means one. Okay now Im Confusing myself.

Why others think that words are important.

 Posted by on Wed, 10/12 at 12:31pm  reading  No Responses »
Oct 122016
 

In doing research this week, I came across an article written by Gracy Olmstead for the American Conservative on 5 reasons why words matter. At this point in the semester, I had only been able to come up with one example “to connect us to others”, which for the idea of getting to the point is her first reason, the ability to communicate through words makes us human. She goes on to say that any monkey can take a picture with a smartphone but it’s that linguistic connection that makes us human. Her next reason, which the next four I didn’t even consider is, words give expression to the abstract in a way that images cannot.  She brings up William Shakespeare’s line from Hamlet “To be or not to be- that is the question”. How could we describe that in an image? Her next reason is words give us a full story, from its context, background, beginning and ending. And the fourth reason connects to the third, the fourth days that it connects us to the other. Our ability to tell someone else’s story.  Words connect us to not only being able to connect to others story but also the stories that came before us and the history of our human race. The last reason is because Words awaken our imagination. She gives a wonderful example going back to Shakespeare. She quotes a line from one of his works that says

“When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun. (Shakespeare)”

Then says, yes you can take a picture of a sunset or a beautiful waterfall but look at the even greater imagery that comes from reading something like that.  Her last image says that writing is like a mirror, an inky, mysterious, beautiful word mirror and those words allow us to reflect but also to look in.

Does it Matter who said the words? Harry Potter Edition

 Posted by on Sun, 10/9 at 1:34pm  ideas  No Responses »
Oct 092016
 

So what do I think about the WORDS that came from Harry Potter in the story, well I think that if  anyone else had met Harry in Kings Cross, then I don’t think Harry would have gotten “on” to go back to the forbidden forest to continue to fight and defeat Voldemort. Before this scene, Harry is met by all his loved ones who have died, giving him encouragement about death and letting him know that they will be there with him at the very end and through always. Then after dying meets his old professor who says, “I’ve always praised myself on my ability to turn a phrase. Words are in my not so humble opinion an inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both implicating injury and remedying it.”, and  “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it” however rephrases it to say “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who deserve it” Dumbledore then ends by saying just because everything is happening in Harry’s head that doesn’t mean that it isn’t real. All this words lead up to Harry returning, killing Voldemort and continuing a wonderful life. Now all this words meant something, but what I do think is if the words were said by someone else, there may have been a different outcome. Say if Lilly Potter, his mother, met him there and even said the exact same things, well maybe the words would have influenced him to just pass on because he never had that opportunity to spend time with his mother invoking an emotion to be with her a leave the others behind.  However say for instance, Serious Black , his Godfather, met him there and said the exact same things, well in my own weird theory, I think he would have gone back, since he had that opportunity to spend time with Serious, he was able to at least get to know him a bit, and now Serious is giving him all this advice, well Harry may have felt prepared enough to go back and fight once more.

Now all of this to say I think words and word aversion may have something to do with the person who they are coming from. I think when things are said by a specific person, it allows us to process it though the heart of that person because we understand where they are coming from and the heart behind it.

Dumbledore’s ability to turn a phrase

 Posted by on Sun, 10/9 at 1:18pm  reading  No Responses »
Oct 092016
 

“I’ve always praised myself on my ability to turn a phrase. Words are in my not so humble opinion an inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both implicating injury and remedying it.”

Let me set the stage, Harry Potter has just been killed by Voldemort to kill the one of the two horcruxs (a piece of your soul implanted into an object or person when you murder someone, allowing you to essentially live forever) left. Harry is now in a limbo state where he has a conversation with the late Dumbledore who says ” Words are in my not so humble opinion an inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both implicating injury and remedying it.” Dumbledore’s original statement to Harry was “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it” however rephrases it to say “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who deserve it”. This is what I “read” for this week, after going on to Quara to read about why Dumbledore says things. The forum pretty much went to the extent that, if Harry, even though dead, has a choice of peace, knowing his return will save everyone, needed the encouragement of Dumbledore to go back. Harry knew what the cost was, but needed to know what more needed to be done. Dumbledore then ends by saying just because everything is happening in Harry’s head that doesn’t mean that it isn’t real. Without all of this taking place, Harry could have entered to death, departing the world as an equal to death, as it was told in the Deathly Hallows.

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