For my cultural inquiry, I’ve been looking at both fictional and biographical narratives of CODAs (children of Deaf adults). I’d heard great reviews of the 2021 film CODA with one of my favorite Deaf actresses, Marlee Matlin. All Deaf characters are portrayed by Deaf actors, and the use of ASL is prolific in the film.

As a daughter of two Deaf parents, Ruby is often responsible for interpreting. Her parents work as fishermen within a hearing community. The family finds themselves in internal conflict as Ruby debates whether to stay home and help the business or, ironically, to pursue her passion for music in college. Her parents understand the importance of her independence and passion while recognizing their inability to function without a means to communicate with the broader fishing community. In a particularly tense moment, they lose their fishing licenses after not being able to hear sirens.

Despite their inability to connect through music, they continue to show up in support of their daughter, ultimately encouraging her as she’s accepted into music school. Some of their employees learn sign, and they are able to communicate without relying on their daughter.

The Deaf community’s reception to the film was varied, with casting and complexity of characters being praised. There was also great excitement around seeing Deaf representation on such a major scale. As we know, representation is only the beginning, and inaccuracies surrounding the CODA experience were critiqued. Creative liberties, for example, that Ruby was studying music, felt trite and derogatory to some Deaf viewers. Times in which Ruby was expected to interpret were also unrealistic, particularly when she is asked to interpret in a medical setting.

From an ASL perspective, it’s lovely to watch the subtle differences in how the Deaf and hearing actors sign, with the latter being a bit more formulaic and relying less on syntactic features found in ASL but not English.

At the end of the day, this film stands more so as a testament to Deaf acting than as an accurate portrayal of the CODA experience, but I enjoyed watching it with a critical lens.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been focusing on the following language goals:

- increase my speed of fingerspelling and comprehension of fast fingerspelling

- express more complex ideas by learning directional and spatial modifiers, as well as learning more complex syntax

- communicating with my language partner only using sign, and using fingerspelling to ask about words I don’t know 

- learn vocabulary about interests and personal attributes

- learn general patterns in ASL morphology

These goals have allowed me quite a bit of breadth in communication as a beginner. Fingerspelling especially gives me agency to learn vocabulary without switching into English or Spanish. Because there are so many patterns, there’s often opposite meanings that I am able to deduce through learning one sign. If I learn boyfriend, I already know girlfriend will be the same sign from the chin. If I know driving, I know how to sign backing up by adding a spatial modifier.

This intuitive quality has also helped with my comprehension of sign. My language partner saw my dog acting hyper in the background and signed YOUR DOG PLAY with an excited gesture. The way he signed PLAY was different than I had seen before, and it perfectly matched her energetic demeanor.

Outside of meetings with my language partner, I’ve been using SLAIT and Lingvano for vocabulary building. SLAIT uses AI to detect correct signage, which has been helpful feedback. Lingvano, I feel, does a great job at teaching nuance in sign, such as facial expressions and modifiers. I’ve also been making an effort to follow Deaf creators to both watch how they sign and hear more about their experiences 

This past month, I’ve been exploring Deaf experiences in the US, both in the context of individual lived experiences and Deaf culture as a whole. Genetically and linguistically, signed languages, including ASL, are a bit of an anomaly as deaf children are more than half of the time born into hearing families. This means that many deaf children are not learning sign as a first language, and are often asked to adapt to the hearing world while being distant from a sense of belonging in Deaf communities.

This theme is explored in Gallaudet University’s documentary, Through Deaf Eyes, as well as the book Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture by Carol Padden and Tom Humpries. In both the documentary and the book, we hear first hand accounts of Deaf adults coming into their Deaf culture with a particular emphasis on the complex relationships to residential schools of the Deaf. These schools have been funded in all 50 states and Canada and often prohibit sign in classrooms, teaching students speech and lip reading instead. In the documentary, we hear students discouraged and frustrated by their academic performance being equated to how well they could present as “hearing.”

It was in the dorms of these schools, however, where students stayed Monday through Friday, that many interviewed described having their first senses of belonging in a Deaf culture. It was here, from one another, that they learned to sign, gave each other sign names, and had the freedom of communication without barriers. Many described a conflicted feeling around returning home for the weekends, often to homes that were not willing to learn sign.

Padden and Humphries also go on to describe an irony around the familial aspect of deafness in that hearing CODAs (children of Deaf adults) often have a more immediate exposure to Deaf culture and learn sign as an L1, which is not the case for many Deaf children.

