*This mean was significantly different from the others on the same measure

The results of these assessments need to be interpreted cautiously. At first glance, these results would argue against the use of technology in the classroom; however, given the complications associated with the execution of the various technical elements of the present project, that conclusion could not be satisfactorily maintained. A more reasoned argument would suggest that there was simply not enough time in both the preparation and execution phases to successfully examine the efficacy of the web modules in this setting.

As with all pedagogical innovation, there is a period of adjustment for educators and not all instructors will acquire new skills at the same rate. In the present project, one team member had been using WebCT for six years and was highly proficient in its use. Another team member discovered that once his horizons had been broadened through training, he began to envision a multitude of possibilities for his teaching and acted upon them. Another was fascinated by the new technology and persisted in learning, but slow to master the techniques. The last member of the group was enthusiastic and supportive of the project, but was overwhelmed and intimidated by the technology in spite of the training and support. Given these differing levels of initial skill level and rate of learning, one semester of training and one semester of implementation was inadequate to see any real effects on the part of technology.

Instructors who are using technology for the first time in the classroom need to do a great deal of preparation in order to put those skills on display in a classroom with confidence and consistency. Moreover, while an instructor is becoming proficient in a particular technique or technology, s/he needs to continually determine the balance between how much and what type of information can be effectively and efficiently communicated through the assistance of technology. Thus, time is also needed to explore these new opportunities and to find an optimal level of technological support.

In the end, each institution needs to explore the best means of incorporating technology in teaching based on available skills and resources. It may be that many basic elements of classroom teaching may indeed be as effective as or even more effective than technologically enhanced instruction; however, the experiences of the team members in the project, coupled with the assessment results presented above, indicate the need of all participants to achieve a fundamental level of skill at and comfort with administering the technology before even that initial assessment can be made. Overall, the advice here is to explore the advantages that technology-enhanced learning can provide, but to incorporate assessment measures that provide feedback regarding the effectiveness of the information, and be mindful of the limitations that can present obstacles to implementing these techniques.

Regarding the limitations of the present study, it can be said that the team members’ differences in their familiarity with various aspects of computer technology was not taken into adequate consideration from the outset of the study. Also lacking was an understanding of their levels of comfort in designing and implementing web-based course materials. The team members’ differing abilities to adapt to and acquire these skills in a short period of time were similarly overlooked. Finally, unknown were the challenges that these differences in levels of both technological skill and comfort with technology would present in carrying out the project as intended. These issues are significant in that they clearly remind us that the potential of technology as a tool for teaching introductory linguistics courses is very much subject to the technological competence of the instructor putting these tools into practice.

In this respect, the challenges faced by the team members in this project were representative of those encountered by many departments offering linguistics courses. Instructors, while unquestionably competent in their content knowledge, have different needs, abilities and insecurities with respect to technology and its applications to the classroom. Thus, while some instructors may be willing to try new pedagogical techniques, they can struggle to implement such strategies when pushed beyond their level of comfort. Therefore, while many departments may wish to rush to the use of technology, the knowledge gained from our project suggests that a slower paced approach, emphasizing the professional development of technology-based pedagogical skills is warranted.

Lastly, although the implementation of the project varied slightly from our original goals, the study was nonetheless fruitful in a number of ways. First, it facilitated the necessary discussion of the alignment of curriculum across sections of the same course. Secondly, it provided an opportunity for both adjunct and tenure track faculty to collaborate on the development of tools and content to realize such an alignment. Thirdly, the work on the project increased, to differing degrees, the technological skill levels of each of the team members. Thus, aside from examining aspects of technology, the project served as a means of strengthening bonds between colleagues and establishing consistency and cohesion in the course curriculum.

In sum, examining the impact of new technologies on teaching linguistics is essential to determine which tools are valuable and how they can best be used in a classroom. The present project, as originally proposed, did seek to examine the efficacy of such tools. In the end, however, the value of the study was not found in the results, but rather in the process of arriving at them.
References:
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Fart, piss, shit, cock, fuck, and cunt. The Big Six. Throughout time these have been the most offensive words a person could utter, along with a slew of religious based words and derivatives of the above six. Whether it’s a release of anger, an insult, a physical condition, or a method of establishing social solidarity or distance, cursing is an intricate part of language that has largely been ignored and avoided by researchers for hundreds of years. Due to its complicated social position and its primarily oral tradition, it is hard to trace the origin of many expletives. For some, swear words assume an almost mystical power and are highly prohibited, while others have no qualms using them.

