Is Deaf Culture still High Context?

When one encounters other cultures-assuming one is going to other countries to "live there" wouldn't the thought-why am I moving there?
As for the deaf community in a foreign country probably wouldn't understand ASL.
More fun and games-hopefully just restricted to computers and not reality-eg moving there.

Implanted A B Harmony activated Aug/07
 
drphil said:
When one encounters other cultures-assuming one is going to other countries to "live there" wouldn't the thought-why am I moving there?
As for the deaf community in a foreign country probably wouldn't understand ASL.
More fun and games-hopefully just restricted to computers and not reality-eg moving there.

Implanted A B Harmony activated Aug/07
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You must be in a very homogeneous area. Thank god I live in a very heterogenous area. And that is not being sarcastic in the least.
 
drphil said:
Is this classification re: high/low useful?

Implanted A B Harmony activated Aug/07
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It is one of the most useful cultural classifications there is. There are others but some of them only apply to a few cultures and not all. Contextual classification cuts across the board. Every culture falls somewhere on the line from highest possible to lowest possible.

If you want to understand culture, yours or anyone else's, one of the best tools, if not the best tool, is how the culture deals with context.

Note: Some cultures are High Context in one situation and Low Context in another.
 
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drphil said:
Given the fact one is born into their parent's culture-does one really analzye their specific culture? Also, in keeping with the thread- how is "cultural deafness" so different in various other countries- USA vs say China?

More discussion in Sociology.

Implanted A B Harmony activated Aug/07
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In fact one of the hallmarks of culture is that it becomes so ingrained it is seldom to never spoken of nor acknowledged. It seems normal, natural, human, and instinctual. Any deviations tend to be looked upon as horrible, disgusting, ignorant, barbaric, or evil.

To give an example from last year during pack time when a lot of seasonal workers are around. One man was discussing children.

Middle class white Americans tend to dress their children in very specific ways. One for dress, another for school, and a third for play. To many any other way of dressing your children is obvious WRONG.

To him seeing Mexicans to dress up their children, especially little girls, in fancy clothing to look like little doll children proves they are too stupid to know how to handle money. "Why would anybody want to do that if they had half sense?" He wanted to know.

On the other hand seeing Hmong people walk to town with children dressed in what he considered play clothing proved that they did not care about their children or love them.

In other words to him there is only one natural, right, proper, sensible way to dress your child. Any deviation lack of love, lack of good sense, lack of value, etc.

And any discussion of culture brought forth the pronouncement, "Yeah, their whole damn culture is screwed up. What did I just tell you?"

If you were raised in a neighborhood as poor as some of the one's I lived in, where you sometimes had to make a choice between a ¢50 pair of sneakers and a ¢10 loaf of bread and ¢10 quart of milk you would consider his attitude right down prissy if not insufferable.

Most people never look at or think about their own culture much less analyze it. I did because I was born and raised "between" cultures.

But it is common for deaf people. They often have to do it, and make a serious, life changing reevaluation, when they discover the hearing culture they were raised to does not meet their needs -- And Deaf Culture does.

As far as D/deaf Culture in other countries, I'm sorry but I am an American -- I am blissfully ignorant of the rest of the world.
 
drphil said:
When one encounters other cultures-assuming one is going to other countries to "live there" wouldn't the thought-why am I moving there?
As for the deaf community in a foreign country probably wouldn't understand ASL.
More fun and games-hopefully just restricted to computers and not reality-eg moving there.

Implanted A B Harmony activated Aug/07
Click to expand...

Some people have a natural affinity for cultures other than their own.

My mother was amazing. Everywhere she went she was at home. What is more she went everywhere and had friends of every kind, shape, sort, and description.

If you know ASL you will be able to understand, and make yourself understood by, people who use other systems. It just takes time and effort.

Actually if you are going to travel the best combination of languages is English, Spanish, and ASL. Reason is there are only 22 countries that do not have English as a first or second language. The remaining 22 have Spanish as a first or second language. As for ASL. Missionaries from the U.S.A. have been spreading religion and ASL to countries all over the world. It is not the only signed language but it is probably the widest used.

If you know those three you will find somebody to talk to every where you go.
 
