Carolyn McCaskill remembers exactly when she discovered that she couldn’t understand white
people. It was 1968, she was 15 years old, and she and nine other deaf black students had just
enrolled in an integrated school for the deaf in Talledega, Ala.
When the teacher got up to address the class, McCaskill was lost.
“I was dumbfounded,” McCaskill recalls through an interpreter. “I was like, ‘What in the world
is going on?’ ”
The teacher’s quicksilver hand movements looked little like the sign language McCaskill had
grown up using at home with her two deaf siblings and had practiced at the Alabama School for
the Negro Deaf and Blind, just a few miles away. It wasn’t a simple matter of people at the new
school using unfamiliar vocabularly; they made hand movements for everyday words that
looked foreign to McCaskill and her fellow black students.
So, McCaskill says, “I put my signs aside.” She learned entirely new signs for such common
nouns as “shoe” and “school.” She began to communicate words such as “why” and “don’t
know” with one hand instead of two as she and her black friends had always done. She copied
the white students who lowered their hands to make the signs for “what for” and “know” closer
to their chins than to their foreheads. And she imitated the way white students mouthed words
at the same time as they made manual signs for them.
Whenever she went home, McCaskill carefully switched back to her old way of communicating.
What intrigues McCaskill and other experts in deaf culture today is the degree to which distinct
signing systems — one for whites and another for blacks — evolved and continue to coexist,
even at Gallaudet University, where black and white students study and socialize together and
where McCaskill is now a professor of deaf studies.
Five years ago, with grants from the National Science Foundation and the Spencer Foundation,
McCaskill and three fellow researchers began to investigate the distinctive structure and
grammar of Black American Sign Language, or Black ASL, in much the way that linguists have
studied spoken African American English (known by linguists as AAE or, more popularly, as
Ebonics). Their study, which assembled and analyzed data from filmed conversations and
interviews with 96 subjects in six states, is the first formal attempt to describe Black ASL and
resulted in the publication last year of “The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL.” What the
researchers have found is a rich signing system that reflects both a history of segregation and
the ongoing influence of spoken black English.
The book and its accompanying DVD emphasize that Black ASL is not just a slang form of
signing. Instead, think of the two signing systems as comparable to American and British
English: similar but with differences that follow regular patterns and a lot of variation in
individual usage. In fact, says Ceil Lucas, one of McCaskill’s co-authors and a professor of
linguistics at Gallaudet, Black ASL could be considered the purer of the two forms, closer in
some ways to the system that Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet promulgated when he founded the
first U.S. school for the deaf — known at the time as the American Asylum for Deaf Mutes —
in Hartford, Conn., in 1817.
Mercedes Hunter, a hearing African American student in the department of interpretation at
Gallaudet, describes the signing she and her fellow students use as a form of self-expression.
“We include our culture in our signing,” says Hunter, who was a research assistant for the
project, “our own unique flavor.”
“We make our signs bigger, with more body language” she adds, alluding to what the
researchers refer to as Black ASL’s larger “signing space.”
No universal language
When she tries to explain how Black ASL fits into the world of deaf communication, Lucas sets
out by dispelling a common misconception about signing.
Many people think sign language is a single, universal language, which would mean that deaf
people anywhere in the world could communicate freely with one another.
Another widely held but erroneous belief is that sign languages are direct visual translations of
spoken languages, which would mean that American signers could communicate fairly freely
with British or Australian ones but would have a hard time understanding an Argentinian or
Armenian’s signs.
Neither is true, explains J. Archer Miller, a Baltimore-based lawyer who specializes in disability
rights and has many deaf clients. There are numerous signing systems, and American Sign
Language is based on the French system that Gallaudet and his teacher, Laurent Clerc, imported
to America in the early 19th century.
“I find it easier to understand a French signer” than a British or Australian one, Miller says,
“because of the shared history of the American and French systems.”
In fact, experts say, ASL is about 60 percent the same as French, and unintelligible to users of
British sign language.
Within signing systems, just as within spoken languages, there are cultural and regional
variants, and Miller explains that he can sometimes be stumped by a user’s idiosyncracies. He
remembers in Philadelphia coming across an unfamiliar sign for “hospital” (usually depicted by
making a cross on the shoulder, but in this case with a sign in front of the signer’s forehead).
