How does the successful legitimization of ASL as a language exemplify the standard language ideology?

Maisa Nammari
Course: Language in US Society (LING 1000)
Advisor: Meredith Church
LURA 2021

Notes: 

deaf with a lowercase d describes the audiological condition of hearing impairment.

Deaf with a capital D refers to those individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing who “view themselves as a unique cultural and linguistic minority who use sign language as their primary language”. A Deaf identity is closely tied to the use of American Sign Language. (via The National Deaf Center on Postsecondary Outcomes)

d/Deaf in this blog post refers to the wider population of individuals who both ascribe to the Deaf community and those who do not.

No matter where you are and what language you speak or sign, there are those who will have an opinion about it. It is undeniable that language ideologies are a constant presence throughout the world’s languages. In Prof. Chase Raymond’s class, Language and US Society, we discussed an especially pervasive ideology, the standard language ideology (SLI). Rosina Lippi-Green (2012) defines it in her book, English with an Accent, as “a bias toward an abstracted, idealized, homogenous spoken language which is imposed and maintained by dominant bloc institutions and which names as its model the written language, but which is drawn primarily from the spoken language of the upper middle class.” When it comes to the topic of ASL and sign language, this definition already has a problem: they are fundamentally excluded with the inclusion of the phrase “spoken language”. This is the crux of the issue. Because of the long, difficult journey ASL and its proponents have undergone to legitimize it as a language, its status as the ‘standard language’ in the Deaf community is viewed as something to preserve and protect, even at the cost of other sign languages and their users. 

Contrary to popular belief, ASL, or American Sign Language, is not the only sign language used in the United States. There are many other sign languages and sign systems that d/Deaf individuals use to communicate. Two types, Manually Coded English (MCE) and contact signing, are commonly used. MCE is a collective term for a variety of communication tools designed to express English features in a visual way. Contact signing, sometimes referred to as Pidgin Sign English, is a grammatically sound joining of English mouthing and finger spelling, combined with dynamic movement and ASL vocabulary. 

In 1960, William Stokoe legitimized ASL with his work, Sign Language Structure. In it, he proved that it was a real and fleshed out language. Prior to this, attitudes toward ASL were extremely negative. In classrooms, the use of ASL was actively discouraged, and MCE was favored as the main means of educating deaf individuals. Outcomes of this practice can be observed in attitude studies conducted by linguists at Gallaudet University. In 1989, ASL users were judged to be less-educated, while contact sign users were judged to be college-educated, and MCE users were judged to be highly educated (Kannapell, 1989). However, by 1992, the influence of Stokoe’s work was becoming apparent. In another attitude study, researchers found that ASL users were more positively rated by other d/Deaf individuals than users of MCE systems or contact signing (Fenn, as cited in Burns et al., 2001). In a study done in 2012, ASL was judged by d/Deaf individuals to be very positively rated in aesthetic judgements (pureness, beauty, smoothness, etc.), and in social characteristics and identities (leadership, Deaf membership, education, intelligence, etc.), while MCE was judged as mostly negative in the same criteria (Hill, 2012). This attitude change illustrates the shift ASL has undergone—once marginalized and reviled, it is now symbolic of the Deaf community and has emerged as a ‘standard’ language. However, the cost of this rise in prestige for ASL has been the subordination of other sign languages and signing types. Individuals who are not deemed proficient in ASL can be thought of as ‘hearing’ or ‘non-Deaf’ by Deaf individuals, even if they are profoundly deaf (Hill, 2012). This marginalization and stigmatization of other signing types illustrates the nature of ideologies—it is a catch-22. A user may not align with the ‘hearing world’ but they are not accepted by the Deaf community if they are not proficient in ASL or do not use ASL. With increased awareness from mainstream society, it is possible that new perspectives will be highlighted. The very beginnings of this can be seen with the recently released Netflix reality series Deaf U. The discussions it is sparking are giving a platform to those fighting for greater representation within the Deaf community and have begun to highlight the linguistic and societal exclusion that occurs from the standard language ideology.

Suggested articles:

Commentary: ‘Deaf U’ doesn’t represent all deaf people. It shouldn’t have to. | Los Angeles Times 
How Netflix’s Deaf U Failed Deaf People – ‘We Are More Than Sign Language’ | HuffPost 
As More Deaf People Are Seen on TV, Others Want to Be Heard | The New York Times 

 Bibliography: 

Burns, S., Matthews, P., & Nolan-Conroy, E. (2001). Language attitudes. In C. Lucas (ed.), The Sociolinguistics of Sign Languages. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 
The Deaf Community: An Introduction. (2020, February 03). Retrieved from https://www.nationaldeafcenter.org/resource/deaf-community-introduction
Hill, J.C. (2012). Language Attitudes in the American Deaf Community. Washington: Gallaudet University Press.
Kannapell, B. (1989) An examination of deaf college students’ attitudes toward ASL and English. In C. Lucas (ed.), The Sociolinguistics of the Deaf Community. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Krausneker, V. (2015). Ideologies and Attitudes toward Sign Languages: An Approximation. Sign Language Studies. 15(4), 411-431. doi:10.1353/sls.2015.0014.
Lippi-Green, R. (2012). Language subordination. In English with an accent: Language, ideology   and discrimination in the United States (2nd ed., pp. 66-76). New York, NY: Routledge.
Lippi-Green, R. (2012). The real trouble with Black language. In English with an accent: Language, ideology and discrimination in the United States (Vol. 2, pp. 182-212). New York, NY: Routledge.
Lucas, C. (2014). The sociolinguistics of the deaf community. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Lucas, C. (2001). The sociolinguistics of sign languages. Cambridge, UK; New York;: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511612824
Stokoe, W. (1960). Sign language structure: An outline of the visual communication systems of the American deaf. Studies in Linguistics, Occasional Papers, 8.