Moving forward in my cultural studies, I want to explore best practices in language acquisition and schooling for Deaf children, as well as learn more about other ways in which Deaf people come into community.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10ES985-ZBrzCprr7OKKKfaSi_6R4jQ08/view?usp=sharing

Here's the link to my discussion with my lovely language partner, Hesti: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uWFTWN0C2vRU1jCDu7agzRHTlVfxatNV/view?usp=sharing

In the last bit of the semester, I found myself in quite a flare up, which led me to continue my studies over winter break. Taking an incomplete ended up being incredibly beneficial, as I was able to take my time in continuing to engage with Indonesian. Even though I wish it were possible, building fluency through "cramming" is never going to work. Even though it took me a bit longer to finish the course, I stayed with the habit of routinely engaging with Bahasa Indonesia.

Meetings with my language partner have fully shifted to conversation practice. Although we'll sometimes talk about more complex grammar topics, my building of vocabulary is predominantly happening outside of class. I've been doing more Duolingo and Mondly to practice basic vocabulary, and I've been journaling to build more complex vocabulary. In terms of more passive study, I've been watching Jadis Kretek, an Indonesian TV show on Netflix. At first, I would watch the episode in English, then in Indonesian, but now, I'm able to just watch in Indonesian (clarifying plot details as needed).

While not relevant for the purposes of Fall semester, I did sign up for a DOS Bahasa Indonesia class online. I'm hoping this will allow me to continue studying while leading up to my potential internship in Java this summer.

At this point in the semester, I have a solid understanding of basic Indonesian grammar. I'm now in the place where I'm trying to rapidly expand my vocabulary. I've been creating picture-based vocabulary lists as part of my resource building and journaling on relevant topics. I've continued to find Duolingo helpful as well, and I've been testing into higher levels to keep it challenging.

My language partner and I have started speaking in about 80% Bahasa Indonesia, and this has been helpful for challenging me to thing on the fly in my target language. Her work packets have continued to be the most helpful textbook-like resource. The textbook I got for the class, Let's Speak Indonesian, has some helpful prompts, but it doesn't go as in depth as I would like it to. I've been using it a bit more selectively than I planned to.

In terms of my cultural studies, I'm still reading through Language Policy in Superdiverse Indonesia. Although it's in English, it has helped me to contextualize the relationship between Bahasa Indonesia, Malay dialects, Javanese, English, and other LFs and native languages. It's also helping me to connect to my studies in LLC 198, where we're preparing to do an English teaching practicum to students in Java. My professor for that class has offered to let me present on historic and sociolinguistics in Indonesia (something I've become quite nerdy about!) For cultural studies in Indonesian, I've started watching Whipped on Netflix with English subtitles.

Bahasa Indonesia Syllabus

For my syllabus, I tried to maximize the amount of language I was exposing myself to during the first half of the semester, while the second part of the semester will be more oriented to practicing composition and presentation. I've recently decided that one of my goals will b to create an online "Bahasa Indonesia Learning Lab" that will serve as a hub of resources for future SDLAP students. I've noticed this being a difficulty of mine-- not having many reliable resources.

So far, I'm noticing a few things:

- I'm testing into higher levels on Duolingo, so I'm moving through that faster than I expected to. Considering the relatively simple grammar structure of Indonesian, I've enjoyed using Duolingo as a resource and have found it quite helpful.

- My language partner (through Italki) has been a wonderful resource for providing worksheets. She has me bring them to sessions, and I've found them more helpful than the exercises in my textbook. She's begun to have a busier schedule (and canceled some of our sessions), so I'm unsure if I'll be able to keep working with her, but it's been wonderful for the time being.

- Creating vocabulary lists for the Lab has been wonderful for expanding my vocabulary. I've been trying to use images rather than English translations when relevant, and this is helping me to mentally retreive the words faster.

"Love" the Local, "Use" the National, "Study" the Foreign: Shifting Javanese Language Ecologies in (Post-)Modernity, Postcoloniality, and Globalization - University of Richmond (exlibrisgroup.com)

I'm centering the cultural studies of my course around the historic linguistics and comparative sociolinguistics of modern Indonesia. As a country that is incredibly diverse linguistically with around 700 spoken languages, I wanted to begin to explore how these languages interact with each other. 