What’s more, Miller says, signing changes over time: The sign for “telephone,” for example, is
commonly made by spreading your thumb and pinkie and holding them up to your ear and
mouth. An older sign was to put one fist to your ear and the other in front of your mouth to look
like an old-fashioned candlestick phone.
So it’s hardly surprising, Miller says, that Americans’ segregated pasts led to the development
of different signing traditions — and that contemporary cultural differences continue to
influence the signing that black and white Americans use.
Some differences result from a familiar history of privation in black education. Schools for
black deaf children — the first of them opened some 50 years after the Hartford school was
founded, and most resisted integration until well after the Brown v. Board of Education decision
of 1954— tended to have fewer resources. Students were encouraged to focus on vocational
careers — repairing shoes or working in laundries — rather than pursuing academic subjects,
Lucas says, and some teachers had poor signing skills.
But a late-19th-century development in the theory of how to teach deaf children led, ironically,
to black students’ having a more consistent education in signing. The so-called oralism
movement, based on the now controversial notion that spoken language is inherently superior to
sign language, placed emphasis on teaching deaf children how to lip-read and speak.
Driven by the slogan “the gesture kills the word,” the oralism theory was put into practice in the
United States predominantly in white schools. Black students, Lucas says, were left to manage
with their purely manual form of communication.
Ultimately rejected by people who felt it prevented deaf people from developing their “natural,”
manual language, oralism fell out of favor in the 1970s and ’80s, but white signers continued to
mouth words. That was one of the key differences McCaskill noted when she joined the
integrated Alabama School for the Deaf. And the distinction is still evident today, Lucas says,
among older signers.
The challenges of interpretation
Regional and cultural differences in signing are a constant challenge for interpreters, according
to Candas Barnes, a professional interpreter based at Gallaudet, who describes the role as a
“continual decision-making process.”
Sometimes a black public figure might shift into African American English and back, as Oprah
sometimes does, to make a rhetorical point. The interpreter, Barnes says, may or may not switch
into Black ASL, “depending on who the audience is.” A primarily white audience may not
understand Black ASL, she points out.
And there’s no guarantee that every black member of an audience would understand, Barnes
says. But she says interpreters for the Congressional Black Caucus’s annual legislative
conference “are more inclined to follow along” because the audience would most likely be
African American.
Miller, the disability rights lawyer, sometimes finds it a challenge “to find the appropriate
interpreter for a particular person.” Interpreters, he says, “need to be able to communicate
certain expressions and make sure they don’t mistake one sign for another and inadvertently
completely change the meaning of the deaf person’s statement.”
The kinds of confusion that can come up, says Lucas, include the sign for “bad,” which can
mean “really good” in Black ASL — an example of a usage that migrated from spoken black
English. Similarly, in Black ASL, the sign for “word” can mean “That’s the truth!” — though
Lucas says white signers wouldn’t use it in that way.
And Mary Henry Lightfoot, a former board member of the National Alliance of Black
Interpreters who works at Gallaudet, says that features associated with Black ASL, such as its
larger signing space and “facial grammar,” sometimes cause interpreters to misunderstand the
message. “If you’re not used to that as part of the language, you can misinterpret,” she says.
“I’ve heard African American signers say, ‘Don’t make assumptions about what I’m saying
based on what I look like.’ ”
‘Signing like the white students’
There’s little evidence of Black ASL in the Gallaudet University classroom when McCaskill
leads a diverse group of about 20 students in a discussion of “The Dynamics of Oppression,” a
course that examines oppression across different cultures and explores parallels in the deaf
community. In the classroom, just as in a professional setting, Lucas says, students and teachers
generally employ a formal, academic norm, much as would be the case with spoken English.
But as students break into smaller discussion groups, their signing becomes more colloquial.
They refer to regional differences in signing and occasionally stop to discuss a sign that is
unfamiliar to one of them.
And when a smaller group of black students meets to describe and demonstrate the distinctive
flavor of Black ASL, they refer emotionally to their attachment to their own brand of signing
and how it reflects their identities as African American members of the deaf community.
