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The auditory-challenged gather to combat 'audism' - Salt Lake Tribune
Think of all the times you look away from someone you are speaking to, the times you look in the direction you are pointing, times you have seen a teacher writing on a chalkboard while talking with his back to the class.
Now imagine you're a deaf person trying to figure out those messages. Or a deaf person fluent in American Sign Language in a world where few hearing people feel any need to learn it.
You have entered the world of "audism," where deaf people are at a disadvantage because of their difference. Fighting audism is the mission of thenew Utah Valley University student American Sign Language Club, the group's president, Rebecca Allred, said Saturday at the club's Christmas breakfast.
First, understand that deafness isn't a disability, said Allred, who hears and is studying to be a certified ASL translator.
"That's one of the most offensive things you can say about the deaf community is they are disabled. They are just a minority, that's it," she said. "The only way you can fix audism is by spreading the word about it."
The breakfast at the Sanderson Community Center for the Deaf in Taylorsville drew about 75 people and aimed to raise funds for the ASL Club and for charities. The event featured Gallaudet University professor Benjamin Jarashow, who told stories in ASL , a lovely, expressive, abstract language that, like music, can reach the illiterate on a simple level but express itself fully only to those in the know.
Gallaudet, in Washington, D.C., is considered the world leader in liberal education and career development for deaf and hard-of-hearing undergraduate students. Besides teaching freshman ASL, deaf culture, history, storytelling and ASL literature, Jarashow also informs his students about audism.
Anyone who thinks deaf interpretation is just a form of pantomime with some signed words hasn't seen anyone like Jarashow.
Some of his stories were common to all cultures: the scary cemetery, the soldier shot to pieces in war who reviews his life as he dies and grieves for what could have been. He also offered a personal account about how scared he was as a child the first time he saw a scuba diver walk out of the sea.
And there was a poem about the beauty of life as an example of ASL literature, a visual medium that Jarashow, through Allred's interpretation, said can be shared via DVD or tape and whose meanings are as abstract and difficult to decipher as any symbolism in written texts.
Eric Lynn, a student in deaf studies and ASL education at UVU, said he thought Jarashow was fantastic. "I do storytelling myself," Lynn signed as Allred interpreted. "But you really can't match him."
Dale Boam, who heads UVU's interpreter program in the languages department, said it's difficult to get across to hearing people that they need interpreters as much as or more than deaf people.
"The client is always both parties," he said. Hearing people need to understand that their cultural touchstones often exclude the deaf and marginalize them because they are "other."
"People who are deaf don't have [hearing society's] ambient information," Boam said. "They don't hear the radio."
Think of all the times you look away from someone you are speaking to, the times you look in the direction you are pointing, times you have seen a teacher writing on a chalkboard while talking with his back to the class.
Now imagine you're a deaf person trying to figure out those messages. Or a deaf person fluent in American Sign Language in a world where few hearing people feel any need to learn it.
You have entered the world of "audism," where deaf people are at a disadvantage because of their difference. Fighting audism is the mission of thenew Utah Valley University student American Sign Language Club, the group's president, Rebecca Allred, said Saturday at the club's Christmas breakfast.
First, understand that deafness isn't a disability, said Allred, who hears and is studying to be a certified ASL translator.
"That's one of the most offensive things you can say about the deaf community is they are disabled. They are just a minority, that's it," she said. "The only way you can fix audism is by spreading the word about it."
The breakfast at the Sanderson Community Center for the Deaf in Taylorsville drew about 75 people and aimed to raise funds for the ASL Club and for charities. The event featured Gallaudet University professor Benjamin Jarashow, who told stories in ASL , a lovely, expressive, abstract language that, like music, can reach the illiterate on a simple level but express itself fully only to those in the know.
Gallaudet, in Washington, D.C., is considered the world leader in liberal education and career development for deaf and hard-of-hearing undergraduate students. Besides teaching freshman ASL, deaf culture, history, storytelling and ASL literature, Jarashow also informs his students about audism.
Anyone who thinks deaf interpretation is just a form of pantomime with some signed words hasn't seen anyone like Jarashow.
Some of his stories were common to all cultures: the scary cemetery, the soldier shot to pieces in war who reviews his life as he dies and grieves for what could have been. He also offered a personal account about how scared he was as a child the first time he saw a scuba diver walk out of the sea.
And there was a poem about the beauty of life as an example of ASL literature, a visual medium that Jarashow, through Allred's interpretation, said can be shared via DVD or tape and whose meanings are as abstract and difficult to decipher as any symbolism in written texts.
Eric Lynn, a student in deaf studies and ASL education at UVU, said he thought Jarashow was fantastic. "I do storytelling myself," Lynn signed as Allred interpreted. "But you really can't match him."
Dale Boam, who heads UVU's interpreter program in the languages department, said it's difficult to get across to hearing people that they need interpreters as much as or more than deaf people.
"The client is always both parties," he said. Hearing people need to understand that their cultural touchstones often exclude the deaf and marginalize them because they are "other."
"People who are deaf don't have [hearing society's] ambient information," Boam said. "They don't hear the radio."