Bimodal Bilingualism in the American Deaf Community
Encyclopedia
Bimodal bilingualism refers to an individual or community's bilingual
competency in (at least) one spoken language
and (at least) one signed language
(spoken and signed are the "modes" to which "bimodal" refers). A substantial number of bimodal bilinguals are Children of Deaf Adults
or other hearing people
who learn sign language for various reasons. Deaf people as a group have their own sign language and culture, but invariably live within a larger hearing culture with its own spoken language. Thus, "most deaf people are bilingual to some extent in a spoken language in some form" (Ann 2001). In discussions of multilingualism
in the United States
, bimodal bilingualism and bimodal bilinguals have often not been mentioned or even considered, in part because American Sign Language
, the predominant sign language
used in the U.S., only began to be acknowledged as a natural language
in the 1960s (In discussions of bimodal bilingualism in the U.S., the two languages involved are generally ASL and English). However, bimodal bilinguals share many of the same traits as traditional bilinguals (those with competency in at least two spoken languages), as well as differing in some interesting ways, due to the unique characteristics of the Deaf community
.
and second
languages. For Deaf people (the majority of bimodal bilinguals in the U.S.), level of competency in ASL and English may be influenced by factors such as degree of hearing loss
, whether the individual is prelingually
or post-lingually
deaf, style of and language used in their education, and whether the individual comes from a hearing or Deaf family (Lucas & Valli 1992). Regardless of English competency in other areas, no Deaf individual is likely to comprehend English in the same way as a hearing person when others are speaking it because only a small percentage of English phonemes are clearly visible through lip reading. Additionally, many Deaf bilinguals who have fluency in written English choose not to speak it because of the general social unacceptability of their voices, or because they are unable to monitor factors like pitch and volume (Lucas & Valli 1992).
ing (Lucas & Valli 1992).
"occurs when speakers in a community give up speaking their language and take up the use of another in its place" (Ann 2001). ASL in particular, and signed languages in general, are undeniably influenced by their close contact with English or other spoken languages, as evidenced by phenomena such as "loan signs" or lexicalized fingerspelling (the signed language equivalent of loanword
s), and through the influence of Contact Sign
. However, due to the physical fact of deafness or hearing loss, d/Deaf people generally cannot acquire and speak the majority language in the same way or with the same competency that the hearing population does. Simultaneously, Deaf people still often have a need or desire to learn some form of English in order to communicate with family members and the majority culture (Davis 1989). Thus, Deaf communities and individuals, in contrast to many hearing bilingual communities and individuals, will tend to "remain bilingual throughout their lives and from generation to generation" (Grosjean 1992).
Multilingualism
Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of...
competency in (at least) one spoken language
Spoken language
Spoken language is a form of human communication in which words derived from a large vocabulary together with a diverse variety of names are uttered through or with the mouth. All words are made up from a limited set of vowels and consonants. The spoken words they make are stringed into...
and (at least) one signed language
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
(spoken and signed are the "modes" to which "bimodal" refers). A substantial number of bimodal bilinguals are Children of Deaf Adults
Child of deaf adult
A child of a deaf adult, often known by the acronym "CODA", is a person who was raised by a deaf parent or guardian. Many CODAs identify with both deaf and hearing cultures...
or other hearing people
Hearing (person)
The term hearing or hearing person, from the perspective of mainstream English-language culture, refers to someone whose sense of hearing is at the medical norm. From this point of view, someone who is not fully hearing has a hearing impairment or is said to be hard of hearing or deaf. The...
who learn sign language for various reasons. Deaf people as a group have their own sign language and culture, but invariably live within a larger hearing culture with its own spoken language. Thus, "most deaf people are bilingual to some extent in a spoken language in some form" (Ann 2001). In discussions of multilingualism
Multilingualism
Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, bimodal bilingualism and bimodal bilinguals have often not been mentioned or even considered, in part because American Sign Language
American Sign Language
American Sign Language, or ASL, for a time also called Ameslan, is the dominant sign language of Deaf Americans, including deaf communities in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico...
