Shifting Perception of Deafness: Deaf Culture and Deaf Gain

Mary Ann Lippitt did not want her deaf daughter, Jeanie, to go to a Deaf school where students learned to sign, because she worried that Jeanie would “go through life flipping her fingers to make herself understood” (Soules 2024). While this reflected her deep care for Jeanie’s future, it was also rooted in a discriminatory perspective against Deaf people and their natural language.

How much do you know about deafness? How are sign languages different from “flipping fingers”? How did the term “Deaf” extend beyond a pathology label to a cultural identity? In this post, I want to share some quick facts about Deaf culture to illustrate that it is an asset to human diversity.

Sign Languages

This image illustrates relationships between the origins of some of the sign languages around the world. To see the info-graphic in detail visit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Relationships_between_the_manual_alphabets_of_sign_languages.png. Power, Justin M.; Grimm, Guido W.; List, Johann-Mattis., CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>

Sign languages are the natural language of Deaf people, given their reliance on visual communication. Today, there are more than 300 different sign languages in the world, used by more than 72 million people (National Geographic Society 2024). Sign languages are not universal; just like spoken languages, they are specific to the communities that use and develop them.

In North America, Deaf communities most commonly use American Sign Language (ASL). It’s not a “signed version” of spoken English. Instead, it’s an independent language with its own genealogy, vocabulary, and syntax. As other languages are crucial to their community and culture, ASL is also a crucial part of Deaf culture.

Deaf Culture and Deaf Gain

In the 1970s, Deaf people began to shift the public perception of deafness, by promoting “Deaf” as a cultural-linguistic identity beyond a medical label of auditory status. The culture of Deaf people includes sign language and shared beliefs, values, customs, and experiences. But not all deaf people identify as culturally Deaf, as some of them primarily interact with hearing communities. Culturally Deaf people also come from varying backgrounds, including individuals who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, late-deafened, and DeafBlind, as well as hearing members in Deaf families (Leigh et al. 2022).

Sign Language: friend, by R.A. Olea, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drawing_%28sign_language_friend%29,_2008.jpg

In Deaf culture, the idea of “Deaf gain” emerged as a counternarrative to “hearing loss," highlighting the value of Deaf experience and how it contributes to the biocultural diversity of human society (Bauman and Murray 2012). ASL has become the third most popular language taught in higher education and is rising in popularity in US high school classrooms (Cordano 2022). Other examples of Deaf gain include enhanced visual-spatial cognition, inclusive architectural design, transnational Deaf community building, and many more.

This photo shows a mural created by a Deaf artist in the Starbucks Signing Store in Washington, D.C. This is a coffee shop where ASL is the primary language. It is designed as an inclusive and accessible space for ASL users, whether they are Deaf, Hard of Hearing, or hearing. Fulmer, David Paul, “Starbucks: Deaf artist made this” CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, https://www.flickr.com/photos/daveynin/47989954497/in/photostream/

Thanks to the hard work of Deaf activists and allies, public perception of deafness has shifted significantly from Jeanie’s lifetime to our current day. However, it is still an uphill battle to fight for equity and justice for Deaf people.

In the next blog post, we will discuss the legacy of oralism on Deaf communities, including language deprivation, systemic oppression, and eugenics.

Click #DeafEducation to find all the posts #446688in this series.

Guest blogger: Irene Zhiyi Chen A.B. Candidate ’25 Theatre Arts and Performance Studies and Education Studies, Brown University

References

Bauman, H-Dirksen L. and Murray, Joseph J. 2012. “Deaf Studies in the 21st Century: “Deaf-gain” and the Future of Human Diversity.” In The Oxford Handbook of Deaf Studies, Language, and Education, Vol. 2, edited by Marc Marschark and Patricia Elizabeth Spencer. Oxford Library of Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195390032.013.0014

Cordano, Roberta. 2022. “How Sign Language is Driving a Multi-billion Dollar Inclusive Economy.” Gallaudet University, September 23. https://gallaudet.edu/president/how-sign-language-is-driving-a-multi-billion-dollar-inclusive-economy/.

Leigh, Irene W., et al. Deaf Culture: Exploring Deaf Communities in the United States. Second edition. Plural Publishing, 2022.

National Geographic Society. 2024. “Encyclopedic Entry: Sign Language.” National Geographic Education, last modified April 10. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/sign-language/.

Soules, Rebecca. “Her Mother’s Triumph: Jeanie Lippitt Weeden.” Rhode Tour, accessed on August 15, 2024. https://rhodetour.org/items/show/2