Miguel Gallego Bastidas

Me, Myself & I

Welcome, my lovely classmates!. Many of you have had the pleasure to meet me in our classes during the last 2 years. My name is Miguel Angel, and no, I'm not that kind of Michelangelo. I am far from being artistic. For a lot of reasons in my life I am closing this CEGEP chapter in my life at 25 years old. In fact I graduated from secondary school in 2014. But what's important is that I'm here and I am motivated to finish.

I wanted to get into sciences but I did not have the requirements. Requirements I could have started to do in 2014 but never did, for a lot of reasons. I figured an easy way to get my DEC was the languages program, and after I could do the requirements to get into Computer Science in university. But don't get confused. I still adore learning languages and it has been 2 of of the most amazing years of my life and I plan to nurture what I have acquired of Greek and Italian so I don't forget.

I am passionate about computers, programing, videogames, cybersecurity, and science-fiction. And guess what? LANGUAGES!

OH! ONE LAST FACT ABOUT ME: I'm hearing impaired and I have used hearing aids since I was 5 years old.

Topic Ideas

There's two topics that currently interest me.

One of the things that intrigue me the most about linguistics is the process of language creation, or construction. Specially fictional ones. For example, the Sindarin and Quenya elvish languages from the Lord of the Rings, or the Dorthraki language from Game of Thrones. There's also Esperanto, which is a constructed language that was supposed to be a universal language for communication.

As part of the deaf & Hard of Hearing community, sign language hits close to me. While I don't know how to sign, I would like to learn someday. Interestingly enough there's this videogame I play where I'm part of a guild made up of deaf and Hard of Hearing players. Somehow the subject of sign language was broached and I have realized how much sign language is important to all of these individuals, and the incredible community that hides behind a language not many people know about

All in all, the choice is between exploring the theme of language construction, or the importance and significance Sign Language has for many people. I am leaning towards sign languages since there's more information and more academic articles about this subject.

What's it going to be?

I have chosen to focus on sign language. I want to explore the story of sign language, the most known sign language in the world which is American Sign Language, what it means to deaf people, and how it helps them to belong in a hearing world, not only in they own, unique community, but also in a culture that is very different from the mainstream society.

PREAMBLE: HISTORY OF SIGN LANGUAGE

You might be wondering how sign languages came to be. Ever since the time of the cavemen, when both spoken language and the human vocal tract were not as developed, humans communicated via body language, painting, smoke signals, hieroglyphs and other diverse forms of communication.

I found these series of 4 videos to be very informative regarding the origins of sign language. At your pleasure, take the time to watch them, before moving on to the main topic.

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

Bibliography

I have gathered a variety of academic and non-academic articles that I strongly believe will help me in the development of my research and my blog concerning Deaf culture, identity and community. I will be updating it as I advance.

Brereton, Amy Elizabeth. “Is Teaching Sign Language in Early Childhood Classrooms Feasible for Busy Teachers and Beneficial for Children?” JSTOR, National Association for the Education of Young Children , July 2010, www.jstor.org/stable/42731087.

Short but SUPER interesting magazine article, and it will be instrumental when discussing my second supporting sentence/argument which is about ASL as crucial in helping deaf people to develop a sense of community. The article starts by affirming that children can communicate their needs by signing before they can talk. I learned about the benefits of learning sign language both for the kids and the teacher in a classroom setting. By having the kids see, hear and feel the words they are being taught, both their literacy and engagement in learning are increased. Amy Elizabeth Brereton then goes on to explain the social benefits of ASL as a tool of inclusion for children with disabilities that range from deafness, to emotional difficulties and social awkwardness. She then documents her experiment as an observer in a class and how the teachers learn ASL along with the children by reading books about families to the kids and teaching them the equivalent of words like mother, father and so on. I feel this article resonates very deeply with me because of a quote that asserts that "without access to teachers and other children who sign, a Deaf child is denied access to a shared language with educators and peers, and that language is one of the most powerful and fundamental tools of humanity". I can tearily recall many situations in which I felt helpless and vulnerable because I wasn't able to understand what was being said to me. It's how I'm currently feeling with the current pandemic situation and Zoom classes. Maybe, if I had learned signing as a kid, things would be much, much easier. Maybe I would have more friends. I would have access to ASL interpreters for school. I can't change the past, but this helps to bring things to perspective.

Humphries, Tom, and Carol Padden. Inside Deaf Culture. Harvard University Press, 2006.

In process of reading (208 pages)

Malenfant, Hannah. “American Sign Language: Culture, Community, & Identity.” Trinity College Digital Repository, Bepress, 1 Apr. 2013, digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/theses/346/.

Quite a long essay, having 82 pages. I must confess that this essay is what inspired me to determine my three arguments. I definitely think that culture, community and identity are the soul of a person, so that's important in my research about ASL and the Deaf community. However I am not going to abuse, as I don't want to be accused of plagiarism. Surely, I will look for important quotes and key ideas but I won't make a copy out of it. Standing at 82 pages, this is probably going to take a while to read, so I will update this during the spring break.

Moore, Matthew S., and Linda Levitan. For Hearing People Only: Answers to Some of the Most Commonly Asked Questions about the Deaf Community, Its Culture, and the "Deaf Reality". Deaf Life Press, 2016.

