Introduction
Recent years have attracted attention to the deaf community. Awareness had been increasing in the last three decades. Consequently, different authors have emerged with different perspectives. Among these authors is Thomas Holcomb. The current research paper explores the American Deaf Culture in view of dynamics that exist. These include education
Main Body
Holcomb explores the different elements regarding the perceptions of pioneering scholars in identifying and defining Deaf culture. The author allows the reader to track the shifts in perspectives on deaf people. The major perspectives presented by Holcomb are those introduced with compulsive judgments to the enlightened perspectives of Deaf people as a cultural identity. Deaf culture denotes a pessimistic word, revealing a public identity and self-importance. However, terms such as deafness or impaired hearing do not indicate a precise sense of belonging or pride to the community. Certain oralists contradict that the deaf culture does not exist. They fancy seeing it as awkward and false dogmatic concept. Some argue that it was articulated in ancient periods, and it poses defiance instead of reality. Therefore, this outlook contradicts the significance of ASL to the deaf community (Holcomb 96).
Deafness as a disability
Deafness as a disability is often viewed as the fundamental premise of the education and reintegration of deaf people. Some pioneers of the definition view deafness as an impairment. Deaf persons who claim a socially Deaf characteristic liken themselves to the affiliates of different cultural societies (Holcomb 98). They claim to possess a culture, as well as language. The critics of deaf culture do not perceive deaf persons as associates of a marginalized culture. However, they assert that deaf people are audio coherent individuals, earshot disabled and handicapped. While exploring the definition, they place deafness as having an incapacitating impact to respond to ecological signals or relish features of conventional culture such as music. America Deaf Culture has a very huge disparity with the other deaf cultures. Holcomb largely targets scholars who interpret and training on sign dialect. He emphasizes on the diverse issues of culture rather than an expression of the language.
Deaf culture and education
Higgins (1982) defines the reading on deaf culture and mentions that culture is a compound whole that comprises of learned habits, abilities, customs, decrees, art ethics, and knowledge of the human as an affiliate of the community. The author regards inter-cultural communiqué such as time point of reference, minimum and maximum framework, as well as individualism and collectivism. Typically, he communicates issues of the American deaf culture that identifies the preferential segment in the deaf community context (Higgins 10). There are dissimilar discernments of expatriates who simply study the deaf arts. Additionally, they study populace residing within the deaf community.
Holcomb confers the growth of deafened culture that the tone-deaf youngsters who attended the learning institutes found it difficult in communicating with their counterparts who have the ability to hear. Nonetheless, the current developments in regard to cultures of the deaf are endangered given that the deaf culture has no decrees that restrict deaf individuals to stay in the oblivious culture. Deaf people also aspire to be wealthier like full persons.
Integration
Deaf people must be reintegrated and end-cultured inside the hearing community. The symbolic language that is becoming useful and popular is used in classrooms or television shows. The language is not only useful to the deaf but also to the hearing community since they get enriched and learn how to relate to the deaf individuals (Holcomb 108). By understanding the language, one can freely communicate and assist the deaf community in places where they seem not to understand. However, it becomes problematic to share and communicate with deaf persons. Higgins thinks that devoid of the sign language, the deaf community will sense loneliness around the hearing society. Once the relative of the deaf cannot use sign language, they could misapprehend several things besides failing to benefit from significant info. The deaf still struggle in conversing with the hearing individuals. As a result, the hearing community should respect and adhere to sharing info with the deaf besides assisting them whenever confused.
In view of the connectedness, the deaf culture has a huge family regardless of the type of sign language they use or their country of origin. They find it informal to converse with the use of visual lingoes than diverse articulated dialects. For instance, without learning gestures or body languages they can find it easy to acquire key knowledge. However, if the hearing community does not learn some spoken languages such as Chinese, it becomes hard to comprehend. Thus, the deaf family can communicate easily and become a huge culture as opposed to the hearing society that finds it hard to communicate owing to the use of different languages. Based on the colloquial conduct, the deaf experiences both bad and polite behaviors. The disparity amid sign and spoken lingo remains that ASL has no distinct phrases like verbal language (Moore and Panara 15).
The ASL commonly engages some signs at the time of asking straight queries. Authors such as Higgins argue that it is rude to speaking behind the back or ask the deaf persons unsuitable question. Such bad acts include receiving a phone call without informing the deaf that the phone has rung, speaking about some sweet melodies, or asking them reasons for their deafness. Subsequently, the hearing community must comprehend the culture of the deaf in order to circumvent misinterpretation (Padden 5).
Conclusion
Deaf culture is a situation that often generates public discussions. In recent years, the debate on American deaf culture debates dominated the public domain. Deaf people must be reintegrated and end-cultured inside the hearing community. The symbolic language that is becoming useful and popular is used in classrooms or television shows. The language is not only useful to the deaf but also to the hearing community since they get enriched and learn how to relate to the deaf individuals By understanding the language, it is to communicate and assist the deaf community in places where they seem not to understand. In view of the connectedness, the deaf culture has a huge family regardless of the type of sign language they use or their country of origin. They find it informal to converse with the use of visual lingoes than diverse articulated dialects. Making decisions on the view one holds of deaf people is critical for it largely determines the connection one has to, and with, the Deaf Community. The mind-set towards the Community’s language and its culture determine the perception towards Deaf people. Individuals embrace either a therapeutic or an intellectual perception of the Deaf Community. It is imperative to respect the deaf community. Additionally, the hearing community ought to endeavor the protection of the values of the deaf community.
Works Cited
Holcomb, Thomas. Introduction to American Deaf Culture. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2013. Print.
Higgins, Paul. Outsiders in a Hearing World: A Sociology of Deafness. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. 1980. Print.
Moore, Main and Robert Panara, Robert Davila: Highest Ranking Government Official in Great Deaf Americans. Rochester, NY: Deaf Life Press.1996. Print.
Padden, Carol. From the Cultural to the Bicultural: The Modern Deaf Community. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. 1996. Print.