The Secret Deafie: English privilege in the Deaf community (with BSL video)

“On an inter-related point, I often get challenged when I tell people that speaking and signing at the same time isn’t BSL. I was given all sorts of names such as ‘BSL militant’, ‘BSL police’, ‘old fashioned’, ‘oppressing BSL’ (this one I never understood) and also accused of ‘damaging people’s confidence. All this simply because I wanted to highlight the difference between English and BSL. Those who have given me these names have access to English in a way that many D/deaf people don’t.”

And this, right there, is the best clue as to what is going on here.

Those who have given you those names *have been denied access to BSL in a way that many D/deaf people have not.*

Looking down your nose at a Deaf person’s use of BSL because they have been oppressed by oralism is an equal matter for shame here.

You want things to get better? Stop it. Treat those scarred by oralism as equal members of the deaf community and do not presume to criticise their BSL.

Then maybe, the respect will be reciprocated and others will demand that good BSL standards are in place for those who do not have English language privilege.

I agree with the Editor: a public information needs to be presented in the quality as best as possible. “Don’t criticize, it is better than nothing”, was acceptable or necessary in the beginning phase of accepting BSL (ASL, LSF, DGS, etc) as our Mother Tongue, and defining and developing the courage to present it publicly. But its time has gone. We are entering another phase, the one after recognition of it by the Deaf Community and outside. We need to demonstrate first what is genuine Deaf Signed Language (original, primeval, natural, the Ursprache of all languages (German conception of the very first language of mankind), etc.). The presentation of our thoughts, dreams, art, and literature ought to be in such a quality. Deaf people who were victims of the oralist suppression of their acquisition of a first language need exposure to language models. Hearing Britons learning BSL as a foreign language also need a lot of language samples to learn the material uncontaminated of English as well as late deafened individuals, learning to become deaf as part of therapy.

Interesting that the critics are doing it based on “English Privilege”, whatever the Deaf type of it is. The ease of falling back on English whenever the signed presentation is not great (unconsciously). I agree with the existence of this phenomenon. I would regard it as a “habit” of bilinguals, wanting to see how the thought is presented in the other language, kind out of curiosity. “falling back into the more proficient language” and “curiosity of bilinguals”.

Now, due to COVID pandemic, signed language increased its public recognition as rarely seen before. All of sudden, they wanted the interpretation to be in the best-possible qualitaet. No longer is the signer visible in a tiny box in the lower corner of the screen, but he stands next to a hearing speakers, occupying 1/4 to 1/3 of the screen’s width. The signer is a Deaf fluent and trained as well as coached by a sign master 80% of the time, depending on the availability of Deaf interpreters. This is happening almost everywhere in the US. They now got their daily bread and butter (as transliterated from an ASL idiom) … until the pandemic subsidizes.. Just hope there will be a carry-over, and more Deaf fluent signers get trained by watching good translation work.

Well, imperfect signing continues popping up on Facebook and YouTube. We just bear it and groan and provide occasional feedback. Just hoping they learn from the Master Signers and improve their videos, not only in signing but also in content and quality of thought development, argumentation, public speaking etc. like you get it in your essays in college English classes. IT IS TIME TO DO QUALITY WORK ! The editor is a pioneer in this effort, just watch the Four Deaf Yorkshiremen videos. Also I admire the quality of BSL in the BSL-Zone films.

You need to develop a line to conter this defeatist talk. I suggest, use the industry standard of quality in acoustics. They employ ten acousticians and expensive hardware and filtering software for each show to make the sound PERFECT, HI-FIDELITY, NOISELESS, etc. Why not employ ten signers for each TV show to make the signing presentation perfect! That is not all, we also need to develop an infrastructure to foster quality products using a Deaf signed language.