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In his book, Ballin described his personal encounters with Bell in Paris, France, Rome, Italy, New York, and Washington, DC. Judging Bell’ s signing skills, Ballin wrote,“ Dr. Bell was a fluent talker on his fingers – as good as any deaf-mute – and could use his fingers and arms with bewitching grace and ease”( p. 41). In addition, Ballin was enthralled by his storytelling skills. He commented on his socialization with Bell,“ We touched on a great variety of subjects. To be exact I should say it was he who did the talking, and I the listening. He was a fascinating raconteur”( p. 43). What is a raconteur? Here is the definition that I am providing: A raconteur is“ a master artist who concentrates on the aesthetics of the story and the emotions it evokes in the listener”( Osman, 2012, p. 719). For someone who is a raconteur, his / her language has to be proficient and fluent.
At the same time, I am fully aware of Bell ' s views on deaf people, which are not positive. According to the historical accounts, Bell had attempted " to banish the sign language; to disperse the deaf and discourage their socializing, organizing, publishing, and marriage; to have deaf children educated in and use exclusively the majority language [ English ]”( Lane, 1984, p. 340). Ballin explained in his book that by the time Bell was proficient in ASL, he was already“ a confirmed pure oralist”( p. 41). Here is my question: What really happened to Bell? Learning a new language and being proficient takes time, dedication, and love. I can see in the picture that knowing ASL makes all the difference for Bell to communicate with Helen Keller( and many deaf people, including Ballin). If anything, Bell appears to be a very complicated man who overlooked what ASL had done for him.
References Ballin, A.( 1998). The deaf mute howls. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. Lane, H.( 1984). When the mind hears: A history of the deaf. New York, NY: Random House.
Lang, H. G., & Meath-Lang, B.( 1995). Deaf persons in the arts and sciences: A biographical dictionary. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Osman, S.( 2012). Raconteur. In C. A. Lindberg( Ed.), Oxford American writer’ s thesaurus( 3 rd ed., p. 719). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Van Cleve, J. V., & Crouch, B. A.( 1989). A place of their own: Creating the deaf community in America. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.
The Power of ASL 3 Winter 2016 – Issue 4