American Deaf Culture Essay

An Examination of German Deaf Culture and American Deaf Culture
Among most, if not all, cultures in the world there can be found a Deaf subculture. The Deaf community, while small, is widespread. Throughout this course we have talked at length about the many nuances of the American Deaf culture in particular, and how it is similar and sometimes very different from the hearing culture that most of us experience on a day-to-day basis. In the same way, American Deaf culture can be similar to, and different from other Deaf subcultures across the world. In this paper, I look to uncover the many resemblances and differences seen between American Deaf Culture and German Deaf Culture by analyzing three keystones of the Deaf world: cultural details, education, and sign language.
One very important aspect of both the American and German Deaf worlds is their strong aversion for being considered handicapped or disabled. Both cultures view their lack of hearing and how this affects their daily life not as an inconvenience, but rather as a different, yet equally productive way of living. Through this lens it is easy to see why terms such as “hearing impaired” or “taub” are thought of as derogatory to the deaf. Nonetheless, in America and Germany alike, deaf people are still considered legally, and

sometimes socially, disabled. In fact, it is by an act similar to the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, that deaf German’s obtain their legal rights. The Equalization of Disabled Persons Act, Behindertengleichstellungsgesetz, was formalized in 2002, and it is only due to this act that the deaf people of Germany are able to receive the assistance of an interpreter, and appropriate educational options (“Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities”). Socially, the deaf Germans emphasize many of the same things that deaf Americans and many other deaf people around the world do. For instance, deaf people everywhere prefer bluntness or “straight talk” in all conversation; nothing is off limits. This “straight talk” is important for building trust in one another and keeping each other informed. Similarly, because many members of the Deaf community attend residential schooling (68.25% in one study) much of Deaf culture is learned and passed on in the school setting (Schulteis, 2006). This is just one reason why attending Deaf schools is so highly valued in the Deaf community rather than mainstream education. Missing out on Deaf schooling could mean missing out on the ability to further cultivate a cultural identity. Furthermore, both deaf German and deaf American cultures have had to deal with great oppression over the past several centuries in their own ways. In America, arguably the largest form of oppression came in the form of forced oralism. Oralism became the “preferred” method for teaching deaf students by many educators, with it becoming the sole method as a result of the Milan Conference in 1880. Even today, oralism is a practice that can be found in both Germany and America, as well as across the world. While forced oralism was also present in Germany with the help of Samuel Heinicke, who is sometimes considered the father or oralism, the Holocaust is arguably the most atrocious examples of the oppression that deaf Germans have had to face. In Hitler’s aim to “purify” the human race, many people who he deemed disabled, including the deaf, were targeted. What started out as mass sterilization turned to “euthanasia” as the Nazi’s hoped to prevent the passing of deafness from parent to offspring (Sternin, 2010). In total, over 13,000 deaf Germans became victims to the horrors of the Holocaust (Owens, 2009). Taking all of these facts into account, it becomes easy to see that both Deaf German and Deaf American cultures have valued, dealt with, and overcome many similar things while still maintaining a separate sense of identity and history.
German and American deaf education have a lot in common as well. As we have learned, American deaf education began with the help of two men: Thomas Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc. Similarly, there are two very prominent figures in German deaf education: Samuel Heinicke and Abbe Charles Michael de I’Epee. Heinicke being the founder of the first deaf-mute school in Leipzig, Germany in 1778, and a strong believer in oralism, or “the German Method”; I’Epee advocating for better deaf-educational methods, specifically a combined method of learning, utilizing sign, oral and written forms of language (Moores, Donald, and Miller, 2009). Oralism was the predominate mode of education in the beginning of Deaf-education in Germany, partially as a result of the countries strong belief in nationalism which included “linguistic unity” (Moores, Donald, and Miller, 2009). To have this linguistic unity it was important for the deaf Germans to be a part of the spoken German language. Despite roughly a 4% success rate, oralism is still very much part of the German Deaf community today (Fan, 2016). This is evinced through a study done by Marion Schulteis in 2006 which indicated that 90.48% of its participants had received some form of speech training. Because only 4% of the aforementioned participants took part in mainstream schooling, this suggests a strong presence of oralism in the deaf school systems today. The approach utilized by the Germans is comparable to that used in America were 75.7% of students are mainstreamed and taught using mostly simultaneous communication, or SimCom (Hill, 2012). Presently, both communities also advocate for and incorporate the bilingual-bicultural, or bi-bi, methodology for education. This system allows for deaf students to embrace their Deaf community, yet be able to communicate with a largely hearing world through their native language. They are taught their respective sign language as their first language, but also taught the written language of their country as a secondary language. The use of bi-bi allows the Deaf community in both Germany and America to have more opportunities available to them without compromising their cultural identity. In summary, the foundation of deaf education in both countries are comparable in their similar beginnings, and their similar approaches.
German sign language, called Deutsche Gebärdensprache or DGS, is formatted and functions very similarly to American sign language, ASL. In fact, the language utilizes the same subject-object-verb layout and a similar finger spelled alphabet with additional characters added to accommodate the extended German alphabet. DGS has existed for a significant amount of time, yet has only just become recognized and accepted as an actual language as of 2002 (Schulteis, 2006). This recent acceptance and a lack of standardization committee has resulted in a shortage of formalized grammar rules that can be used to learn the language without immersion (Herrmann, 2013). This knowledge can shed light on some statistics indicating that 90.48% of participants in one study utilized sign language as their primary way of communicating, but 64.52% still used speech regularly (Schulteis, 2006). Before the time of DGS’s acceptance, spoken language was more or less forced upon members of the deaf community either by law or by precedence. While the American Deaf community has faced similar pressure to use speech, most members today do not utilize it regularly unless necessary. In fact, the majority of the Deaf community often looks to disassociate itself from spoken language in general.
After analyzing the rich cultural, educational, and linguistic history of both German and American Deaf communities, many parallels have come to light.

Through this analysis and the increasing amount of similarities it becomes easy to see the collectivist mentality of the Deaf world as a whole. The beliefs of one deaf subculture do not seem to vary widely from one to the next and whatever one subculture of the close-knit Deaf community faces, many others have surely faced or will face in their own time. This has resulted in a German Deaf culture and the American Deaf culture that have developed convergently, rather than divergently, without compromising their own

subculture.