Berry said:
In fact one of the hallmarks of culture is that it becomes so ingrained it is seldom to never spoken of nor acknowledged. It seems normal, natural, human, and instinctual. Any deviations tend to be looked upon as horrible, disgusting, ignorant, barbaric, or evil.

To give an example from last year during pack time when a lot of seasonal workers are around. One man was discussing children.

Middle class white Americans tend to dress their children in very specific ways. One for dress, another for school, and a third for play. To many any other way of dressing your children is obvious WRONG.

To him seeing Mexicans to dress up their children, especially little girls, in fancy clothing to look like little doll children proves they are too stupid to know how to handle money. "Why would anybody want to do that if they had half sense?" He wanted to know.

On the other hand seeing Hmong people walk to town with children dressed in what he considered play clothing proved that they did not care about their children or love them.

In other words to him there is only one natural, right, proper, sensible way to dress your child. Any deviation lack of love, lack of good sense, lack of value, etc.

And any discussion of culture brought forth the pronouncement, "Yeah, their whole damn culture is screwed up. What did I just tell you?"

If you were raised in a neighborhood as poor as some of the one's I lived in, where you sometimes had to make a choice between a ¢50 pair of sneakers and a ¢10 loaf of bread and ¢10 quart of milk you would consider his attitude right down prissy if not insufferable.

Most people never look at or think about their own culture much less analyze it. I did because I was born and raised "between" cultures.

But it is common for deaf people. They often have to do it, and make a serious, life changing reevaluation, when they discover the hearing culture they were raised to does not meet their needs -- And Deaf Culture does.

As far as D/deaf Culture in other countries, I'm sorry but I am an American -- I am blissfully ignorant of the rest of the world.
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Being raised betwixt and between definately widens the perspective.
 
I can vouch for that being the only deaf/hoh person in my entire family aside from my aging grandfather.

I have friends in the Deaf Culture and I have friends in the hearing culture. I was raised orally and mainstreamed yet I was made painfully aware of my 'condition' as my father has always put it. Until I found AD - I honestly believed I should hide my deafness as much as possible because that's the way I was raised. I was raised to feel ashamed about it and I think my parents were also ashamed that their daughter was 'broken' from the get go. Thus, they always treated me much differently than my older brother. They always wouldn't allow me to do this or that 'because I couldn't hear'.

Hopefully one day they will realize that they actually placed barriers in front of me out of their own fear and misguided 'advice' from the audiologist that was Audist. These did not prove helpful, but rather quite hindering.

However, that's not to say that everything that has happened was because of my parents, just looking at it from the academic and social aspect.
 
Unfortunately this is so common.

The only person who worked where I do who knew ASL would not sign with me because she did not want anyone to know her son was deaf.
 
I am really enjoying this thread/discussion:wave:
I grew up in a multicultural environment and neighborhood and thoughI've learned to work with and around it I have my own particular way of perceiving things because I have LD.

I've only once worked in a place where everybody was considered white and Christian. I started taking Spanish classes in middle <7th/8th grade> school and had teachers from various Spanish-speaking countries throughout the time I took Spanish classes <through college>.

When I was about 12 years old or so I first used the Spanish in Dallas - I was with my mom at a national PTA convention <she and I traveled a lot together all over> and she had gone to a meeting and I was in the room when one of the women who do the cleaning/housekeeping came into the room. She happened to be Latina who spoke very little English and so I awkwardly tried to convey info. about something in Spanish. What I remember most about that the sense of awareness and appreciation I gained from our attempt at communicating.
I remember one of the first years -7th/8th grade time frame - that I took Spanish, I was signed up for a class and went into the room and found there was some staffing issue and so the woman who had been assigned to teach it wasn't there. There was a man there who spoke 5 languages, Arabic among them. He asked if we wanted to learn Arabic- we were like- sure, cool. So I ended up with Arabic that year instead. My folks and I thought that was really a neat "mistake".
 
Berry said:
Unfortunately this is so common.

The only person who worked where I do who knew ASL would not sign with me because she did not want anyone to know her son was deaf.
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How terribly, terribly sad is that? :cry: Was the son and adult or a child?
 
dogmom said:
I am really enjoying this thread/discussion:wave:
I grew up in a multicultural environment and neighborhood and thoughI've learned to work with and around it I have my own particular way of perceiving things because I have LD.