This paper is intended to be an overview of the history, social factors, and prevailing theory in the realm of swearing. In order to avoid repetition, the terms cursing, cussing, swearing, profanity, obscenity, taboo, expletives, epithets, and vulgarity will be used interchangeably, despite the distinguishing characteristics that differentiate them.

The history of curse words is debatable and extremely complex. This is primarily due to the fact that obscenities are mainly an oral phenomenon, and were rarely written or permitted to be published. The actual concept of a swear word is based on the gravity that ancient cultures placed on cursing by the name of a god, which was done to evidence that the speaker was telling the truth (Angier, 2005). If the swearer used the god’s name falsely, it was believed that the wrath of said god would fall upon him or her. Although swearing still exists today, it is rarely done by someone or something, except in court, and typically done to or at someone or something (Hughes, 1998).

The origin of most foul four letter words is Anglo-Saxon, a tongue known for favoring pithy language (Adams, 1963). Even today, the words of Anglo-Saxon origin are considered crude, when compared with their counterpart descendant of Norman-French (refined) or Latin/Greek (scholarly or technical). Some examples are: piss/urinate, shit/defecate, and fuck/copulate (Hughes, 2000).

During the Middle Ages, profanity was considered to be a part of speech and was permitted to be written and was encouraged in swearing matches, then known as flyting (Hughes, 2000). In the 16^th century, King Henry VIII was the first European monarch to implement censorship laws, which resulted in a list of banned books in 1529. This led to the founding of the Master of the Revels, who was in charge of evaluating and pre-approving plays. Any obscene slip of the tongue while onstage would result in fines; so to avoid that, playwrights created new euphemisms and ingenious word-plays so that the desired idea could still be expressed while circumventing language prohibitions. One such example is Shakespeare’s title Much Ado about Nothing, which is alleged to be a word play on Much Ado about an O thing, in which the latter portion of the title is a euphemism for cunt.

During the late 1500s, the use of euphemisms became even more fashionable, due to the Puritan influence on the language. It was during this period that words phonetically similar to curse words also began to change. For example, the word ass (used only to refer to a donkey) was replaced by the word donkey, due to it’s similarity with the word arse. The same process caused the substitution of the word rabbit for cunny, which was a slang term for cunt, and the preference for rooster, instead of cock. Once this happens, any other related words are liable to change, such as haycock→ haystack, weathercock→ weathervane, or a general drop, such as cockroach→ roach (Burridge, 2004). Burridge offers this as an example of “Gresham’s Law of Semantic Change,” in which the bad connotation expels any other meaning. This often accompanies a narrowing of meaning so that once a taboo significance becomes attached to a word; it dominates, as with erection and ejaculation.

Society is cyclical and language is a reflection of society, so it is no surprise that during the Enlightenment period (18^th century) there was an influx of extreme decadence and licentiousness in both society and language. Although no standard dictionary between 1728 and 1963 contained fuck or cunt, Hughes states that the words clearly existed and were printed in underground pornography and in published slang compilations like the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785). This is also the time period when asterisks were implemented in print, to avoid printing an actual curse word (Hughes, 1998).

According to Dr. Guy Deutscher, a linguist and author of The Unfolding of Language, what is considered taboo in a specific language is typically a reflection of that culture’s own fears and hang-ups, such as sex, religion, and bodily functions (2005). The intensity of these terms and societal significance are susceptible to change, as can be seen by the following list of obscenities from particular time periods:

1300

Strumpet- a prostitute

Wretch- an exile

Scullion- servant of the lowest class
1500

Punk- a prostitute

Jove- God
1600

Zounds- God’s wounds

Gadzooks- God’s hooks

Sfoot- to have sex

Gosh- God

Molly- homosexual

Heck- hell

Jiminy Crickets- Jesus

Shucks- darn
1900

Zerk- jerk

Meddle- to have sex
What’s interesting is that over hundreds of years, the euphemisms come and go but the words themselves (shit, fuck, cunt, God, etc) have only suffered minor orthographic changes. For example, in the 1700’s golly was a blasphemous term that combined God’s and body but today is considered to be “comically wholesome” (Angier). The following euphemism diagram illustrates this point (Hughes, 2000):
In general, the longer the word has been around, the more offensive it is. Stink has existed since the 8^th century, smell since the 12^th, and scent since the 15^th. The same can be seen with terms referring to Black people: African American>Black>Negro>Colored (Burridge, 2004).

