skunker

Does being deaf also affect how you compose and write sentences? I see a lot of bad grammar in this forum and am wondering how deafness plays in that. I am HoH/Deaf myself, but have never seen the level of run-on sentences/incoherent sentence composition like I see here.

I would have thought it would be the opposite: since we can't hear, we tend to read a lot of books to get our information.

Deafness

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green427

You are not going to win any points with this post.

We have many members here that have good literacy skills, and a few that don't.

No, it is not because we are deaf, it is due to a number of reasons.

Keep in mind that hearing people suck at grammar & spelling too. It all depends on the person, his/her background, his/her education, etc, etc.

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Warning: Anything I post may not make any sense. All advice is for entertainment value only. Sarcasm might be present. Interpret at your own risk.

skunker

Oh, ok. That makes sense. I wish I could delete my post then.

dereksbicycles

You know how people say you are what you think you are???

See, if I thought that I was lousy at selling bike, then yeah, I'm lousy at selling bike then.

SO if you think you're a lousy writer, you are right. You're a lousy writer.

rockin'robin

I've met so many hearing people that cannot spell worth a damn!....even speak in slang...cannot speak/write a full sentence in English. One person stated they wanted to learn ASL so badly and got an alphabet paper with the ABC's on it...then kept asking me how to spell something....so go figure!....

MintyOreo

No. I am deaf, and I think that I have pretty good grammar. Then again, proper English was drilled into my head from a very young age. I do read a lot of books to get information, but that is just a part of my personality - not necessarily because I'm deaf.

Keep in mind that there are MANY hearing people who cannot write a proper English sentence to save their lives. "Texting talk", as I call it, has taken over as the standard. A lot of kids and teens my age cannot write proper sentences. They aren't being taught how to write correctly in school. The teachers let lots of kids get away with "writn lyk dis" It's sad, really. And then I'm the weird one, because I write in complete sentences when I text...

I HATE it when people write like this:

u av d ryt 2 feel safe ll d tym, includN wen UzN ICT or yr mob ph.

GRRR!!!

But no, being deaf/hoh, in and of itself, doesn't mean that you cannot write sentences with correct grammar. It DOES depend on how the person - deaf/hoh or hearing - was taught grammar. Some people were not taught correctly, or the information was not presented in a way that the person could grasp. And there are a lot of people who just are not good at grammar or languages, period

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A FEW of my favorite quotes:

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” ~ Dr. Seuss

“The past does not have to be your prison. You have a voice in your destiny. You have a say in your life. You have a choice in the path you take.” ~ Max Lucado

“Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.” ~ Fred Rogers

“Even though you may not understand how God works, you know he does.” ~ Max Lucado

TubeTJ

Being deaf has some nuances that need to be addressed in order to communicate. Grammar is an issue across the board, not just the deaf community. I have been on a few forums having nothing to do with the deaf and at times I cannot interpret what the writer is trying to say.

I read allot, write little. My ASL skills are laughable, which I am working on correcting. To a person versed in ASL, I am probably close to illiterate.

I would believe it is in the medium in which you were taught or perhaps use the most that your skill set is at its highest.

Not certain being deaf has much to do with it.

Just my opinion.

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Profoundly deaf, bilateral.

Bottesini

If your language is ASL, the grammar rules are different than English.

If you don't understand ASL structure, which some people here use in writing, it looks like bad grammar to you.

But then, you would probably expect people to be perfectly accepting of you if you decided to come up and converse in your newly learned , three signs worth of ASL.

It does tend to be a little annoying when people who were raised with English as a first language start up about how great their English grammar is, when it's all they have ever used, and they have no idea what they are reading from a person who is truly Deaf.

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MintyOreo

This is NOT directed at anyone in particular:

My first language was not English; it was German. English is a second language for me. That's why I mentioned about my grammar. If English was my first language, I wouldn't have mentioned about my grammar. I started learning English when I started school, and have taken ESL classes ever since then.

What I was trying to say was that just because a person is deaf/hoh, it does not mean that their grammar is bad. It depends on a lot of variables, like how a person was taught, what language(s) are their native languages, and the circumstances.

__________________
A FEW of my favorite quotes:

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” ~ Dr. Seuss

“The past does not have to be your prison. You have a voice in your destiny. You have a say in your life. You have a choice in the path you take.” ~ Max Lucado

“Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.” ~ Fred Rogers

“Even though you may not understand how God works, you know he does.” ~ Max Lucado

Bottesini

Did you see me quote you?

Or did I respond to the OP?

Get over yourself. You don't interest me.

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MintyOreo

I'm sorry. I misunderstood your post. I didn't mean anything by it; I was just trying to make a point.

K, whatever.