, the predominant sign language
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
used in the U.S., only began to be acknowledged as a natural language
Natural language
In the philosophy of language, a natural language is any language which arises in an unpremeditated fashion as the result of the innate facility for language possessed by the human intellect. A natural language is typically used for communication, and may be spoken, signed, or written...
in the 1960s (In discussions of bimodal bilingualism in the U.S., the two languages involved are generally ASL and English). However, bimodal bilinguals share many of the same traits as traditional bilinguals (those with competency in at least two spoken languages), as well as differing in some interesting ways, due to the unique characteristics of the Deaf community
Deaf culture
Deaf culture describes the social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions, history, values and shared institutions of communities that are affected by deafness and which use sign languages as the main means of communication. When used as a cultural label, the word deaf is often written with a...
.
Diverse range of language competency
To be defined as bilingual, an individual need not have perfect fluency or equal skill in both languages (Savic 1996). Bimodal bilinguals, like spoken language bilinguals, exhibit a wide range of language competency in their firstFirst language
A first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...
and second
Second language
A second language or L2 is any language learned after the first language or mother tongue. Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas ....
languages. For Deaf people (the majority of bimodal bilinguals in the U.S.), level of competency in ASL and English may be influenced by factors such as degree of hearing loss
Hearing impairment
-Definition:Deafness is the inability for the ear to interpret certain or all frequencies of sound.-Environmental Situations:Deafness can be caused by environmental situations such as noise, trauma, or other ear defections...
, whether the individual is prelingually
Prelingual deafness
A profoundly prelingually deaf individual is someone who was born with insufficient hearing to acquire speech normally, or who lost their hearing prior to the age at which speech is acquired....
or post-lingually
Post-lingual deafness
Post-lingual deafness is a deafness which develops after the acquisition of speech and language, usually after the age of six.Post-lingual hearing impairments are far less common than prelingual deafness...
deaf, style of and language used in their education, and whether the individual comes from a hearing or Deaf family (Lucas & Valli 1992). Regardless of English competency in other areas, no Deaf individual is likely to comprehend English in the same way as a hearing person when others are speaking it because only a small percentage of English phonemes are clearly visible through lip reading. Additionally, many Deaf bilinguals who have fluency in written English choose not to speak it because of the general social unacceptability of their voices, or because they are unable to monitor factors like pitch and volume (Lucas & Valli 1992).
Denial of their own bilingualism
Like hearing spoken language bilinguals, Deaf bimodal bilinguals generally "do not judge themselves to be bilingual" (Grosjean 1992). Whether because they do not believe the signed language to be a legitimate and separate language from the majority spoken language, or because they don't consider themselves sufficiently fluent in one of their languages, denial of one's bilingualism is a common and well-known phenomenon among bilinguals, be they hearing or Deaf (Grosjean 1992).Everyday shifts along the language mode continuum
Deaf or bimodal bilinguals, in their day-to-day lives, move among and between various points on the language mode continuum depending on the situation and the language competency and skills of those with whom they are interacting. For example, when conversing with a monolingual, all bilinguals will restrict themselves to the language of the individual with whom they’re conversing. However, when interacting with another bilingual, all bilinguals can use a mixture of the two common languages (Grosjean 1992).Unequal social status of the languages involved
As is the case in many situations of spoken language bilingualism, bimodal bilingualism in the U.S. involves two languages with vastly different social status. ASL has traditionally not even had the status of being considered a legitimate language, and Deaf children have been prevented from learning it through such "methods" as having their hands tied together. Hearing parents of Deaf children have historically been advised not to allow their children to learn ASL, as they were informed it would prevent the acquisition of English. Despite the fact that Deaf children's early exposure to ASL has now been shown to enhance their aptitude for acquiring English competency, the unequal social status of ASL and English, and of signed languages and spoken languages, remains (Davis 1989) (Lucas & Valli 1992).Lack of societal acknowledgment of bilingual community status
Since linguists didn’t recognize ASL as a true language until the second half of the twentieth century, there has been very little acknowledgment of, or attention or study devoted to, the bilingual status of the American Deaf community (Grosjean 1992). Deaf people are often "still seen by many as monolingual in the majority language whereas in fact many are bilingual in that language and in sign" (Grosjean 1992).Bilingual language mode: "Contact Signing"
Because almost all members of the American Deaf community are to some extent bilingual in ASL and English, it is rare that a Deaf person will find themselves conversing with a person who is monolingual in ASL. Therefore, unless an American Deaf person is communicating with someone who is monolingual in English (the majority language), he or she can expect to be conversing in a "bilingual language mode” (Grosjean 1992). The result of this prolonged bilingual contact and mixing between a sign language and a spoken language is known as Contact SignContact Sign
A contact sign language, or contact sign, is a variety or style of language that arises from contact between a deaf sign language and a spoken language...
