Throughout my ASL learning journey, I have often thought about the role deaf individuals play in society. Do most deaf or hard of hearing individuals stay within like communities? Do they join hearing communities and find ways to communicate? What jobs are accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing? The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability, meaning that being deaf is not fair or just cause for discrimination.
However, through education and social norms/structure, I believe people can feel discouraged pursuing specific passions and goals. Either the information is not easily accessible, the journey is too long, or too many obstacles are in place. This applies not just in the deaf community, but throughout all individuals, but in today's discussion, we are referring specifically to death.
My lessons and past research has taught me ASL is a developing language that changes rapidly. New signs are created all the time to keep up with the modern English terminology. Additionally, not all ASL is consistent. Some areas have their own ASL vernacular. Some races have different signs as well (such as Black ASL which originated during segregation in America). However, because of the fluidity and diversity of ASL, there has been a decrease in the development of standardization of ASL signs in specific fields, specifically within STEM.
When a specific word does not have an established sign, translators and sign language users will spell out the word. However, in the STEM field, words such as bioluminescence and glycoprotein, are often long and require increased thought when spelling. Thus the sign for glycoprotein would translate to the spelling -"G-L-Y-O-P-R-O-T-E-I-N." Now imagine going to a one-hour lecture where large scientific words are used and you have to follow the spelling of these large words in order to properly understand the specific subject. It would be immensely difficult.
So, I began to inquire and research on any standardized development for STEMbased science terms, and here is what I have found. There are several projects out there, such as ASLCORE and ASL Clear, that are aiming to create new ASL signs for the STEM disciplines. ASLCORE is a more user-friendly site with terminology in subject areas including biology, organic chemistry, philosophy, architecture, and even literature! Each one of these subjects then has subdisciplines for terminology on specific areas. For example, under the biology subject, there is specific terminology that has been established to describe the enzymes and processes involved in DNA replication.
Because signs like these are so specific and not used by the general deaf society, many subject-specific terms do not have established signs. I wonder how much of a deterrent this obstacle is for deaf students interested in STEM. If this type of language was incorporated into deaf high schools, would there be a greater amount of deaf works in the STEM field. Although many, including myself, do not see deafness as a disability, being deaf in a hearing world does instill obstacles that may be extremely hard to overcome. I hope that with the development of STEM ASL signs, greater diversity and understanding about the deaf community is brought to the STEM field.
https://www.tlcdeaf.org/services/consultation-research-training
Comments
Eli, wow! I must admit that in spite of taking ASL for an entire semester and being a STEM student myself, I had not yet thought about the complexity of it. Science is so vast, complex and rigid. I can’t imagine giving a scientific presentation in ASL and having to fingerspell all the scientific words. It would be insanely tedious and confusing. The signs in ASL are so fluid and have so much regional variation. So, combining this fluid nature of ASL with rigid nature of science sounds like an incredibly ambitious, but important task. I will closely follow this topic in the future, thank you so much for sharing!
I never realized how difficult it must have been especially in the stem field to spell out the scientific words. It definitely must have been difficult for the deaf students who are interested in STEM because the lack of sign for those words makes it even more challenging to learn. I hope to see change and development in the STEM field and other fields within the deaf community in the future!
Elijah, thank you for sharing this post. It really made me realize how little I actually know about ASL as a language, identity, and community. Though I knew that every language continues to change, I never knew the dynamism of ASL, and its constant need to adapt to the English language. I look forward to learning more about ASL.
This is extremely interesting. Your focus on STEM really illuminates the barriers to entry that many deaf and disabled people might face when trying to enter those fields. It makes me wonder how many other disciplines have similar issues. For example, if history has similar issues I wonder what kind impact that has on the kind of narratives that deaf individuals could experience and create.
Its interesting how ASL is not standardized and how that's similar to spoken languages. Regional differences can lead to miscommunications that doesn't seem to cross our minds. It also did not cross my mind that STEM would have a different system for ASL and that's actually pretty interesting to know.