Current language policy in Indonesia encourages people to "Love the local, speak the national, and learn the foreign" as a formula for engaging with language. Bahasa Indonesia serves as a Lingua Franca and the language of trade and educational instruction across the country. I didn't realize until recently that for a language that is so widely spoken, it only came to exist officially in the mid-20th century as a means to foster a national identity. Thus, speaking the national. As English continues to serve as a symbol of a globalizing world and, for many, a symbol of opportunity, much of the LOTI (Language other than Indonesian) education is focused towards English. Here, the value is placed on learning the foreign.

This creates an issue for the protection of local languages. Although Indonesians are encouraged to hold their native languages in high regard, their unintentional deemphasis in favor of national and global ways of speaking is distancing people from their cultural and linguistic identities. One element of Bahasa Indonesia (as well as its predecessor Malay and the related Javanese) is the presence of formal and informal registers. Unlike Germanic and Romance languages with differing second-person pronouns, the manner of speaking varies widely based on the formality of the interaction. In Javanese, this distinction divides the language into two extremely distinct registers. Kromo, on one hand, is the highly-regarded formal register often associated with the elite. Ngoko, on the other hand, is more often spoken at home and is the register that is often learned as a native language for those in Java. 

Because Kromo is both quite distinct from Ngoko and much harder to speak "correctly," many native speakers of Ngoko claim that they cannot speak Javanese, but rather that they can only speak in "daily talk." The imposed standards of fluency are high, and as the educational system deemphasizes local languages, more and more people are distancing themselves from a Javanese linguistic identity, despite it being their first language.

This paper included transcripts (in Bahasa Indonesia with an English translation) from a conversation between two young people in Java who, despite speaking L1 Ngoko and proficient Krono, talked about how "cool" it would be if they could speak Krono. It seems as though, from this paper, local languages are still highly regarded, but are feeling more unattainable as time passes.

Reflect on your experiences as a language learner. What did you enjoy? What did you dislike? Think about the FIRE model and the surveys you have just completed. What kind of learner are you? What kinds of language learning activities suit your learning style? How do you think you should expand your learning activities?

My first encounter with formal language learning was in my eighth grade French class. I had an incredible teacher who was always willing to give me additional learning materials to accelerate the pace in which I could express complex ideas. I fell in love with the fact that there were somethings that felt more authentic to express in French, that I could get closer to meaning by expanding my toolbox of languages. 

Growing up neurodivergent, I found myself easily able to mimic the speech patterns of others-- I used this talent not only to help me pick up on linguistic patterns in foreign languages, but also to intentionally drop my Appalachian dialect at one point (which I now regret having done.) At the age of sixteen, I left Tennessee for a year abroad in Germany with the Department of State's CBYX program. This marked my first immersive language learning experience, and I arrived to the country with no prior German knowledge. Although it was undeniably one of the hardest years of my life, I learned a lot about my language-learning styles in that program and have remained at a C1 level of working proficiency. When brainstorming what was helpful, I realized that:

- Forcing myself to express and circumlocute ideas in my target language was both exhausting and crucial to building speaking skills. Even when I made little to no sense or embarrassing mistakes, it started a dialog with whomever I was speaking with through which I learned a more efficient way to express something in the future.

- Passively listening to the target language led me to a gradual building of comprehension and vocabulary. It took me roughly two to three months to be able to understand most things and about four months to be able to respond with more effectiveness. 

- Although mimicking the language acquisition patterns of children might have contributed to my existential woes of no longer being able to express complex thoughts and emotions, it helped me in the long run to think and speak more intuitively in German.

After returning from Germany, I felt empowered by my ability to express myself in a new way and connect myself with a greater variety of people. I took an introductory Chinese class, but found that the emphasis on direct translation limited my ability to understand the language from a Chinese perspective. I then did a short stint of time in Nepal in which I was able to learn much more in much less time by focusing on conversation. This makes sense considering my Learning Style and Multiple Intelligences results-- I'm a tactile learner, and my greatest intelligences are Social and Language. Conversation to me is experiential, and the most important component of language learning, personally.

Currently, I'm taking a 300 level Spanish class and beginning my studies of Bahasa Indonesia. For both languages, I want to try speaking as much as possible while placing more of an emphasis on grammar than I have in the past. As part of my learning for this semester, I'd like to challenge myself to write complex reflections with the help of external resources in order to quickly build a sense of grammar concepts.