ing (Lucas & Valli 1992).
Unlikelihood of large-scale language shift
Language shiftLanguage shift
Language shift, sometimes referred to as language transfer or language replacement or assimilation, is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language. The rate of assimilation is the percentage of individuals with a given mother tongue who speak...
"occurs when speakers in a community give up speaking their language and take up the use of another in its place" (Ann 2001). ASL in particular, and signed languages in general, are undeniably influenced by their close contact with English or other spoken languages, as evidenced by phenomena such as "loan signs" or lexicalized fingerspelling (the signed language equivalent of loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s), and through the influence of Contact Sign
Contact Sign
A contact sign language, or contact sign, is a variety or style of language that arises from contact between a deaf sign language and a spoken language...
. However, due to the physical fact of deafness or hearing loss, d/Deaf people generally cannot acquire and speak the majority language in the same way or with the same competency that the hearing population does. Simultaneously, Deaf people still often have a need or desire to learn some form of English in order to communicate with family members and the majority culture (Davis 1989). Thus, Deaf communities and individuals, in contrast to many hearing bilingual communities and individuals, will tend to "remain bilingual throughout their lives and from generation to generation" (Grosjean 1992).
See also
- American Sign LanguageAmerican Sign LanguageAmerican Sign Language, or ASL, for a time also called Ameslan, is the dominant sign language of Deaf Americans, including deaf communities in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico...
- BiculturalismBiculturalismBiculturalism in sociology involves two originally distinct cultures in some form of co-existence.A policy recognizing, fostering or encouraging biculturalism typically emerges in countries that have emerged from a history of national or ethnic conflict in which neither side has gained complete...
- Child of Deaf AdultChild of deaf adultA child of a deaf adult, often known by the acronym "CODA", is a person who was raised by a deaf parent or guardian. Many CODAs identify with both deaf and hearing cultures...
- Code-switchingCode-switchingIn linguistics, code-switching is the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety, in conversation. Multilinguals—people who speak more than one language—sometimes use elements of multiple languages in conversing with each other...
- Contact SignContact SignA contact sign language, or contact sign, is a variety or style of language that arises from contact between a deaf sign language and a spoken language...
- Deaf cultureDeaf cultureDeaf culture describes the social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions, history, values and shared institutions of communities that are affected by deafness and which use sign languages as the main means of communication. When used as a cultural label, the word deaf is often written with a...
- Language contactLanguage contactLanguage contact occurs when two or more languages or varieties interact. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics.Multilingualism has likely been common throughout much of human history, and today most people in the world are multilingual...
- MultilingualismMultilingualismMultilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of...
- Sign languageSign languageA sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
- Signing Exact EnglishSigning Exact EnglishSigning Exact English is a system of manual communication that strives to be an exact representation of English vocabulary and grammar...