For most Americans, fuck or cunt is considered to be the worst word one could possibly utter. According to Spears, fuck has been in use since the early 1500’s, and possibly sooner. It most likely derives from the German word ficken, which means “to strike” (1982). This is hard to determine accurately, however, due to its intense taboo-ness which prevented it from being recorded and, therefore, it is often claimed to come from the French word foutre or is thought to be an acronym for “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge” or “Fornication Under the Consent of the King.”

The origin of cunt is also unclear. Its first record appears in Middle English around 1200, in the London street name “Gropecuntlane,” although at the time there also existed streets called “Pissing Alley” and “Shitteborwelane” (Hughes, 1998). Despite being a four letter word, it’s not certain that this vulgarity is of Germanic descent. It is most likely a derivative of the Latin word cunnus, which has relatives in French (con), Italian (conno), and Spanish (coño). It’s entry in the Dictionary of Slang and Euphemism describes it as the most “elaborately avoided word in the English language” (Spears, 1982).

Throughout history and even now, there is one recurring culprit involved in the abstraction of profanity: society. Society determines which subjects, and therefore relating terminology, are taboo, and to what intense degree. Overtime, as society preoccupies itself with different issues, what is considered forbidden language also changes. In the past, it has been religious based words that did the most damage but today, studies show that the most offensive obscenities are those related to sex and race (Hughes, 2000). For example, there are legal ramifications for the use of the word nigger or cunt in the media, but no one blinks an eye if someone is called a devil or exclaims “My God!” This explains why the elderly are more offended by religious and/or sexual epithets but young people are highly sensitive to racial slurs (Burridge, 2004). What’s even more interesting, as pointed out by Spears, is that society’s most egregious taboos, such as cannibalism and incest, have no swear words or euphemisms at all (1982). In addition to determining the prohibition of words, society also decides which words are appropriate in specific contexts. Words that are acceptable among friends in a private setting may be reprehensible in a public environment. There is a direct correlation between the intensity of a taboo in verbal practice and the degree of an actual occurrence of that taboo in public (Hughes, 1998). The act of farting or pissing is barely socially permissible, as is the word, whereas the act of shitting or fucking is completely unacceptable in public, as is the word itself.

In terms of spreading society’s norms and perceptions, the most influential outlet is the media. This includes radio, television, internet, movies, video/audio recordings, and phone services (Jay, 1992). Despite the freedom of speech that is constitutionally guaranteed to all citizens, speech emitting from these outlets is subject to censorship laws. Of the four types of speech restricted by the government (obscene speech, defaming or libelous speech, fighting words, and that which imposes an imminent danger), obscene speech is considered the most severe and common. During the 1800s, there were few laws concerning profane language and even less enforcement of said laws. It was not until 1957 (Roth vs. US) that most language restricting laws went into effect, many of which resulted from the power of the Catholic Church. In the late 1960s, a rating system for films was implemented and since that time, there has been an increase in the general explicitness portrayed.

It is no secret that language embodies gender biases and forbidden language is no different. Research has not conclusively determined if society influences language or if it’s the other way around, with respect to sexist language. Studies have shown that males are more likely to cuss than females (Jay, 1992) but that both sexes show increased profanity when accompanied by members of the same sex. Investigators have also found that men and women are affected differently by words; or, that the most offensive words for men are different from those most objectionable to women. For men, motherfucker, homosexual terms (queer, fag, homo, cocksucker), effeminate words (pussy, sissy, douche bag), and those that indicate some type of social ineptness (bastard, prick, son of a bitch) are the most abhorrent. On the contrary, women are most insulted by terms suggesting sexual looseness (cunt, slut, whore) or their semantic opposites (tease, cockteaser), social deviance (bitch), and female homosexuality (dyke, butch, lesbo). Interestingly, some

terms are only directed at men (prick, fag) and others (whore, bitch) are primarily intended for women. Also, terms referring to the male body, like prick, are normally only directed towards males while words associated with female body parts, like pussy and sissy, can be directed towards males and are more potent when done so. Dr. Jay (1992) breaks down the severity of offense even further by gender of addresser and addressee:

Male to male: homosexual terms

Male to female: cunt

Female to female: bitch

Female to male: bastard, prick

Psychologists claim that this is a reflection of the differences in the way men and women view the world; women are concerned with intimacy, social desirability, and security, while men focus on sex, power, and physical attractiveness.

