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Because I can't see anyway to make the links from DreamWidth (where I'm posting this) with comms as automatically as individual journals, I'm doing it manually. This is a pretty much the same point I made here a couple of weeks ago, but it's still rattling 'round my head as something important, so I'm posting it again, with different wording and different emphesis.
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"A Question for Hearing Students of Sign Language (from any nation) in this Comm:"
(For the record, I'm H/hearing, too).
Just curious: what drew you to study the language, and make you want to learn it?
Here's my answer/story:
Earlier this year, discussions of Race!Fail and cultural appropriation broke out on my f'list. Thankfully, I have a classy f'list, and the discussions were good ones.
But they got me thinking about my own fascination with Sign (ASL, in my case), and why I feel my hackles rise when I come across examples of audism in the media, since I am neither D/deaf myself, nor do I have any close relatives or friends who are D/deaf (or HoH).
So I tried to think back to my first exposure to ASL and the D/deaf.
The first and most obvious thing I thought of is the four summers I went to a camp for handicapped kids (I have CP) and we were all taught, and encouraged to use as often as possible, SEE (though the adults told us it was ASL -- Grr.). This just so happened to be right before I hit puberty, so any language bits I learned then tended to stick in my brain.
But then I realized there's more to it than that, because I was fascinated with other forms of gestural language, before I ever attended that camp (such as Native American "sign" -- which was more like an invented, visual, Esperanto than a real language).
Then I remembered -- There was a Deaf man and his Deaf son who were active in the environmental organization my mother was a part of, so, as a kid, I often saw ASL being used out of the corner of my as a normal part of the crowd "buzz." And then I remembered another detail: this man just happened to be married to a H/hearing woman who used a wheelchair.
And this woman was the first adult "Like Me" I'd ever encountered. All the other wheelchair users I'd met were kids my age, and I tended to meet them at the hospital, when we were all there for operations and/or physical therapy, and none of us were in control. All the people in authority were able-bodied.
And there was this woman. I never really got to know her well enough to consider her a "role model," as such. But I could see her out in the front of protests, and organizing things, and being the authority. And conversing as easily in Sign as in English.
So, I think, back in a corner of my subconscious, there's a "Fact" that has taken root that:
Being a Grown-Up = Having a Relationship with the Deaf Community.
...If she'd happened to be married to a German man, I might have an equal fascination with the German Language, instead.
...Such is the tangled web of influences that make up our self-identities...
What about you?
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In other news, I finished the final final exam of SigningOnline.com. "Courses" 101-104 had less information, in total, than ASL 101 and ASL 102 did at SUNY Stony Brook. But that's the difference between studying at university, and studying online as a hobby.
Still, it was helpful in reminding me of what I already knew. And I'm kind of sad it's over... Now, I have to take other steps to continue, I think, and make sure I don't get rusty a third time...
-----
"A Question for Hearing Students of Sign Language (from any nation) in this Comm:"
(For the record, I'm H/hearing, too).
Just curious: what drew you to study the language, and make you want to learn it?
Here's my answer/story:
Earlier this year, discussions of Race!Fail and cultural appropriation broke out on my f'list. Thankfully, I have a classy f'list, and the discussions were good ones.
But they got me thinking about my own fascination with Sign (ASL, in my case), and why I feel my hackles rise when I come across examples of audism in the media, since I am neither D/deaf myself, nor do I have any close relatives or friends who are D/deaf (or HoH).
So I tried to think back to my first exposure to ASL and the D/deaf.
The first and most obvious thing I thought of is the four summers I went to a camp for handicapped kids (I have CP) and we were all taught, and encouraged to use as often as possible, SEE (though the adults told us it was ASL -- Grr.). This just so happened to be right before I hit puberty, so any language bits I learned then tended to stick in my brain.
But then I realized there's more to it than that, because I was fascinated with other forms of gestural language, before I ever attended that camp (such as Native American "sign" -- which was more like an invented, visual, Esperanto than a real language).
Then I remembered -- There was a Deaf man and his Deaf son who were active in the environmental organization my mother was a part of, so, as a kid, I often saw ASL being used out of the corner of my as a normal part of the crowd "buzz." And then I remembered another detail: this man just happened to be married to a H/hearing woman who used a wheelchair.
And this woman was the first adult "Like Me" I'd ever encountered. All the other wheelchair users I'd met were kids my age, and I tended to meet them at the hospital, when we were all there for operations and/or physical therapy, and none of us were in control. All the people in authority were able-bodied.
And there was this woman. I never really got to know her well enough to consider her a "role model," as such. But I could see her out in the front of protests, and organizing things, and being the authority. And conversing as easily in Sign as in English.
So, I think, back in a corner of my subconscious, there's a "Fact" that has taken root that:
Being a Grown-Up = Having a Relationship with the Deaf Community.
...If she'd happened to be married to a German man, I might have an equal fascination with the German Language, instead.
...Such is the tangled web of influences that make up our self-identities...
What about you?
-----
In other news, I finished the final final exam of SigningOnline.com. "Courses" 101-104 had less information, in total, than ASL 101 and ASL 102 did at SUNY Stony Brook. But that's the difference between studying at university, and studying online as a hobby.
Still, it was helpful in reminding me of what I already knew. And I'm kind of sad it's over... Now, I have to take other steps to continue, I think, and make sure I don't get rusty a third time...
