Through Deaf Eyes & Abel In Class Essay

Using the PBS documentary "Through Deaf Eyes" and chapters 7 and 19 of Abel's book Man Is the Measure, specifically Abel's ideas of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, sense, and reference, I will discuss the extent to which the use of Oralism and Sign Language impact the deaf view of reality. One could ask if there is such a thing as reality - since everyone seems to have a different paradigm of the world and a different perspective/opinion of what happens, how do we know which one is correct, which one is the "reality"? One could also ask how I, a hearing person, could attempt to account for how deaf people view reality, but based on what we saw in the film and my general knowledge of deaf people and sign language, I shall attempt to answer this question.
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis that how we use language affects our perception of the world applies to deaf culture because some people argue that people who only know how to use sign language or who can't hear can't do as much and can't live normal lives, but the deaf people featured in "Through Deaf Eyes" say that they have perfectly functioning and normal lives and can do pretty much as much as a hearing person. One man in the video says that hearing and speaking are not the keys to the universe or to success, the key is knowledge, and reading in order to soak up all that knowledge. He could have this perspective because of his using sign language; because he does not hear and speak but can read and communicate using hand signs, he is of the opinion that hearing and speaking is not what matters, it is simply knowledge, which he obviously feels he can attain through reading and signing only. Another part of Deaf Culture is the will to communicate despite obstacles, and the independence they seem to feel they have from not relying on sounds, which hearing people do not have from their use of hearing and oralism; communication we tend to take for granted, and we rely on sounds much more than we realize. Also, because in sign language one talks with their hands, displaying visual signs to communicate with another viewer, perhaps deaf people using sign language see things more visually and focus on recreating images in life to communicate with others rather than making sounds to refer to images like hearers do. So in the respect of deaf people perceiving the world and humanity and what it takes to thrive differently than hearers do because of their use of sign language and not hearing and oralism, sign language can apparently change thinking a little, but how does it facilitate, extend, direct, or limit thinking?
Relating back to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and how using a certain language changes perspective, oralism and sign language both direct thinking in different ways because oralism trains a person to rely on sounds and repeating taught vocal sounds which are given meaning, whereas, while similar in that not all signs are obviously representative of a larger action or real object and signs have to be taught and given meaning, sign language trains one to use their hands and eyes and visuals, and to read the signs and/or lips of another person. Each "language" in some ways limits speakers to using one medium - either sound or sight and relying on that for communication, although sometimes we accompany speech with hand gestures and read people's faces to sense feeling and expression, etc. Sign language facilitates a more visual train of thoughts and portrayals where many signs are closer to the real idea or action than a sound we make come out of our throat (for example, the word "walk" vs. the hand sign with the fingers 'walking' across the palm). Oralism facilitates, I think, more varied ways of expressing oneself because one can use voice intonation and inflection to convey emotion, and oralism can accompany the other "languages" we normally use with facial expressions and body language, etc. The creation of sign language itself, since speech existed before, was a great extension to thinking because so many people who couldn't hear wouldn't have been able to understand and communicate as well as those who could speak. Another way sign language seems to extend thinking, according to what we saw in the documentary Through Deaf Eyes and what the deaf people in the video said, is that users of this "language" think more optimistically, not of what they and others can't do, but what they can do, all their abilities and strengths. But while these languages can affect ways of thinking for users, their effect on what the deaf people KNOW is not as evident.
The knowledge by practice of deaf people who use signing is different from that of hearers or other users of oralism because they have been practicing or repeating different things (signing vs. speaking) and thus their "know-HOW"s (pieces of personal knowledge) are different, but their "know-THAT"s or impersonal knowledge is not different simply because of their use of either sign language or oralism to communicate. As far as the knowledge that deaf people have being EXPRESSED differently in each "language", I think that is a given; what people know is expressed differently in French than it is in English, and differently in sign language than in speech of any oral language. And while I do not think each language provides a different framework of reality, I do think each provides a different presentation of reality; a deaf user of sign language and a hearing (or deaf) user of oralism both see someone running down the street, and they don't view it as different events happening, they just express the idea of the reality (a person running) in either speech or in hand signs. This is the way languages work, reality is presented/communicated to others in more of one way to another but ultimately the humans usually perceive the same basic reality. I think this also applies when dealing with sense and reference.
Abel explains sense as sort of the real meaning of the word, what it's value or definition is almost, whereas reference is a more specific designation of that meaning, like an example you could point to. The deaf might use signing as a sort of "sense" of what they think is going on, but in order to connect with other users of oralism they would need to use oralism like humans use reference in order to specify; to a an oralist a sign may not mean much, so they have to use a word for the other person to grasp its meaning. Abel's quote on page 68, "Though meanings require words, they are not identical to words.” shows that deaf users of sign language don't need oral words to understand meaning because meaning is not identical to words, nor is it identical signs, meaning is just communicated through whatever human action holds meaning because it has been ordained so by the speech community, whether that be a sign symbol or a linguistic symbol or any meaningful symbol known between communicators. We hearers use "linguistic symbols to organize experience” (p. 69), but deaf people use sign symbols to organize experience. Essentially these languages are the same (in function and result).
What I have been claiming - that oralism and sign use different approaches to expressing thoughts and may even guide thoughts in a general pattern, but are essentially both languages to communicate the same reality of humans - implies that hearers and other users of oralism who look down on users of sign and vice versa are making a mistake; it is not two different groups of people that, because they communicate using different forms of "speech", view reality totally different. We are all humans developing and using symbols of whatever kind we may to organize the same experience. My claims would also imply that I know about using sign language versus oralism when in fact I do not know a whole lot about it, so a counter-claim might be that people who really use sign language do view reality through "deaf eyes" and because they cannot hear or speak they are missing both a chunk of reality and experiences that are happening all around them (noises), and an aspect of human interaction that is meant to occur (speech). One could use both oralism and sign language and still not know the answer to this question, how our view of reality is affected by our language, because there will always be many other factors impacting our view of reality and clouding our view, and inevitably, we cannot get away from ourselves and how we see things as an individual human.
Through looking at Abel's ideas of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and sense and reference, and the views expressed by the deaf people in "Through Deaf Eyes" we see that the use of oralism or sign language can slightly affect a deaf person's view of reality, but it more affects the way they present the reality in communication than what they understand or know. The core of both sign language and oralism is using designated symbols to refer to pieces of reality, and after all, both the signer and the oralist see the same thing with their eyes, which are still the same.