“It shows our personality,” says Dominique Flagg, through an interpreter.
“Our signing is louder, more expressive,” explains Teraca Florence, a former president of the
Black Deaf Student Union at the university, where 8 percent of the student body is African
American. “It’s almost poetic.”
Proud as they are of its distinctive rhythm and style, Flagg and the other students say they worry
about assumptions others make about their signing. “People sometimes think I am mad or have
an attitude when I am just chatting with my friends, professors and other people,” Flagg says.
Others express concern that Black ASL is sometimes seen as less correct or even stereotyped as
street language, echoing a sentiment expressed by some African American signers interviewed
for the book who describe the ASL used by white people as “cleaner” and “superior.”
It’s a familiar feeling for McCaskill, who remembers how she had to learn to fit in with the
white kids at her integrated school all those years ago.
“I would pick up their signs,” McCaskill says.
And when she went home, she remembers, “friends and family would say, ‘Wait a minute,
you’re signing like the white students. You think you’re smart. You think you're better than
us.’ ”
Frances Stead Sellers is senior writer at The Washington Post magazine. She joined the magazine in 2014 after spending two years as
the editor of the daily Style section, with a focus on profiles, personalities, arts and ideas.
I walked along the Edgware Road, I felt as though the world was closing in on me. I could
no longer hear the sound of busy London traffic, footsteps walking behind me or the buzz of
conversation around me. I was anxious just crossing the road.
All the sounds I take for granted had gone. I had entered into a world of silence.
This unsettling experience occurred a few weeks ago when I agreed to ‘go deaf for the day’
to support the work of the charity Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, for which I am an
ambassador.
+3
Disabled:
John
Barrowma
n
negotiates
central
London
traffic with
guide dog
Robyn
after going
deaf for a
day for
charity
When I said yes, I didn’t think it would be a big deal. I certainly didn’t anticipate what a
challenge the day would prove to be, or how frustrated, down and exhausted I would feel by
the end of a day.
I was sent to see an audiologist at a Specsavers Hearing Centre to be made ‘deaf’.
Silicone material was inserted into my ears, and this quickly set into rubber-like moulds. It
created a flattened deafness across all frequencies, reducing my ability to hear by 50 to 60
per cent.
The dramatic impact of the moulds was immediate. Oh my gosh! My hearing went from
being really good – I can usually hear low and high tones that other people can’t –
to nothing. I felt as if I was in a soundproof room.
It was deafeningly dead, like putting my head in a motorcycle helmet filled with 20in of
thick foam. There were no ambient sounds: no noise of cars, no hum of people in the street,
no doors closing, no birds chirping. Everything was gone.
+3
Sound of
silence:
Barrowma
n, and
ambassado
r for
Hearing
Dogs for
Deaf
People, is
fitted with
silicon
moulds to
make him
deaf
When I hailed a cab to take me to the office of my manager, Gavin, I couldn’t hear what the
taxi driver was saying to me. Conversation was impossible. Then, when I reached the office,
I had to ring the intercom five times as I couldn’t hear a response.
Everybody said I was shouting at them – I simply wasn’t aware of the volume of my own
voice. Gavin kept telling me my phone was ringing, but I didn’t realise.
I was too busy trying to concentrate on reading his lips. And when he tried to tell me a code
to put into my phone, I had to keep asking him to repeat it, more slowly. Eventually he lost
his patience and snapped at me: ‘Just give me the phone!’ I was shocked.
I’m very aware of deafness. In all of the performances I’ve done in the West End, or
pantomimes, we always make sure we have signing shows. And in the Hollow Earth series
of children’s books that my sister and I write, we have a deaf character called Zak.
But until I experienced it for myself, I hadn’t realised the huge impact it has on everyday
things we take for granted, such as buying a coffee, and how it makes other people treat
you differently.
Having to lip-read to work out what people were saying made me realise how few people
actually look at you when they are talking. Lip-reading is really difficult – a learned survival
gift. Try putting the news on mute and see if you can work out what the newsreader is
saying. I can’t.
