teaching Deaf children. While working on a project, one will often choose a tool to use for a specific
task, and tools that are not accomplishing the job are typically switched out in favor of others that will
better do the job. In this vein, ASL has been painted as a tool to be used only when the Oralists’
preferred tool, oral language (in this case, English), is found not to be accomplishing the job it was
supposed to do. In so doing, the Oralists have managed to keep the conversation centered on
modalities and methods (all of which have revolved around oral languages such as English), rather
than language acquisition per se. Reducing ASL to the status of ‘tool’ through marginalizing words
such as use makes it easier for audists (of which Oralists are a subspecies) to depict ASL as a
‘communicative choice’; one tool among many in the “toolbox” from which parents and educators can
select at their own discretion. Yet, as many of us have come to understand, modalities and methods
(such as signed English, Cued Speech, Visual Phonics, and Rochester Method) are not, and should
not be, equated with language, of which ASL is an example.
Consequently, if we re-appropriate the word speak in connection with ASL, we stop playing the
audist game, and start playing by our rules instead. That is, by taking away their power to control
language and how English-speaking people think about Deaf people and their signed languages
through their word choices, we can begin to control the conversation by reinforcing a view of our
signed languages as ‘true and natural language’, rather than as a ‘tool’ or a ‘choice’. We can begin to
put an end to our inadvertent reinforcement of the audist message that ASL is ‘different’ or ‘alien’
through our acceptance of the othering word, use. That is, I believe that society, filled as it is with
hearing people who do not know any ASL (or other signed languages), need to see the word speak
associated with ASL (and other signed languages). Imagine the transformation that could occur in the
public mind regarding Deaf people and their signed languages, if they routinely hear about how all
Deaf children need to learn to speak signed languages such as ASL. No longer would ASL be
‘othered’ by being ‘used’. This simple word, speak is fraught with meaning, and yet, at its root, means
simply that people have feelings and information to share. It is imperative to stress that regardless of
modality, Deaf people are no different from hearing people in terms of having feelings and information
to share.
Yes, it initially feels weird to, in English, read, write or say “I speak ASL”. A lifetime of habits
and associations of the word speak has taught us to constrain our signed language within a very
specific (and ‘othered’) box. However, bad habits can be broken and false associations can be
unlearned. I, and a number of people I know, have stopped using ASL, and I, personally, find it quite
liberating to now say, in English, I speak ASL. I hope that more of us will join me in this liberation of
ASL, to remove it from the constraints of the cluttered ‘toolbox’ that our language has been carelessly
thrown into.
Reference:
Lexico.
(n.d.)
Definition
of
speak
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/speak on July 11, 2019.
The Power of ASL
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