So why do people curse? Dr. Timothy Jay is the leading researcher in this specific area of language. According to him, the underlying reason is because cuss words provide an intensity that other words cannot achieve (1999). The primary function of cussing is to express emotion, whether it is anger, frustration, joy, or surprise and this may occur at the automatic or voluntary level. Among these feelings, anger is the typically the cause of the expletive and involves various factors, such as the severity of the event, relationship with offender, race, physical appearance, etc. He says that swearing follows its own grammar, which is something learned very early in life, usually through negative reinforcement, and appears in children as early as language itself appears. Since children acquire vulgarities like any other linguistic component, they must be taught what is inappropriate by their family or society.

Although foul language is often a choice made in voluntary speech such as jokes, insults, and sarcasm, there are occurrences of taboo language that are beyond the speaker’s control. For example, through repetitive use, a word can become a conditioned response that speaker has automaticized. Another less common form of uncontrollable profanity is the outcome of a physiological disorder. Although Tourette Syndrome (TS) is normally associated with this topic, only a small percentage of its sufferers actually exhibit coprolalia—or, uncontrollable cursing (Jay, 1999). Among those who do manifest coprolalia, each has their own individualized set of forbidden words. This is a reflection of the individual’s personal history, culture, and psychology and also appears in the deaf community. Aside from TS, there are types of aphasia in which the brain becomes damaged and the speaker can only utter obscenities. Additionally, Jay says Alzheimer Disease, OCD, epilepsy, retardation, and Schizophrenia patients demonstrate various degrees of coprolalia or abnormal voluntary swearing.

Dr. Jay views the study of cursing as the study of human behavior and thought, since it’s not the word itself causing the problem, but the behavior of the speaker (1999). In an attempt to uncover and explain the reason behind this action, he is the first to offer a theory, the NPS Theory, which is a three dimensional model. The N refers to neurological factors contributing to cursing, including brain systems, brain activity, emotional responses, and physical conditions. The P represents the psychological aspects of swearing; such as the linguistic/semantic system, personal variables (personality, religion, social rewards, age, etc), psychological development within a certain culture, and personal habits. The S encapsulates the social-cultural factors involved, like tabooness, gender roles, power, humor, context-appropriateness, offensiveness, and information on specific words. These three systems work together; however, one may dominate the other two. For example, with Touretters, the neurological system is in control but when someone tells a dirty joke, all three systems are working together equally. According to him, cussing is never random or meaningless. It follows grammatical rules and relates a specific meaning. Since language cannot be separated from society or its speaker, the only way to thoroughly examine the behavior behind it is to take into account his or her cerebral activity, individual characteristics, and the social context in which this person exists, and that is why the NPS Theory is so comprehensive.

So why do people cuss? The bottom line is that humans have strong emotions which require equally strong words to express them precisely. Crap does not have the same meaning, nor does it incite the same reaction in the listener, as shit. Physiologically, the brain responds to an emotion (voluntary or automatically) and draws words from an emotionally charged lexicon module that contains curse words embedded within a semantic neural network (Jay, 1999). For every instance of swearing, neurological, psychological, and socio-cultural issues come in to play, like whether or not it is an automated response, the genetics or childhood of the speaker, and the taboos of his or her society.

So why do we use the words that we use? There are a variety of reasons, but it is primarily based on exposure. People repeat what they frequently hear. Another reason is social; we use words that society has prescribed for specific situations. It is socially understandable if someone yells shit when stubbing a toe, but yelling cunt in that same situation would be strange. People also choose certain words based on meaning, grammar, and the effect that it will have on the listener. What is interesting is that the same words can be used to elicit humor or anger, depending on the audience and the situation (Jay, 1999).

It is clear that American English obscenities have lived a long and complicated existence. Even to this day, many vulgarities and racial epithets are not included in dictionaries or other texts and until the 1900s, were not even considered language at all (Jay, 1999). Historically, cursing and blasphemes were used for shock effect in the Victorian period, which gave way to obscenity and scatology by WW I, and has now been replaced by racial slurs (Jay, 1992). The language shift from the religious to the secular is a reflection of the shifts taking place within society, and not everyone is onboard, as proven by McCoy when she wrote “Profanity bespeaks a dearth of vocabulary…[it] destroys dreams and wrecks wonder in the human heart” (1978).

Dr. Timothy Jay has offered his NPS Theory as a way to understand, analyze, and predict cursing, which results from the interplay of neurological, psychological, and social-cultural systems within each individual. Until these three dimensions are better understood, the actual act of cussing may remain a mystery. Despite its tumultuous history, it is evident that whether done voluntarily or uncontrollably, a curse word conveys a precise meaning that no other word can match, all the while abiding the language’s grammatical parameters.

