some Ddeaf/Hhoh with grammar english problems

no my worse when i had to take test for gov to get high school dimplma i have fail 8 time ....
 
jillio said:
Because grammar applies to not just fluency in language usage, but to specific rules that must be followed in specific situations. It is memorization, on large part. Some hearies don't memorize the rules, do not receive sufficient practice in using those rules (difference between spoken, informal langugage, and written or spoken formal spoken language), they have no interest in or do not see the necessity for learning to use proper grammar if it cannot be applied to their life in a meaningful way, they have a specific learning disability or language disorder, or, as happens in far too many cases....they simply don't give a damn.

Just wanted to add that one can be able to execute perfect grammar and still not use language at the level of a native, because while they are mechanically correct, they are unable to use the language creatively and in unique ways to represent new and unique thoughts.
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Thank you, Jillio! for explaining it to me. So that's why there is a high level of illiteracy?

Even if I practice and practice forever, I can still not be at the level of a native?
 
Ozzie said:
Thank you, Jillio! for explaining it to me. So that's why there is a high level of illiteracy?

Even if I practice and practice forever, I can still not be at the level of a native?
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Not necessarily true. I think Jillio is only pointing out a tendency.
It is possible to become better at writing that most average people.
Will you be perfect? No. But then again, nobody is perfect.

Also, 'proper' writing is a refined process. People do not just write books in one sitting, for example. They go through many revisions, do reference, rethink the 'best' way to write something... it may take days to write a single page.

But for average use, you do not need to be super creative. You only need to be understood (and taken seriously, depending on your 'audience'...) so even the more simple words and rules can work, there are many ways to write and say something, you don't always have to pick a fancy way.
 
Ozzie said:
Thank you, Jillio! for explaining it to me. So that's why there is a high level of illiteracy?

Even if I practice and practice forever, I can still not be at the level of a native?
Click to expand...

You can be fluent, and you will improve your fluency in time. But early language acquisition is necessary to demonstrate native usage. The thing is, and this is why shel and I both advocate for sign from the time a child is diagnosed....if a child developes native skills in sign, and then English is introduced as a second langauge, they can transfer the skills they obtained as a native signer to English....or any other language. But when a child does not receive the stimulation visually, delays are created and those delays are also transferred to any other language learned. Because even a child with a mild to moderate loss will miss out on auditory stimulation to some degree, they miss out on all of the opportunities to develop native langauge skills. That is why I have said so many times that just because oral language may be the only language a child has does not mean that they are native users. They may be fluent users, but that does not imply nativity because the language had to be taught through directed and active learning processes, rather than the more passive acquisition process. This is also evident in the differences in language usage for prelingula deaf children of hearing parents and psotlingual deaf children of hearing parents, and in the language performance of deaf children of deaf parents and deaf children of hearing parents. Some delays, scuh as vocabulary, can be remediated. Incidental exposure cannot.

LOL, I can get very long winded in my explanations of this topic, but I feel it is important for people to understand exactly how the problems are created in the beginning.
 
jenni-m said:
Not necessarily true. I think Jillio is only pointing out a tendency.
It is possible to become better at writing that most average people.
Will you be perfect? No. But then again, nobody is perfect.

Also, 'proper' writing is a refined process. People do not just write books in one sitting, for example. They go through many revisions, do reference, rethink the 'best' way to write something... it may take days to write a single page.

But for average use, you do not need to be super creative. You only need to be understood (and taken seriously, depending on your 'audience'...) so even the more simple words and rules can work, there are many ways to write and say something, you don't always have to pick a fancy way.
Click to expand...

I agree that it is a tendency, but it is a tendency that is very consistent when populations of deaf are compared in their language usage.

Yes, mechanics can be taught, and everyone can always improve their mechanics; deaf and hearing alike. But it is not the ability to learn the mechanics that distinguishes the native user of a language fromt the fluent user of a language. It is the fluidity and the creativity. And this is reflected not just in language, but in all thought processes, as thought processes are dependent upon language.