__________________
A FEW of my favorite quotes:

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” ~ Dr. Seuss

“The past does not have to be your prison. You have a voice in your destiny. You have a say in your life. You have a choice in the path you take.” ~ Max Lucado

“Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.” ~ Fred Rogers

“Even though you may not understand how God works, you know he does.” ~ Max Lucado

MintyOreo

My point is that whether or not English is your first language, it IS possible to be skilled/fluent in English. Which further proves my point that just because a person is deaf/hoh, even if English is not their first language, they can be quite skilled in English. What matters most is how and when a person is educated, whether they are educated in a way that works best for them or not, and how good they are at languages.

__________________
A FEW of my favorite quotes:

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” ~ Dr. Seuss

“The past does not have to be your prison. You have a voice in your destiny. You have a say in your life. You have a choice in the path you take.” ~ Max Lucado

“Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.” ~ Fred Rogers

“Even though you may not understand how God works, you know he does.” ~ Max Lucado

yjgstahc

It is pretty much depend on deaf people. Some deaf people are pretty good at grammar. But some don't (that's me). Well, I'm also good at grammar, but writing like essay/bcr/etc... Most or some people wrote easy words like 'smart' instead of 'astute' (means smart but SAT word) in essay or whatever.

Want to know something? My friend, deaf girl (was senior last year) made first student who made perfect grammar on Drill/Warm Up in English 12 at high school. Other ppl didnt make like how she did. I think other ppl heard many slang words which dont help them doing writing well. Alot ppl talk with mouths make good writing because you guys hearing can "hear" what other ppl saying in front of them. That's why deaf ppl didnt hear much of random conversations from other ppl except signing. Even, signing has common words. Like Awesome/Great/Super/Wonderful/etc... that's why it's same signing but word. (BUT it depends on lipreading because some ppl can sign and talk at same time).

I didn't say i'm good at writing. Just saying i'm okay at it. I'm high school student in public school.

By the way, you said you saw alot bad grammar in this forum. It didn't mean that ppl try their best to do perfect grammar. No. Forum doesn't give you points or grade in real life. If it was, i would do that. But not really.

TubeTJ

Being a person who is "truly deaf", I DO know the difficulties of trying to communicate in a speaking world. Yes, I am late deaf. Yes, speaking English is my native/first language.

I am working on my ASL. Not that it matters to single person but myself, but the motions of the hand movements in ASL can and will trigger a full vertigo episode in me. Hence, my very slow learning curve.

Combine that with the vision loss, lack of past experiences ( save for the last five years ) yeah, I SUCK at being deaf. I also cannot change it. I am doing my best, but even here , on this forum, it appears a person can be ostracized by not fitting the format that a "truly deaf" person should.

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Profoundly deaf, bilateral.

MintyOreo

It matters to me, and I care. Vertigo sucks; I know from experience (I have Meniere's disease.)

You don't suck at being deaf. Just because you are having a hard time learning ASL doesn't mean that you suck. You are late deaf; no one expects you to pick up ASL in 10 seconds! (And if they do, then THEY suck and are very unrealistic.) It takes time to learn a new language.

People ask me a lot why I am "still learning ASL". A lot of people expect me to be fluent in ASL already - which I'm not. Again, it takes time to learn a new language. My reply to those people is always "Well, the "ASL fairy" didn't come and sprinkle magical fairy dust on my head the moment that I became hoh/deaf, and grant me the ability to be fluent in ASL overnight!"

I KNOW! I don't really fit into the mold that a "truly deaf" person should be, either. That doesn't mean that I'm not deaf. And that doesn't mean that you are not deaf. It means that we don't quite fit into the cookie cutter mold. It's not our faults that we weren't born Deaf and signed ASL as our first language.

__________________
A FEW of my favorite quotes:

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” ~ Dr. Seuss

“The past does not have to be your prison. You have a voice in your destiny. You have a say in your life. You have a choice in the path you take.” ~ Max Lucado

“Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.” ~ Fred Rogers

“Even though you may not understand how God works, you know he does.” ~ Max Lucado

rolling7

I have to jump in there and say that grammar rules are only for written languages. Since ASL can not be written, there are no grammar rules for it.

yjgstahc

I agree with you. ASL's grammar rule means nothing. ASL is for communicating through deaf ppl. But one important rule for ASL is beautiful/fluent signing when you are in speech or acting or anything special.

Lily7

A lot of people for whom ASL is a first language, type the way they sign. ASL grammar is different from English grammar. When writing the way they sign, word order is different, there is no punctuation (since punctuation in ASL is body language and facial expressions), and the little words like "is, are, to" are dropped. So when they "type in ASL", it looks like horrible English grammar, but it's not.

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Jane B.

Bottesini why are you so upset about being quoted? It is a good place indicator for those using the linear message display option in addition to being useful in answering an individual. I often use it myself to let people know just where I was reading at the time I added my comments.

yjgstahc

Are you sure with alot of ppl have first language as ASL?

I thought they are supposed to have first language as English then ASL. It's common sense. I mean how do you learn ASL without real English language? Kinda impossible?

