Culture is about the way we do things and the beliefs and conditions we hold. Deaf communities have many distinctive cultural characteristics, some of which are sharing beyond different countries. Pieces of Deaf culture include:
Language
Sign language is at the focus of Deaf culture and community and the single multiple unifying points. In America, the Deaf community’s language is knowing as ASL (American Sign Language).
Anyone who does not value ASL is unlikely to feel comfortable within the Deaf culture or be accepted by it. It is unnecessary to be fully fluent in ASL, but it is necessary to get ASL as a language in its own right and honor. If a person can show that they understand ASL’s value for Deaf people, Deaf people will learn it. Without this, they are marvelous to receive a warm welcome into the community. At best, they will be treated respectfully, but as an intruder or a “tourist.” This position is not single to Deaf culture, and it can find it in other language organizations.
Benefits
Receiving similar benefits is very important in any culture. In Deaf culture, some of the shared values are:
- Respect for ASL
- Deaf is normal.
- For culturally Deaf people, to be Deaf is a natural state of being. It is a daily part of their life and their personality. To represent sadness or regret for a person’s deafness can be considered a lack of acceptance of who they are.
- Deaf people do not usually see themselves as disabled or impaired and dislike being referred to as “hearing impaired.” They see themselves as “normal Deaf people,” not as “people with impaired hearing.” The disability they feel is a result of acceptance and difficulties that are hearing society forces on them. This aspect can perhaps best be described by the saying, “in a room full of Deaf people, it is the hearing person who cannot sign who is disabled.”
- Deaf people also usually have little interest in “remedies” for deafness. They consider their personality as Deaf people and see no advantage in becoming a different person.
Adaptation
Within Deaf culture, there are considered disrespectful behaviors that are perfectly acceptable in hearing culture and fastener versa. Some examples are:
- Eye contact: Eye contact is necessary. Hearing people often talk to each other with relatively little eye contact, but within Deaf culture, avoiding eye contact can be seen as offensive. Looking away while someone is signing to you is a no-no.
- Touch: In Deaf culture, it is acceptable to touch another person to win their attention, even if you do not know them well. However, there are rules about where or how to join. A light touch on the arm or shoulder is acceptable.
- Bodily closeness: When two hearing people are talking, they often sit or stand close to each other, sometimes side by side. Deaf people sit or stand further independently and instead opposite each other so that they can see each other’s “signing space” comfortably. This physical distance may seem unfriendly to hearing people, but Deaf people usually find it uncomfortable talking in close physical closeness.
- Directness: Acceptable levels of honesty vary considerably between all cultures. From Deaf people’s perspective, hearing people seem to say things in oblique and roundabout ways. From hearing people’s point of view, Deaf people may appear rough or abrupt. These are cultural differences that need to be understood and accepted.
- Thumping on tables or floors: Deaf people often drum on tables or floors to get each other’s attention, in the same way as hearing people call a person’s name or shout. This behavior can appear aggressive to hearing people, but in Deaf culture, it is not.
Customs
Some customs are common in the Deaf community. They include:
- Who are you? When Deaf people meet each other for the first time or propose to each other, they will often provide more personal details than a hearing person might. They always give their first and last names because there is a higher chance, in a small community, that this will present information about their family or community connections. It can be essential if they come from a family with several generations of Deaf people – such families are considering to be at the core of the Deaf community. They will often add other information about their connections with particular places, sporting or cultural organizations, or the school they attended. If you cannot volunteer any of these defining characteristics or a hearing person, you will most likely be asked questions about your connection with Deaf people. This necessary information practices where you “fit” in the community – or to be direct about it as is often the Deaf way, whether or not you are acceptable “Deaf.”
- The long goodbye: When Deaf people leave a group of friends (and Deaf people who belong to the Deaf community do to have many friends), they take much longer than most hearing people say goodbye. The custom is to explore out one’s friends and, in the process of saying goodbye, discuss when they next expect to meet. Since there are so many people to say goodbye to and so many future organizations to make, it takes a long time before the person leaves.
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Technology
When they think about technology for deaf people, most hearing people feel about hearing aids and cochlear implants. To Deaf people, this is a “hearing” way of thinking – i.e., looking for technology to make deaf people hear.
For most Deaf people, technology means things that will make a living as a Deaf person in a predominantly hearing culture more comfortable and available, e.g., flashing lights for door and phone, vibrating alarm clocks, TTYs, videophones.
Throughout history, Deaf people have devised ways to live as Deaf people. Even before we had modern technology, Deaf people found ways to change household items to suit them.
Deaf people also prefer or select unique environments – they often prefer open-plan houses with good sight-lines and round tables rather than rectangular. They always choose healthily, even lighting rather than soft lamps, candles, or flickering lights.
History
Deaf people are very proud of their heritage, which includes:
- Stories of how Deaf people have endured killing (e.g., in Nazi Germany)
- Efforts to “cure” them (e.g., the early 19 th century French doctor Jean-Marc Itard, who attempted a variety of bizarre cures on the pupils of the deaf school in Paris; and today’s cochlear implant)
- the suppression of sign language by hearing educators and its survival and growth underground
- Famous Deaf people, e.g., Blind-deaf American educator Helen Keller, Actress, author, and activist Marlee Matlin, model, actor, and deaf activist Nyle DiMarco, Deaf twins and lifestyle bloggers Hermon and Heroda Berhane, and more.
All these things, and many others, give Deaf people knowledge of their place in history – they hold a place in the world’s story that is uniquely theirs.
Deaf people who grow up separated from the Deaf community and later discover it also discover this sense of historical identity and belonging, and it becomes precious to them. This shared experience of isolation from the Deaf community is part of Deaf history.
Why do Deaf people have a different culture?
Cultures progress around people’s self-identity, i.e., their experiences and ideas about themselves and their place in the world. It is natural progress when people who share similar experiences and identities come together. Cultures gather strength when they are passed down over generations and are improving with historical knowledge.
Deaf people’s communication with other people and with the world around them is primarily visual. Deaf culture is basing on this optical adjustment.
Many people seem to believe that by separating Deaf people from each other, this Deaf cultural identity would not produce. But people appear to have a natural need to meet with others who are like them in some way and who accept them for who they are, and Deaf people are no different – sooner or later, they explore each other out. Ironically, the experience of isolation from the Deaf community and the Deaf culture becomes for many Deaf people one of the generally shared experiences and from one of the culture’s joining parts.
In a bilingual, two nations people
Deaf people who belong to the Deaf community are bilingual and bi-cultural. They use ASL in the Deaf community and English in the hearing community to different facility degrees. They live and work to varying degrees with hearing people in the hearing community and with Deaf people in the Deaf community. Although they often fight with discrimination, intolerance, and misunderstanding in the hearing culture and live rich and fulfilling social, sporting, and cultural lives within the Deaf culture, they continue to be part of both cultures.