STUDENT LIFE

Learning to sign

Over 50 000 people in Britian use it to communicate, Declan O'Regan enters the silent world of signing.

Dr Samuel Johnson remarked that deafness"was one of the most desperate of human calamities." Although many people might say they would rather be deaf than blind, being born deaf is potentially more serious. If you are born deaf you are largely disenfranchised from the hearing world. You are denied the means to share information with those around you and have to live not only in silence but in isolation. Indeed, children who become deaf before they have had the opportunity to learn a language risk developing permanent cognitive impairment. It has been argued that language is not merely a means to express our thoughts but that language is our thoughts.

My opinions about deafness had always been indifferent. I had never met a deaf person and, although I agreed with Dr Johnson's sentiment, I did not feel that there was anything interesting about deafness.However, I was curious about sign language. Occasionally I might see an interpreter on television and watch for a while. It seemed incredible that a whole language could be played out on the hands.

Developing an interest

So things remained until I began my general practice attachment in south London. My general practice tutor was one of those few doctors from whom you learn so much more than just textbook medicine. Being with him was an education on how to be a good doctor. One of his many outside interests included learning sign language at night school. His daughter was deaf and he was learning sign language to teach it to her.As he explained further, I became more intrigued.

Soon afterwards I enrolled for British Sign Language evening classes.It is something that I hope to be able to use in the future, but more importantly learning the language from a deaf tutor also challenged my views about deaf people. The humour was full of irreverence and irony,the stories were absorbing, and the politics dispelled any preconceptions about a silent minority.

You cannot begin to understand a culture until you have learnt the language of its people, and this is especially true of the deaf community. Although it is the preferred language of some 50 000 people in Britain, it has been allowed to flourish only recently. The language has had a turbulent history, and it has survived a century of attack,particularly by schools adhering to oralist methods of teaching.However, the spirit of defiance among signers is notoriously strong: "You can cut off the fingers of deaf people and they will sign with their arms. You can cut off their arms and they will sign with their shoulders."

How does sign language work?

British Sign Language is a complete language that is not subservient to spoken English. It has its own grammatical system, its own vocabulary,and its own idioms and metaphors. It is not a form of mime, and it seldom resorts to spelling words on the fingers. Even the most abstract thoughts can be expressed easily and clearly, and signers regard it as the equal of any spoken language. Children learn the grammar and vocabulary in the same way as spoken language. In fact, a deaf child at 4 months may make the sign for milk, while a hearing child can only cry hungrily. This emphasises the importance of the early diagnosis of deafness to ensure that the child can learn sign language as a first language.

Sign language makes full use of the space around the signer to indicate such things as the passage of time, the position of objects, and their significance. There are over 50 different hand shapes, 12 positions,and 24 types of movement. Although there are only about 3000 different root signs, each can be modified by varying the lip pattern and facial expression or by changing the sign's position. In fact the English translation of one sign can be 20 words long.

Many sign languages across the world have independently developed along similar lines to British Sign Language. This means that deaf people can communicate reasonably well with signers from other countries. Even British Sign Language has regional variations. There are also a variety of systems, used mainly by schools, in which signs and lip reading are used to translate spoken English word for word.

Learning sign language as a second language is no more difficult than learning any other language. The syllabus is divided into three stages and an interpreter level with examinations at the end of each course. Stage 1 takes a year of evening classes, although it may take another two years of stage 2 before you become fluent. At first I found it bewildering but gradually I began to pick up more and more and slowly my confidence grew.

If you would like to learn sign language you should write to the Council for the Advancement of Communication with Deaf People (CACDP), Pelaw House, University of Durham, Durham DH1 1TA

Declan O'Regan,
final year medical student,
Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals,
London SE1 7EH

REFERENCES

1 Furth J G. Thinking without language. New York: Free Press, 1966.