Deaf Culture

What makes a social group a culture?  What are the conditions for a group to be thought of as a genuine community or culture?

Deaf American culture fulfills some essential criteria of a definition of culture: a distinct language, a distinct folkloric tradition (encompassing ASL storytelling, performing arts, and Deaf history), distinct social institutions and distinct social customs and protocol.

Deaf culture is a positive term, indicative of pride and a communal identity, whereas terms like “hearing-impaired” and “deafness” do not connote any particular pride or sense of community. 

ASL is the glue of Deaf culture. The social, communal and creative mores of Deaf culture, are expressed by, and created within the context of D/HOH people’s language, and the language in turn, changes dynamically with its usage in the community. Deaf culture encompasses communication, social protocol, art, entertainment, recreation and education.

Deaf culture promotes an environment that supports vision as the primary sense used for communication at school, in the home, and in the community, as vision offers deaf individuals access to information about the world and the independence to drive, travel, work, and participate in every aspect of society.

Deaf culture maintains certain rules of protocol that differ from what’s considered socially acceptable for hearing people. In U.S. culture, it’s considered “forward” for two persons to maintain a steady, locked gaze into each other’s eyes. This kind of behavior tends to make uninitiated hearing people uncomfortable.

In Deaf Culture, it’s okay and necessary for D/HOH people to maintain a steady gaze while they’re signing to each other—something that might be impermissible by Hearing standards.

For example, in Hearing culture, a restaurant waiter must never touch a diner. In Deaf culture, it’s acceptable for a waiter to touch a diner’s shoulder to get his/her attention.

Another example: in Deaf culture, a person who leaves a room where there are other D/HOH people, notifies them that they are going into another room—even if it’s a short jaunt to the bathroom. Hearing people might consider this strange or even inappropriate.

But there’s a practical reason—it forestalls frantic searching for the person who has just left the group. Since D/HOH people can’t hear another person yell through the bathroom door, they notify their friends before removing themselves from eyeshot. It’s a practice that, all things considered, makes sense.

It’s appropriate to touch, wave, stamp a food, flick a light switch to gain attention.

Deaf social protocol is based on D/HOH people’s need to maintain good eye contact and visibility, and to make signing easier and more comfortable.

Deaf culture values D/HOH children as the future of D/HOH people and Deaf culture. Deaf culture therefore encourages the use of ASL. But, also, supports bilingual ASL/English education of deaf children so they are competent in both languages.

Traditionally, a majority of non-deaf professionals who interact with the Deaf Community only on a professional basis, hold a view that focuses on how D/HOH people are different from non-deaf people and generally perceives those differences negatively; simply as people with a handicap or hearing disability.

The Deaf culture community generally feels that their culture is vibrant, active and does not “need fixing”.

As stated earlier, an important topic of debate in the Deaf culture community has been the implanting of the cochlear implant in children.

So, what are your thoughts?  Is American Deaf culture a full-fledged, culture, a subculture, or a political construct?

What do you think? What are your views?