References:

Rinehart, & Winston.

Angier, N. (2005, September 20). Almost before we spoke, we swore.

The New York Times, p. F1.

Burridge, K. (2004). Blooming English: Observations on the roots,

UK: University Press.

Deutscher, G. (2005). The unfolding of language: An evolutionary

tour of mankind’s greatest invention.NY: Henry Holt and

Co., LLC.

Hughes, G. (1998). Swearing. NY: Penguin.

Hughes, G. (2000). A history of English words. Malden, MA:

Blackwell.

Jay, T. (1992). Cursing in America: A psycholinguistic study of dirty

Jay, T. (1999). Why we curse: A neuro-psycho-social theory of

McCoy, D. (1978). In words we trust. The English Journal, 67 (5), 20.

Spears, R. A. (1982). Slang and euphemism: A dictionary of oaths,

curses, insults, sexual slang and metaphor, racial slurs, drug

talk, homosexual lingo, and related matters. NY: Jonathan

David Publishers.

Deaf students as a language minority:

Language policies and attitudes towards bilingual education

The study of bilingual education and its effects on student populations of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds has been prominent in the field of linguistics for a number of years. Despite overwhelmingly positive findings regarding the achievements of bilingually educated language minority children as opposed to those instructed solely in the language of the majority culture, bilingual education continues to be faced with numerous bureaucratic and political hurdles. Language policies are often born from erroneous or outdated conceptions of bilingualism, rather than based on conclusive research. Recent political developments in the United States, such as the passing of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in 2001, have focused researchers’ attention once again on the effects of various types of bilingualism and bilingual education on students’ development, as well as the impact political decisions like NCLB have on the maintenance of bilingual programs (Romero Little & McCarty, 2006; Wright, 2005). Research from other countries is also frequently cited as relevant additions to the study of the effects of bilingual education (Helmberger, 2006; Hornberger, 1987; King & Benson, 2004; Tsui, 2004; Viash, 2005). All of these studies focus on children of ethnic or cultural backgrounds that differ from the majority population. All of these accounts present evidence for greater success in an academic environment if the children are taught in their native language rather than forced to interact in the language of the majority culture.

However, one group of students is rarely addressed in the literature on bilingual education: deaf children share a number of characteristics with language minority children but are often not included in studies addressing the needs and abilities of bilingual students. With deafness being seen as a disability and deaf people, therefore, being widely regarded as disabled rather than as belonging to a community with a culture and language of its own, viewing deaf education as a branch of special education is widespread and, to some extent, justified. However, there are also some arguments for including deaf children in the category of learners of English as a second language (ESL), which will be presented in this paper. Relevant literature on bilingual education models in the context of deaf education will be reviewed and supplemented with some examples of language policies evident in the online self-portrayals of selected schools for the deaf.
2. Deaf education in the United States

Before delving deeper into the issue of whether deaf students should be considered a language minority and how this might be reflected in the language policies adopted by schools for the deaf, it seems advisable to provide some background information about the deaf education system prevalent in the United States. Briefly stated, there are three ways in which deaf children are typically educated: schools for the deaf, special programs for the deaf within mainstream education, and full mainstreaming. Schools for the deaf and full mainstreaming are the two prevalent means of education, with schools for the deaf slowly losing ground to mainstreaming (Mitchell & Karchmer, 2006). While the traditional approach to deaf education consisted of gathering large numbers of deaf students in residential schools, where they could interact freely with their peers using American Sign Language (ASL), more and more parents now opt for mainstreaming their deaf children in hopes of providing them with a better chance of succeeding in later life and of being fully integrated into society. Technological advances in hearing aid technology as well as in the field of cochlear implant (CI) surgery contribute to this trend in that many parents see this as a chance to enable their children to hear better and therefore choose mainstream education to make sure they develop their full potential in a hearing and speaking world.

