Is American Sign Language a Human Right?

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings,

whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex,

national or ethnic origin, religion, language, or

any other status.  We are all equally entitled

to our human rights without discrimination.

These rights are all interrelated,

interdependent and indivisible.

—www.ohchr.org

When you lose your language,…

you exclude yourself from your past.

—Johan Van Hoorde, 1998,

Let Dutch Die?

Ignorance often leads to hate speech.  People who are ignorant of the language and culture of the deaf think we shouldn’t care about American Sign Language (ASL).  There is a widely held and popular—but nonetheless misconceived—belief that deaf children can be made “to listen and talk,” and that this anti-signing oppression is not a tragedy at all.  The following are discriminatory language statements quoted from various institutes.

Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center:

CID (Central Institute for the Deaf) is a school where children who are deaf and hard of hearing learn to listen, talk and read without using sign language.

DePaul School for Hearing and Speech:

We teach children from birth to age 14 to listen, to speak and to learn without using sign language.

Memphis Oral School for the Deaf:

…NO SIGN LANGUAGE is used, instead using speech and language therapies and audiological services in conjunction with our preschool classes to help profoundly deaf and hard-of-hearing children ages birth to six years old.

St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf:

Individual sessions with deaf education therapists, who specialize in early intervention, help you understand the emotional and educational effects of your child’s hearing loss and teach you strategies to help your child develop spoken language without sign language through the auditory-oral method.

Tucker-Maxon School:

Students with hearing loss do not use sign language; instead, with the help of assistive technologies and trained professionals, they listen, talk and learn like their typical hearing peers.

These above illustrative examples are contemporary.  Deaf hate speech begins with language intimidation and intolerance, both of which are not considered distinct in any substantial way from other acts of prejudice and discrimination against the Deaf.  It is important to keep in mind that deaf hate speech has a long historical lineage.  The contemporary dynamics of sign-language-hate-motivated prejudice and discrimination have their origins in historical conditions.

About 2,400 years ago, in ancient Greece, Aristotle, in his attempt to refute Socrates’ question, in Plato’s Cratylus (Reeve, 1998: 67), whether signs by the mutes be equal with spoken words, asserted that an inability of deaf people to repeat the same sounds implies that they are senseless and worthless of human intelligence. As expressions of deaf hate, such acts of sign language intimidation, “involve the assertion of selves over others constituted as Other” (Goldberg, 1995: 270), where the self is thought to constitute an ability “to listen and talk.”  Even with a normal hearing listening is always probable and talking may be just babbling.

The burning question then, when one tries to understand the dynamics of deaf hate speech, Why is it so easy for individuals and institutes to dismiss sign language?  Is ASL a human right?  Is being deaf also a human right?  Will ASL die?

A document prepared by the International PEN Club’s Translations and Linguistic Rights Committee and the Escarre International Centre for Ethnic Minorities and Nations has presented and remarked:

The paradoxical situation is that languages will certainly die unless we do something; but, the reality is that they may also die even if we do something.  Therefore, what do we do? 

The top priority, it would appear, is to raise awareness to stop hate speech against the Deaf.  Although ASL is at risk of being described in another language, it is plain from the above “no sign language” statements that ASL remains in the state of endangerment.

Many people are unaware of a language bigotry that needs to be dispelled, in order to foster the right climate for sign language maintenance.  It has to do with teaching ASL to deaf children.  There is a widespread belief, even in colleges and universities, that being deaf is an automatic qualification for being a good instructor.  Another myth has to do with learning.  Because ASL can be learned naturally, people readily assume that they can acquire ASL from the Internet. 

All in all, it is by no means easy to help people see the consequences of negative attitudes towards ASL, or the consequence to eradicate ASL. To deny deaf children sign language is to exclude them from the history. Language denial and discrimination are therefore a social injustice.

 

 Carl N. Schroeder, M.Ed.