I've only once worked in a place where everybody was considered white and Christian. I started taking Spanish classes in middle <7th/8th grade> school and had teachers from various Spanish-speaking countries throughout the time I took Spanish classes <through college>.

When I was about 12 years old or so I first used the Spanish in Dallas - I was with my mom at a national PTA convention <she and I traveled a lot together all over> and she had gone to a meeting and I was in the room when one of the women who do the cleaning/housekeeping came into the room. She happened to be Latina who spoke very little English and so I awkwardly tried to convey info. about something in Spanish. What I remember most about that the sense of awareness and appreciation I gained from our attempt at communicating.
I remember one of the first years -7th/8th grade time frame - that I took Spanish, I was signed up for a class and went into the room and found there was some staffing issue and so the woman who had been assigned to teach it wasn't there. There was a man there who spoke 5 languages, Arabic among them. He asked if we wanted to learn Arabic- we were like- sure, cool. So I ended up with Arabic that year instead. My folks and I thought that was really a neat "mistake".
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I agree. That was a really neat mistake. How many opportunities would you have had otherwise to learn Arabic?
 
Just check the demographics of Toronto-hardly insular-to say the least.

Implanted A B Harmony activated Aug/07
 
dogmom said:
I am really enjoying this thread/discussion:wave:
I grew up in a multicultural environment and neighborhood and thoughI've learned to work with and around it I have my own particular way of perceiving things because I have LD.

I've only once worked in a place where everybody was considered white and Christian. I started taking Spanish classes in middle <7th/8th grade> school and had teachers from various Spanish-speaking countries throughout the time I took Spanish classes <through college>.

When I was about 12 years old or so I first used the Spanish in Dallas - I was with my mom at a national PTA convention <she and I traveled a lot together all over> and she had gone to a meeting and I was in the room when one of the women who do the cleaning/housekeeping came into the room. She happened to be Latina who spoke very little English and so I awkwardly tried to convey info. about something in Spanish. What I remember most about that the sense of awareness and appreciation I gained from our attempt at communicating.
I remember one of the first years -7th/8th grade time frame - that I took Spanish, I was signed up for a class and went into the room and found there was some staffing issue and so the woman who had been assigned to teach it wasn't there. There was a man there who spoke 5 languages, Arabic among them. He asked if we wanted to learn Arabic- we were like- sure, cool. So I ended up with Arabic that year instead. My folks and I thought that was really a neat "mistake".
Click to expand...

I have heard Arabic. It is a beautiful language.
 
Berry said:
Some people have a natural affinity for cultures other than their own.

My mother was amazing. Everywhere she went she was at home. What is more she went everywhere and had friends of every kind, shape, sort, and description.

If you know ASL you will be able to understand, and make yourself understood by, people who use other systems. It just takes time and effort.

Actually if you are going to travel the best combination of languages is English, Spanish, and ASL. Reason is there are only 22 countries that do not have English as a first or second language. The remaining 22 have Spanish as a first or second language. As for ASL. Missionaries from the U.S.A. have been spreading religion and ASL to countries all over the world. It is not the only signed language but it is probably the widest used.

If you know those three you will find somebody to talk to every where you go.
Click to expand...
This is why I want to become better in spanish.

I've found traces of american missionaries and ASL in suprising isolated and remoted places, it's both depressing and great. If the host don't know ASL, but any other SL it helps a lot anyway, because one are familar with effective use of classifiers and so on.

If one want to cover the almost all places of the world, I would add chinese, french and arabic. At least, from an european perspective.

Learning a lot from your posts here. One thing is to have this experience, another is to explain it.
 
Banjo: just read the Toronto newspapers re the demographics of the area. Just read the Toronto Star, Toronto Globe & Mail, Toronto Sun and National Post Right_ Metro and 24 hours as well.Helps if one can read. of course.
Right- Toronto is just a small city near Oakville.

Given that "culture" is part of Sociology one can study if one wishes/has sufficient time to read various textbooks. One is free to do so after say studying psychology. I am assuming one does have "lots of free time" on one's hands.
Does it help to be retired? Real exciting to analyze the culture of 100 years ago. How did society exist without computers?

Implanted A B Harmony activated Aug/07
 
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