The increase in mainstreamed education leads to a much broader distribution of deaf students throughout the United States. Without the ‘accumulating’ effect of residential schools for the deaf, students are placed in regular schools in their school district, which often results in only one to three deaf students attending a given school (Mitchell & Karchmer, 2006). Since separate programs like the ones found for many other groups of ESL learners are virtually impossible to establish for such small numbers of students, the issue of bilingual education can hardly be addressed in the context of mainstream education. While some students may rely on the presence of an interpreter, most are expected to follow the content of the classes independently and instruction in ASL is typically not provided. The issue of bilingual education, therefore, can be examined best in the context of deaf education in specialized schools for the deaf. Having been the dominant form of deaf education since the early beginnings of formal instruction of the deaf, which in the United States was marked by the founding of the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut in 1817, schools for the deaf have traditionally been the primary focus of research on deaf education and the effects of different language and teaching policies.

One of the primary educational goals in instructing deaf students has always been the development of literacy in the language of the majority culture (Power & Leigh, 2000). In the United States, therefore, this emphasis has been on teaching deaf students to become fluent readers and writers of English. In an effort to compensate for the students’ inability to hear and their difficulties in learning to speak which directly result from this, literacy development is generally seen as the ultimate goal to allow students to participate in a hearing society. The means to reach this goal, i.e. the instructional methods chosen by the schools have varied over the years. While deaf education in the United States started out using ASL as the language of instruction, the effects of the Milan conference in 1880, in which oral instruction was deemed most effective by an international group of educators of the deaf, would soon change this educational climate to one where instruction took place entirely in English. However, ASL continued to provide the basis of communication among students outside the classroom, where the residential design of the schools made it possible for children to converse more or less freely with their peers, thus keeping the language alive and passing it on to younger students.

In the course of the 20^th Century, the ban on sign language use in the classroom gradually started to be lifted by introducing various forms of sign systems and, on occasion, even ASL, into the curriculum. Examples of such alternative sign systems are various forms of Signing/Seeing Exact English (SEE), which takes ASL-based signs and adapts them to English grammar and word order by adding English morphology such as ‘-ing’ or the plural ‘-s’, and Cued Speech, which uses eight distinct hand shapes in combination with mouth movements to help students differentiate between the sounds of spoken English. Popular communication models used by many schools are the ‘Total Communication’ (TC) or the ‘Simultaneous Communication’ (SimCom) approaches. TC is the most vague in that it supposedly encompasses all forms of language use including oral English, pure ASL, as well as various artificial sign systems, depending entirely on the language needs of each individual child. SimCom refers to the simultaneous production of ASL and speech, and is widely used in instructional settings even in institutions like Gallaudet University, where ASL is supposedly the language of general communication. It is very difficult, if not virtually impossible, to utter two completely different languages at the same time without losing some information in one of the two, which invariably leads to a lot of ASL information being lost when the speaker is a hearing person (e.g. the instructor).

Regardless of the method of instruction, one of the primary goals of deaf education remains the fostering of English literacy. It has been shown that deaf students’ achievements in this area have traditionally been and continue to be significantly lower than those of their hearing peers (Akamatsu, Stewart, & Mayer, 2002; Cawthon, 2004; Singleton et al., 2004). However, high proficiency in ASL has been found to have a positive effect on literacy development (Prinz & Strong, 1998; Singleton et al., 2004). This reflects findings from other studies on literacy and second language (L2) development of language minority children instructed in their native language (L1) (Helmberger, 2006; Hornberger, 1987), insofar as a strong foundation in the native language facilitates the acquisition of an L2. Since the challenges faced by deaf students can be compared to those faced by other language minority children in terms of the benefits of a high proficiency in their L1, these students’ inclusion in the category of ESL learners seems to merit further discussion, which will be addressed in the following section.

When comparing the situation of deaf students in the United States to that of hearing children from language minorities, some obvious similarities immediately come to mind. The most striking one is certainly the fact that both groups are faced with the challenge of learning English as a second language, and for both groups this task of gaining proficiency in English is essential in order to succeed in the ‘dominant’ culture. At the same time, learning English poses a considerably different problem for deaf students than for children whose native language is another spoken language. Their inability to hear it significantly reduces the amount of exposure, which is precisely what stops most deaf children from becoming native users of English in the first place. Since many deaf children are born into hearing American families, it is generally the lack of full access to the language that hinders its development, rather than the fact that a language other than English is spoken at home. It is to be expected, therefore, that deaf students’ development of English will take a different route than that of hearing ESL learners. This is supported in a study by Singleton et al. (2004), in which English vocabulary use by deaf children of varying ASL proficiency was compared to that of hearing ESL learners and monolingual speakers of English, revealing differences in writing styles and abilities between the deaf and hearing learners of English. Prinz & Strong (1998) also point out the importance of differentiating between deaf and hearing students’ strategies in acquiring English, particularly in its written form. This is partly due to the fact that ASL does not have an established written form, from which students might be able to transfer literacy skills into their L2. While there are some attempts at writing sign languages, such as Stokoe’s notation system, ‘Sign Font’, ‘Sign Writing’, or the Hamburg Notation System (see Prinz & Strong, 1998, for an overview), these are rarely used in classroom instruction of deaf students. Written literature in ASL does not exist, which means that the primary literacy development of deaf children must necessarily take place in their L2.

