Dan Parvaz
Dear Professor Neidle:
When I heard that Boston University's College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) was resisting the idea that courses in American Sign Language (ASL) should be accepted as fulfilling undergraduates' language requirement, I was surprised, and a little disappointed. I shouldn't be too surprised, because universities, even those brimming with A-list intellectual talent, make short-sighted decisions based on outmoded definitions and inadequate information. The surprise comes from the fact that such a decision was made in spite of the informational resource BU has in you and your department.
ASL is a language. Not only because there are points of structural similarity between signed and spoken languages -- there are plenty of points of divergence as well -- but because signed languages are used effectively in all those areas in which it is agreed that any language can and must be used. The weight of scholarly effort cataloguing that assertion can be found in peer-reviewed journals (both within and without signed language studies), theses, dissertations, and volumes of research stretching back for centuries, the most recent phase of which began with the late William Stokoe's research.
The study of ASL provides undergraduates with insights and experiences comparable to the study of more traditional classical and modern languages. ASL does have a thriving tradition of poetry, oratory, drama, and storytelling -- all of which provide access to a unique culture, albeit one which coexists with the cultures of the surrounding community. Learning about a language which depends on vision, with its accompanying differences in representation and informational 'bandwidth' -- gives students a particularly mind-expanding view about the possibilities of Language and human expression, to say nothing of additional insights into what it means to be human. I sincerely doubt that this sort of payoff is often found in a typical four-semester sequence in a currently approved modern language. In fact, four semesters in any language, particularly the more 'exotic' ones, will rarely result in the sort of competence needed to read a newspaper, much less delve into works of literature. This puts the lie to a commonly-held conceit in university catalogues: that of providing access to a foreign culture.
I feel I must close on a personal note. I have studied many languages in the course of my research and work, and feel fairly comfortable in more than a few. The study of signed languages, including ASL, has been particularly rewarding to me on both an intellectual and personal level. Wrestling with the apparent differences between signed and spoken languages has led me to a deeper and greater appreciation for Language in general. It is my hope that the CAS Academic Policy Committee may learn to see past geographical prejudice and accept the "foreigners" in their midst.
Sincerely,
Dan Parvaz
PhD Student, Department of Linguistics
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~linguistComputational Linguist
Computer Science Innovations, Inc.
Melbourne, Florida
http://www.csi-inc.com
Dave Squires
My daughter is a linguistics student at Concordia U, in Montreal and is keenly interested in ASL as a language. In talking with her over the past few years, it is very apparent that ASL is the primary and only language for a significant group of people and that the deaf talk and interact in their own unique way. It is certainly a 'foriegn' language to 99.9 % of the population, It has its own unique structure and 'rules, but like any language, it is modified and adapted within each geographic 'group' that uses it. It is not easy to learn and requires study and practice to become proficient, Recognizing it as a foreign language will certainly help to advance the knowledge and understanding of ASL and the deaf community that uses it.
I encourage the University of Boston to reconsider their position and include ASL as an accepted foreign language.
Dave Squires,
Science teacher
1272 Plymouth Crescent
Port Coquitlam, BC
V2X 8E8
Donna Jo Napoli
Dear Carol,
My initial reaction to hearing ASL cannot be used to fulfill the language requirement at BU was shock. Your department has produced some of the most important scholars and scholarly work in the area of ASL and education of those with hearing impairment or deafness. Is the BU administration unaware of the high standards your very department has set for the field? My second reaction, though, was grief. The only reason anyone would deny full-fledged language status to ASL is lack of familiarity with the relevant data. And, way too commonly this lack of familiarity is due to the misconception that the language (and culture) of people with hearing impairment or deafness cannot help but be deficient, given the more pernicious misconception that deafness is a mental deficiency. Linguists have worked to educate the public about the central place of language in the human brain, but clearly we have a lot more work to do. The absence of a sense of hearing in no way alters our need for and ability to produce and understand language any more than the absence of a sense of taste would alter our need for and ability to digest food. And the very fact that sign languages call upon a different modality from spoken languages (manual-visual, rather than oral-aural) make them of more academic interest to all the fields gathered under the rubric of cognitive sciences. Indeed, it would make sense for students in the relevant majors to be required to take classes in a sign language. I hope the outpouring of support right now will convince the BU administration to enrich themselves by partaking of the great amount of information your website makes available, and thus to allow themselves to be disabused of some of our society's most abhorrent misconceptions. Swarthmore College and Bryn Mawr College have seen the light, I am grateful to be able to say. It's time to let the light shine on BU.
Sincerely,
Donna Jo Napoli
Professor (and former Chair) of Linguistics, Swarthmore College
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[last modified 4/29/04 ]