The day was exhausting and frustrating and I quickly started to feel withdrawn from people
around me. It was easier to be on my own than to attempt to communicate. It was very
isolating.
People couldn’t be bothered to repeat themselves, so they kept trying to do things for me that
I was perfectly capable of doing myself. I felt I’d lost control.
After 28 years in the business, I like to think I know what I’m doing workwise. And usually,
when I’m with a film crew, if I have suggestions about how to get a shot, for example, I just
tell them and they listen.
But on the day I was ‘deaf’, that didn’t happen. They were really dismissive and wouldn’t
let me contribute. When I made a suggestion, they told me to go and sit down and wait. I
swear, if I hadn’t had my ears plugged up, I’d have told them exactly where to go!
Instead, I just went and sat down as I was asked. I started feeling withdrawn and insecure
about myself, mainly because of the way I was being treated. It turns out that people are not
very patient. There were also some funny moments. One guy walked up to me on the
Edgware Road and said: ‘John Barrowman! Malcolm Merlyn! Captain Jack! I love you!
Can I have your autograph?’
Except that I didn’t hear what he was saying, so I said ‘What?’ and made him repeat it. And
he did it all over again. I said: ‘Sorry, still didn’t get it, say it slowly.’
I explained that I was doing an experiment being deaf for the day. Eventually, I just said: ‘I
will give you an autograph if you help me across the street.’ Looking perplexed, he said:
‘Fine.’
The second part of the day – when I was introduced to my hearing dog – was far less
stressful. In my role as ambassador for Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, I’ve met many people
who’ve had their lives transformed by these wonderful dogs. Now, with my simulated
deafness, I could experience it for myself.
I was paired with a beautiful, friendly chocolate labrador called Robyn who was going
through the training process. I’m a real dog-lover and have never lived in a house without a
dog.
I have two dogs, a Jack Russell and an English cocker spaniel. Neither of them would be
good as hearing dogs, though – they’re far too laid-back. But Robyn was everything I
expected and more. Her tail didn’t stop wagging from the moment she arrived. She was so
excited to meet me, and I felt just the same.
Hearing dogs are amazing. Trained to respond both to sign language and voice command,
they are incredibly intelligent and perform several functions for deaf people.
Like other dogs, they are your companions but they also act as your ears – waking you in the
morning if you can’t hear your alarm clock, alerting you to the doorbell or telling you when
the oven has finished cooking.
Most importantly, they’ll alert you if there’s an emergency that you might otherwise not
hear.
When a hearing dog comes to you, you signal to it by putting your hands up in the air and it
gets you to follow it to the phone, the cooker, or the front door – wherever the sound is
coming from. If the dog lies on its belly, that means ‘Danger, get out!’
During the afternoon I spent with Robyn, she did just that. As soon as the fire alarm went
off, she came right up to me, lay on her belly and then led me right out of the room. I really
felt I could put my trust in her. Hearing dogs also serve to make what’s an invisible
disability more visible. They all wear red coats with ‘Hearing dog’ written on them.
While you don’t want to go down the street with a sign on you that says ‘I am deaf’, having
a hearing dog means people know immediately that you might need support and – this is the
most crucial point – that they need to look at you when they’re talking. They bring attention
to the deaf person in a good way.
Strangers came up and asked me about Robyn, which was a great ice-breaker and
encouraged me to talk to new people.
She gave me back the independence that I felt I had lost earlier in the day.
BEING deaf for the day was extraordinarily tiring. I had to work so hard to ‘listen’ with my
eyes, get people’s attention and use my other senses to make up for my lack of hearing. It
was a huge, exhausting effort. I was really glad to get the moulds out that night, and I slept
like a baby.
Until that experience I didn’t realise how much I took my own hearing for granted, or the
sorts of emotions and experiences deaf people go through.
It has really helped me to understand the importance of hearing dogs and why people need
to be more aware of deafness.
If a deaf person asks you to repeat something, never say: ‘It doesn’t matter.’ It does matter.
I want the public to help more deaf people by donating funds to train more of these
wonderful dogs.
Hearing loss is on the rise and hearing dogs change the lives of deaf people.
To find out more about Deaf for the Day and make a donation, visithearingdogs.org.uk/jb.