(In process of reading (336 pages)

Senghas, Richard J., and Leila Monaghan. “Signs of Their Times: Deaf Communities and the Culture of Language.” JSTOR, Annual Review of Anthropology, 2002, www.jstor.org/stable/4132872.

TEDxTalks, director. Protecting and Interpreting Deaf Culture | Glenna Cooper | TEDxTulsaCC. Performance by Glenna Cooper, YouTube, YouTube, 22 May 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=io7z5PftOU4.

I loved this video. This TED Talk by Glenna Cooper, a deaf Assistant Professor and Department Chair for ASL at Tulsa Community College gives some overview on Deaf culture, including some specific behaviors prevalent in the community. I learned that people in the Deaf community can be very blunt. They will say things as they are since they are very detail oriented and very inquisitive, no matter how serious the situation is or if their words can hurt someone's feelings. From personal experience hearing people use too much political correctness and their own feelings often contradict what they say. White lying, in a sense. I also learned that deaf people take longer to say goodbye due to the aforementioned characteristic of being an information and detail-oriented community. I think...if I could translate this to a hearing person's viewpoint, it would be something like speaking to your best friend/loved one on the phone for hours on end. It's a cultural thing. She also shared some important moments concerning sign language through history since the times of Socrates. Overall, I think this video will help me stablish my introduction and part of the first supporting sentence of my outline, which will cover the cultural aspect of being deaf.

BUT FIRST...

Let's have a history lesson about American Sign Language.

This short video will introduce you to the origins of American Sign Language. Interestingly, it didn't originate in America! but that's up for you to discover.

However, ASL was not the first Sing Language. The history of sign language goes way back to the times of cavemen and was one of the first method of communication amongst hearing humans.

Midterm update

I think it's been almost a month and I haven't updated my blog. I am finding online school to not be very motivating or fun, specially being hearing impaired. I am trying to find a solution with Dawson's Accessibility Department with Live Captions but overall I have been slacking on most of my homework and leaving everything for the last minute, but I know I cannot give up.

CHANGE OF THE TOPIC: my initial topic was how American Sign Language is endangering other local sign languages. Since I started, the research process became extremely intimidating since there are hundreds of different sign languages. The problem is not the lack of articles about other sign languages, but rather the difficulty in finding articles that touched upon the subject, about how ASL was at fault. There was way too much broadness in the whole thing.

NEW TOPIC: I will be focusing solely on American Sign Language (ASL), and research its history, importance and significance for the Deaf community. Meanwhile, I will be thinking about a thesis statement phrase for my research.

April Update

What have I learned so far?

I have been learning a great deal of things. I have learned about the history and origins of sign language and American Sign Language. I have learned about its structure (it's amazingly flexible! there is no specific word order in ASL since its nature makes it a multi-dimensional language) which is actually one of the reasons deaf people have trouble learning English. English is a coded language with very specific structures that ASL does not have.. This book I'm reading "For Hearing People only: answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about the Deaf Community, its culture and the "Deaf Reality" is very informative, and answers all kinds of questions that hearing people usually ask, or wonder about people like me. It is a heavy collection of questions about the daily activities of deaf people, such as driving, or propensity to having accidents and also answers to things such as raising deaf children. There are 60 questions answered in this 300-page long book, so I'm definitely going to use these as a reference.

Culturally, I have learned about the inception of schools for the Deaf, and particularly that of Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C, the first higher studies institution for the deaf and hard of hearing, stablished in 1864, that to this day remains the only institution in which the programs and instructions are designed to accommodate people of the Deaf Community. Moreover, I have been learning what it means to be culturally Deaf, and how the culture has changed through the years. Did you know that it was once normal to think of deaf people as being mute and dumb? ridiculous!

I have also learned about Oralist education. Oralism is the education of deaf people by the use of oral language through lip-reading, speech and vocal patterns. Oralism is counter-productive since it it denies deaf people of employment chances and that it often leads to unhappiness. It's contrastive to Manualism, which is exactly what Gallaudet University does, complete education through the use of Sign Language.

I have also read stories of deaf people concerning the linguistic and cultural barriers they have experienced in the past.

Overall, it's a lot of information to convey and I'm just giving out some specific examples about my reading. What have I learned? a ton. But it would be folly to try to make a list about everything.

How far have I come with my work?

While it might seem that my work isn't very advanced, looks can be deceiving. During the last weeks I have been reading 3 books borrowed from the library and one article that total around 1,000 pages. That's a lot of pages to read. It's slow because I have been taking notes, pictures, quotes and processing what I can learn from these books. I should be finished with my reading in around 1 or 2 weeks, give or take. I'm reading as much as I can while dealing with other everyday tasks and trying to not burn myself out.

Does it meet the requirements described in the course outline?

Not yet. According to the outline, I must have between 12 and 15 bibliographic sources and I'm down to 6. It's not finding them that worries me. It's reading them all. that makes up for A LOT of pages. Also, I haven't been regularly reporting my progress either orally or written, but I expect this to change once I'm done reading with my current sources.

Have I consistently worked on my blog?

On the blog itself? Not as much as I should be expected to. On my research, yes. I try to read at l a little every day or every other day and a bit during weekends. It's been fun, educative and I hope that the final version of my blog won't disappoint.

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