Language Attitudes in the American Deaf Community:

Chapter 8 Conclusion

147 Chapter 8 Conclusion The research question that guided the study was this: What are the linguistic and social factors that govern attitudes toward signing variation in the American Deaf community? This question is important to consider because nowadays there are different viewpoints in the American Deaf community regarding the acceptance of signing forms and features that are deemed standard or vernacular as ASL and the rejection of the forms and features as not ASL (typically English based). The social factors are also important to consider because identities are stereotypically associated with the types of signing possessing particular forms and features. As mentioned in the introduction, English is the dominant language in the United States of America and is viewed as a standard language with an overt prestige unmatched by other languages in the country, for example, Spanish, French, and Japanese; prestige is acquired through the process of standardization in a given society in a given time and it is most often associated with a social group with weighty influence in the society. The other languages are standard languages in their respective countries and Americans recognize them as so, but in American English is the prestigious language with favorable sociocultural and socioeconomic conditions for people who are proficient in English. Even though indigenous languages (i.e., American Indian languages) had existed before the arrival of English, those languages are not considered standard because they are not widely used. The point is that those who are not proficient in English will have a difficult time to be accepted as equals in American society. There are also dialects of English that members in particular regions should know and use in order to function as equals in their respective communities. If a person uses a dialect with stigmatized forms and features, for example, southern dialect or AAE (African American English), he or she may evoke explicit or implicit negative attitudes from someone who uses a standard dialect of English. However, the stigmatized language variants still exist in the society because of covert prestige, Hill_Pgs 1-164.indd 147 11/14/2012 9:48:06 AM 148 : Chapter 8 which is the cultural solidarity gained by using a stigmatized language variant favored by a particular community. This discussion of English is very important because it has a tremendous effect on perceptions of the status and linguistic structure of ASL in the American Deaf community as well as mainstream American society. In the history of deaf education in America, there was great pressure to remove ASL as a medium of instruction and replace it with English language in an oral form. Years later, when that failed in some places, there was an agreement to use signed communication in classrooms with deaf and hard of hearing students, but only with a visual communication method based on English. Even though ASL was still used, however surreptitiously, in the name of covert prestige, the general avoidance or suppression of ASL by educators and administrators sent messages to deaf and hard of hearing students that English was better than ASL and that English in the written and oral forms was the way for them to succeed in the American society. For a long time, deaf and hard of hearing children and adults internalized this negative thinking about ASL until research by William Stokoe showed that ASL is a valid linguistic system. The discovery did not result in an immediate widespread acceptance of ASL as a valid language by the American Deaf community because of internalized oppression and conflicting emotions and opinions about ASL. However, as time progressed, with an increasing number of research studies on ASL, more course offerings on ASL, and the rippling effect of the Deaf President Now! (DPN) movement in 1988 on the America Deaf community, respect for ASL had been gaining within the American Deaf community. Now ASL is one of the most popular foreign languages to be formally taught in schools, colleges, and universities.17 There are teaching materials for ASL; places that regularly evaluate the ASL skills of deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing signers; and professional and academic organizations on teaching, education, and linguistics of ASL. ASL has become the standard language with prestige (acquired through the standardization with dictionaries, textbooks, classes, and language proficiency evaluation) in the American Deaf community while at the same time being a stigmatized language in the mainstream America . However, not all deaf and hard of hearing individuals view ASL the same way. 17. Refer to Padden...