MintyOreo

No, it's fully possible to have ASL as a first language, then learn English as a second language later. ASL and English are two completely different languages. I'll let someone who's more of an expert than I am answer this fully, but ASL is not just a signed version of English; it's a completely different language and doesn't have a lot in common with English in regards to syntax, grammar, and whatnot. See Lily7's post.

__________________
A FEW of my favorite quotes:

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” ~ Dr. Seuss

“The past does not have to be your prison. You have a voice in your destiny. You have a say in your life. You have a choice in the path you take.” ~ Max Lucado

“Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.” ~ Fred Rogers

“Even though you may not understand how God works, you know he does.” ~ Max Lucado

Anij

Wirelessly posted (Blackberry Bold )

What bearing would English have on ASL or vise versa?

ASL and English are completely different languages. They have completely different grammar, structure etc. The only aspect in which there is a cross over is if the person fingerspells an English word (but they could just as easily spell a French, German, Spanish etc word instead).

Many people have ASL as their first language - just like many people might have French, Spanish, German etc as their first language (without knowing English).

Just like it doesn't make sense to say "in order to learn French, first you have to learn English" it equally doesn't make any sense to say "to learn ASL, first you must know English".

They are entirely seperate, distinct and complete languages which have little if any bearing on each other.

The reason ASLers also know English is because ASL is used in USA and English Canada - so naturally we learn use written (sometimes spoken) English as our second language to communicate with non-signers.

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Hoh/Deaf ~ +120db deaf right , mild/mod flux left & APD
English & ASL ...PAH!!


Ignorance is NOT Bliss

yjgstahc

I see. That's good point. I like Anij and MintyOreo's opinions. Since ASL stands for American Sign Language. I understand that ones. But did you realize there are also other sign languages? Like BSL (British Sign Language)/FSL (French Sign Language)/KSL (Korean Sign Language)/ etc... I know there are some common sign languages but most of signs don't.

But im trying to make a point for ASL. I know I've seen some ppl sign same word but different ASL way like for example..

ASL (Birthday): You see one hand does like 'favor' on your chin then put onto your chest. That's sign I've seen most of other ppl.

ASL (Birthday): I've seen some ppl doing like one hand holds on left ear or right ear. That's sign for birthday.

That sounds like other ppl learning depend on location of the USA (Like South / North) Or something signs in different way to similar different accents.

Grayma

Other people have answered this well, but there are a couple ideas I haven't seen, so here's my two cents.

1. As others have pointed out, you are seeing the writing of people for whom English is a second language. You may notice some native Spanish speakers who learn English master English idioms, syntax, and punctuation quickly and well, and some always continue to have certain 'quirks' in their communication in their non-native language.

In some cases, you are seeing the writing of people who have been handed massive communication challenges when they were denied the right to learn any language at all until long past the usual date of learning a language. This happened when their parents refused to teach them sign language or let them learn it, and often when deafness has gone on undiagnosed for a year or two (or more). There is a critical window for language acquisition. Many who were denied a language of any kind until after they were two or older will always struggle with issues arising from that. Some can overcome even that, but not having a language in which to think for the first five years of life is a handicap imposed from without that can do immeasurable damage to a person.

2. This is the point nobody brought up yet. For some reason, it is amusing to some hearing people to post to these threads and pretend to be deaf people with bad English skills. Two of the posters with the worst English language skills here were recently exposed as frauds.

3. Failures in public education and parenting have together resulted in diminishing returns in literacy levels for hearing students for years. I can't imagine that deaf students would be immune to that.

Glenn

It's an Internet forum. No need to write like you are in a graduate-level English class.

There is a a lot of bad writing on craigslist, such as people who don't know how to spell or use punctuation.

yjgstahc

For craigslist, there are pretty alot scammers anyways.

Grayma

Yes, there are some regional variations. There are also variations based on age- people in their fifties and older might be more inclined to incorporate some less common initialized signs, carry overs from the use of SEE in school (that's just my experience, which is quite limited).

But this is true for spoken English as well. Down south you call all carbonated beverages coke or 'co-cola.' Some places you say 'pop,' others use the word 'soda,' and some say 'soda-pop.'

A large piece of living room furniture might be called a couch or a sofa, and in some cases a divan.

The mid-day meal is lunch in some places, dinner in others. For lunch you might eat crawdads, crayfish, or mudbugs (or none of the above)- but it's all the same thing.=)

Grayma

There are grammar rules for spoken English, too. My children aren't allowed to use the non-word Ain't, nor can they use a double negative in a sentence, and I expect their verb and noun tenses to agree whether they write the or speak them.

Also, they must always put the other person first and use 'I' and 'me' properly- that is
"Me and Bobby is going to the store." WRONG.

"Bobby and I are going to the store." Correct.

Glenn

I used to use "ain't" as a way to antagonize my teachers.

Bottesini

That isn't true.

A language does not have to be written to have rules and structure.

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