Another factor to be considered is the importance of a child’s native language as part of his/her cultural identity. Once again, the situations of hearing children from language minorities and deaf children are somewhat different. While hearing children are typically born into families who share a common language, this is only rarely the case for deaf children. Many of them are born to hearing parents, and even though some families may learn ASL to communicate with their child, they are often not likely to develop native-like proficiency in it or be involved in the Deaf⁴ community to such an extent that they can serve as ‘cultural role models’ for their children. Depending on how successful parents are in installing a foundation for a strong L1 development in their deaf children, students usually enter school with varying degrees of proficiency in ASL and English, sometimes using different English-based sign systems or invented systems used exclusively in their homes. It is often at school that children first get a glimpse of Deaf culture as evident in the use of a shared language, common communication practices, and the existence of other cultural factors such as Deaf theater, Deaf art, and Deaf poetry. Deaf teachers or other students often serve as role models of a way of life that their own parents are not a part of.

Deaf children of deaf parents are more comparable to children of hearing language minorities, since these parents typically use ASL as the language of communication in their homes, thus giving their children, both deaf and hearing, a strong foundation in their native language, as well as the cultural aspects that go along with it. Like immigrant children or ethnic and language minorities, these children grow up in a society that does not share their native language or many of their cultural beliefs and practices, but they are nonetheless a part of a – however small – community of people who are ‘just like them’. The existence of a shared language as an indicator of such cultural identity is something deaf children undoubtedly share with hearing language minorities. The fact that in the case of deaf children, this cultural link is most often not a link to the culture of the parents, does not significantly impact the underlying claim that it is the language shared within a small community that sets them apart from the larger society, thus providing a strong argument for the inclusion of deaf children in the category of language minorities.

Lastly, another similarity between deaf children and children of ethnic and language minorities that presents itself when reviewing some of the studies concerned with language minorities in the United States and abroad, is the ever-present threat of language loss. Studies on many indigenous languages show that if no measures to preserve these languages are taken, they often face ultimate extinction through the dominating effect of the majority languages (Crawford, 1996; Romero Little & McCarty, 2006; Skutnabb-Kangas, 2002). Monolingual education in the majority language and parents’ efforts to ensure their children’s success on the job market by encouraging the use of that language regularly lead to a trend towards monolingualism in the majority language after a few generations.

Users of ASL face related, though slightly different problems. While most parents and all schools for the deaf are certainly intent on teaching deaf children English in order to be able to compete in American society, this striving alone would be unlikely to lead to the extinction of ASL. Since sign languages are virtually the only practical solution for deaf people to communicate effortlessly with each other for the rather common sense reason that spoken languages do not provide a valid alternative for people whose inability to hear causes extreme difficulties both in understanding and in accurately producing spoken words. For immigrant children, on the other hand, there is no inherent difficulty in speaking and understanding English if they are exposed to it in ways similar or equal to children growing up in native English speaking homes.

The threat facing ASL and other sign languages around the world comes from a different angle. Technological and medical advances in the fields of hearing aids, cochlear implants, and prenatal diagnostics aim to eliminate not necessarily the language as such, but rather the effects of deafness itself. Recent events at Gallaudet University, where a large number of students and faculty protested the newly elected president J.K. Fernandes partly because she was not deemed ‘culturally Deaf enough’, brought about an array of concerns about the future of Deaf culture and, implicitly, the survival of ASL. The notion of genocide has been used by some when discussing the effects of cochlear implant technology (Fisher, 2006), thus illustrating the strong concerns some members of the Deaf community have about the possible eradication of deafness by the advent of ever more sophisticated technologies. With many parents implanting their children early in life and following the general advice of doctors and speech therapists to raise them as orally as possible to help the children get the best possible use out of their more or less restored hearing capacities, the threat to ASL is tangible. As of yet, however, there is no known cure for deafness. Even children equipped with cochlear implants rely on batteries to fuel the outside attachment of the implant, and are therefore still profoundly deaf when the batteries fail or the device is switched off. The case of ASL as an endangered language therefore has to be carefully considered from various angles, with the final judgment lying in future developments in the fields of technology and parents’ decisions regarding the best form of education for their deaf children.

