Learning To See: American Sign Language as a Second Language

2. American Sign Language in Perspective

13 2 American Sign Language in Perspective A Short History of ASL American Sign Language (ASL) is the visual/gestural language that serves as the primary means of communication of deaf people in the United States and parts of Canada. It is difficult to extrapolate the size of the deaf population because the United States Bureau of the Census has not included a question on hearing loss since the national survey in 1930. In 1974 the National Association of the Deaf, in cooperation with the Deafness Research and Training Center at New York University, conducted a special census of the deaf population. There has been a lack of consensus regarding the definition of deafness and how to determine who is deaf or hard of hearing. The National Center for Health Statistics estimates that there are perhaps 20 million persons with a hearing loss, with approximately 550,000 persons with the ‘‘inability to hear and understand speech’’ (Holt and Hotto 1994, 2). In 1987, Padden estimated that between 100,000 and 500,000 people use ASL. This estimate included native signers who learned ASL as their first language from deaf parents, hearing children of deaf parents who also learned ASL as their native language, and fluent signers who have learned ASL from deaf people. In the past decade, thousands of additional students in universities and educational settings have begun acquiring ASL. The number of ASL users continues to grow yearly. The history of ASL is long and rich. Much of its early development , however, remains poorly documented. One reason for this 14 American Sign Language in Perspective is that, as in the case of spoken languages, the early forms of signed languages are not preserved. Research can establish the time and circumstances under which education and formal instruction in English and in various forms of signing were brought to deaf people in the United States, but little is known about the structure of the language that deaf people used prior to this. Despite the paucity of information about earlier forms of signed language , one should not doubt that deaf people did communicate with each other in a natural signed language even before hearing people began to take an interest in deaf education. There are two sources of evidence that indicate deaf people used natural signed languages before hearing people intervened. Natural Signed Languages Before ASL Vineyard Sign Language The first source of evidence is the unique situation that developed on Martha’s Vineyard in the late seventeenth century (Groce 1985). Martha’s Vineyard is an island five miles off the southeastern shore of Massachusetts. From 1690 to the midtwentieth century, a high rate of genetic deafness appeared in the island population. Whereas the normal incidence rate for deafness in the population of nineteenth-century America was approximately 1 out of every 5,700 people, the incidence on Martha’s Vineyard was 1 out of every 155. In some areas of the island, the ratio was even higher; in one town, for example, 1 in every 25 people was born deaf, and in a certain neighborhood the ratio was as high as one in four. Martha’s Vineyard was an excellent example of a strong and flourishing deaf community. Of particular interest is the evidence of an indigenous signed language used on the island. The first deaf islander, who arrived with his wife and family in 1692, was fluent in some type of signed language. Many of the families that inhabited the island had moved there from the Boston area; before this they had immigrated from a region in England known as the American Sign Language in Perspective 15 Weald, in the county of Kent. Almost all of the deaf inhabitants of Martha’s Vineyard could trace their ancestry back to this small, isolated area in England. As the deaf community on Martha’s Vineyard flourished, so did their language. One can only surmise that this local signed language was based on a regional variety of British sign language. Soon, it spread in use to the entire island so that almost every individual, deaf or hearing, was able to use the Vineyard sign language. The impact on deaf people, according to Groce, must have been tremendous. With much of the hearing population of the island bilingual in spoken English and Vineyard sign language , deafness was not viewed as a handicap. Deaf people were full participants in all aspects...