Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!olivea!oliveb!bunker!hcap!hnews!681!853.1!Stephen.White From: Stephen.White@p1.f853.n681.z3.fidonet.org (Stephen White) Newsgroups: misc.handicap Subject: Sign language Message-ID: <14634@bunker.UUCP> Date: 3 Oct 90 14:29:37 GMT Sender: wtm@bunker.UUCP Reply-To: Stephen.White@p1.f853.n681.z3.fidonet.org Distribution: misc Organization: FidoNet node 3:681/853.1 Lines: 124 Approved: wtm@bunker.UUCP Index Number: 10801 PB> You must sign well since you have been deaf since year zero! I was raised up to be an oralist. I didn't start signing until the start of last year, and I haven't signed for a year now. PB> Well, when i first became deaf, learning to sign was pretty hard. Some people find it hard - I didn't... Probably because I have a near-photographic memory. About a month after I started signing, I was signing about the same level as someone who had been learning for about 6 months. That was reading out of sign books with simple diagrams and movement descriptions too. If I get too personal in some of my questions, then don't answer them and tell me I'm being a nosey-poke! At least I asked! Here we go, a whole slew of questions coming, and I'll answer them myself so you can know about me too. Forgive my curiousity, but I tend to be too polite and end up not knowing anything about other people. 1) How did you learn sign? 2) How did you feel when you became deaf? 3) How do you feel about being deaf now? 4) How do other people treat you because you are deaf? 5) How did your parents react to you becoming deaf? Did they insist you hold to their standards, or did they learn sign as well? 6) What sort of facilities are available to the deaf in America? 7) What is the feeling towards deaf people in general, in America? 8) What is it like living in America? What is racial tension? 9) How old are you now? (22?) 10) Is there an "inner core" in te deaf community, with deaf hardliners who don't get on with people coming from hearing families and who became deaf later in life? 11) How deaf are you? 12) What are your main hobbies? Job? 13) What do you think of other deaf people? 1) How did you learn sign? Out of a book. I learned Signed English first, which gave me trouble later as I occassionally used the Signed English variants which nobody knew... 2) How did you feel when you became deaf? Warm and cosy, perhaps! It must have been a bit of a tight fit as I kicked a lot! :-) 3) How do you feel about being deaf now? Fine. I'd rather be deaf actually, because most sound these days is just noise pollution (Kylie Monologue) and because I have a ready made peer group. I can walk into a deaf club and be sure of being welcomed. 4) How do other people treat you because you are deaf? A bit leery at first, but since I talk perfectly, and act perfectly normal, they soon forget I'm deaf. In fact, in school I had people who have known me for 8 years come up to me and say "You're not deaf, you're just pretending to be"! :-) Likewise with my deaf friends - they'd say that I wasn't deaf and that I was in the wrong school. Some of the Year 8 and 9's asked me what I was doing, "hanging around" with my friends, as I should be over with the hearies. :-( 5) How did your parents react to you becoming deaf? Did they insist you hold to their standards, or did they learn sign as well? They didn't have to do anything major - just make sure that I was looking at them first. I used to do some awful things when I was a child... They'd lock the front door so I wouldn't be able to get out and accidentally get run over. I'd pile up tables, chairs and stools so I could climb up and unlock the door. When it was time for my bath, when Mum came to tell me, I'd close my eyes and say "What? Sorry Mum, I can't understand what you're saying!" Once Mum came in and found me happily bashing her lead crystal vase to pieces with a big hammer. She wasn't worried about the vase, but wondered how I wasn't cut with all the pieces of broken glass over the kitchen floor. And I remember setting the rubbish bin on fire... Mum didn't find out I was deaf until I was about 3 or 4, because of things like when she was walking along a corridor and I'd run up ahead of her. She'd stop, call out "Steve" and I'd turn around and run back to her. What I was doing was feeling her footsteps, and then when they stopped, I'd go back. My very very first sentence ever was "Big thin hospital with lots of doors and lots of windows", said absolutely clearly and understood first time. In fact, Mum and Dad thought it was my sister that said it (4 years older than me). I remember being irritated when they asked me to repeat it... From then on, I've been babbling away for 11 years with my mouth in permanent overdrive! :-) 6) What sort of facilities are available to the deaf in America? In Australia, very little. 7) What is the feeling towards deaf people in general, in America? In Australia, ignorance. 8) What is it like living in America? What is racial tension? Racial tension? I cannot understand how people can go "I hate him" and want to beat their faces in simply because they come from another country. Racial discrimination exists in Australia, because of stereotyping - Italians are known as hardworking but without scruples. Aboriginals are known as good for nothing layabouts who drink themselves blind on metho. Americans are known as brash loudmouthed people who "take charge" on things they know nothing about... Nothing major results from racial discrimination, except for employment where employers tend to hire based on the stereotype rather than the reality. This practise is largely curtailed by the Equal Opportunities Act though. -- Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!3!681!853.1!Stephen.White Internet: Stephen.White@p1.f853.n681.z3.fidonet.org