Despite the differences between deaf children and children from ethnic and cultural minorities, it is apparent that there are a number of similarities regarding the use of the L1, its cultural foundation and significance, as well as its status compared to the majority language and possible implications for an impending language shift. These similarities illustrate that it is necessary to regard deaf students as more than just a group of students with a disability; their linguistic situation shares enough features with that of immigrants or ethnic minorities that an inclusion in the group of language minorities, and therefore the group of ESL learners in schools, seems warranted. The following section will explore how this view of deaf students is represented in education models for the deaf.

As mentioned in the previous sections, a number of studies have shown advantages in the acquisition of literacy skills in English for students with a high proficiency in ASL (Nover, Christensen, & Cheng, 1998; Prinz & Strong, 1998; Singleton et al., 2004). These findings are used to justify frequent calls for a stronger emphasis on ASL as the deaf students’ L1 in order to establish a strong foundation in one language before teaching English as an L2, as well as to use ASL as the language of instruction when teaching content subjects. This is claimed to reduce the risk of losing sight of the main educational goal of conveying knowledge in a variety of subjects by focusing too much on teaching a language. Smith & Ramsey (2004) discuss the example of an experienced deaf teacher, concluding that fluent ASL skills as well as good teaching strategies provide an excellent environment for deaf students to participate in class and learn the materials at hand. Komesaroff (2001) provides similarly positive evidence from a bilingual education model established in an Australian school for the deaf. The conclusions generally drawn from research on bilingual deaf education are very similar to those focusing on bilingual education of other language minority children: by using the children’s L1 as the primary language of instruction and slowly introducing the L2 into the curriculum, a well-balanced education is fostered and high L1 skills are seen to have a positive effect on subsequent L2 acquisition. Evans (2004) also mentions some shortcomings of current practices in bilingual education of the deaf, stating that teaching is often based on a very behavioral approach in that children are taught to respond to the teacher’s expectations without being permitted to explore and develop critical thinking skills. Despite attempts to use as much ASL as possible when teaching, content knowledge is often provided out of context, which can lead to deaf students retaining little or nothing of the material presented to them because they are not taught to understand it, but rather to repeat and memorize it. This is in line with Teller & Harney’s (2005/06) observations regarding the behaviorist nature of many programs for the deaf, as well as Akamatsu, Stewart, & Mayer’s (2002) call for more highly qualified teachers of the deaf to battle the gap in academic and literacy abilities that continues to persist between deaf students and their hearing peers.

In an attempt to find out more about language policies in individual schools for the deaf, and to discover to what extent such findings are incorporated into their curricula, I conducted a survey of the homepages of 20 schools in the United States. Based on a list of schools provided on the website of the Laurent Clerc Center at Gallaudet University, I decided to focus on the first 20 schools listed there. While this may not seem like a very random selection due to the alphabetic ordering of the list, the fact that the schools were ordered according to name and therefore not necessarily according to state led to a random assortment of schools in various states of the

United States. Language policies, if they were stated, could usually be found in the schools’ mission and vision statements available on the websites. Some provided additional information about language practices in the classroom, which were also taken into consideration.

Table 1: List of schools for the deaf and their language policies

School for the Deaf (SfD)	Language philosophy / policies
Alabama SfD	Strong focus on English
American SfD (CT)	Total communication (TC)
Archbishop Ryan School (PA)	Oral education in one branch, TC with strong focus on English in another
Phoenix day school (AZ)	Bilingual education / SimCom
Arkansas SfD	No mention of language policies
Atlanta Area SfD	TC
Beverly SfD (VT)	Integrated in mainstream program/ strong focus on English with some sign support
Blossom Montessori SfD (FL)	TC / one-on-one instruction
Bruce Street SfD (NJ)	TC with strong focus on speech
California SfD Fremont	Bilingual-Bicultural education
California SfD Riverside	Bilingual education
Cathedral Home for Children (WY)	TC
Central Institute for the Deaf (MO)	Oral education
Clarke SfD (MA)	Oral education
Colorado SfD	TC / possibility for mainstreaming
Hearing and Speech Center Northern California	Oral education
Delaware SfD	Bilingual education
Eastern NC SfD	TC
Echo Center CA	Oral education
Florida’s Public SfD	Strong focus on English