Its not about using bigger words. It is about using all words, no matter which one it is, in a fluid manner. Idioms are a perfect example of that. Native use of language allows the creation of idioms; or using words to describe a situation that appears to be totally unrealted to the words used to do so, but has an implied and creative relation at a deeper level. For instance, "beating a dead horse" has absolutely nothing to do with beating, a horse, or death. It is a creative and fluid way to play with language and deliver the message that you are wasting your time because the problem has already been solved. One can be fluent in the English language, and still have difficulty with the fuidlity necessary to understand idioms. The same can hold true for a native user of ASL. ASL, as well, contains idioms that a fluent, but non-native user has difficulty interpreting.
 
jillio said:
I agree that it is a tendency, but it is a tendency that is very consistent when populations of deaf are compared in their language usage.

Yes, mechanics can be taught, and everyone can always improve their mechanics; deaf and hearing alike. But it is not the ability to learn the mechanics that distinguishes the native user of a language fromt the fluent user of a language. It is the fluidity and the creativity. And this is reflected not just in language, but in all thought processes, as thought processes are dependent upon language.

Its not about using bigger words. It is about using all words, no matter which one it is, in a fluid manner. Idioms are a perfect example of that. Native use of language allows the creation of idioms; or using words to describe a situation that appears to be totally unrealted to the words used to do so, but has an implied and creative relation at a deeper level. For instance, "beating a dead horse" has absolutely nothing to do with beating, a horse, or death. It is a creative and fluid way to play with language and deliver the message that you are wasting your time because the problem has already been solved. One can be fluent in the English language, and still have difficulty with the fuidlity necessary to understand idioms. The same can hold true for a native user of ASL. ASL, as well, contains idioms that a fluent, but non-native user has difficulty interpreting.
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You are correct, but I guess my view is once again different than yours. Maybe this is a tendency with me?

I do not always get idioms or metaphors. I can use them some, like my friend was telling me the other day as I was debating someone, that they were "beating a dead horse", I remembered what it meant and said "well, I some times like to make sure the horse is really dead."

But I think a large portion of idioms are unnecessary, most of the time. I don't even consider them 'good' English. Metaphor and analogy have their place at times, though. And this is what I mean by getting fancy, I can't think of any situation that actually -requires- you to use an idiom, especially a very abstract one such as beating a horse.

So perhaps 'native' is an advantage, but to me it is a very small one.
 
jenni-m said:
You are correct, but I guess my view is once again different than yours. Maybe this is a tendency with me?

I do not always get idioms or metaphors. I can use them some, like my friend was telling me the other day as I was debating someone, that they were "beating a dead horse", I remembered what it meant and said "well, I some times like to make sure the horse is really dead."

But I think a large portion of idioms are unnecessary, most of the time. I don't even consider them 'good' English. Metaphor and analogy have their place at times, though. And this is what I mean by getting fancy, I can't think of any situation that actually -requires- you to use an idiom, especially a very abstract one such as beating a horse.

So perhaps 'native' is an advantage, but to me it is a very small one.
Click to expand...

Speaking of idioms, although I've been told I have a flair for writing, I do not pick up idioms easily because idioms by their very nature are more commonly used in spoken English. Hearing can learn them via everyday conservation. Idioms had to be taught to me. Likewise, the same can be said for slang. A lot of teens and 20 something use a lot of that and I rarely pick it up from every day conservation. The only expecation to the rule is via IMs or when I play World of Warcraft and I have to see it in printed form.

I would not use idioms in a formal essay but I may use it in creative writing depending on the situation.
 
jenni-m said:
You are correct, but I guess my view is once again different than yours. Maybe this is a tendency with me?

I do not always get idioms or metaphors. I can use them some, like my friend was telling me the other day as I was debating someone, that they were "beating a dead horse", I remembered what it meant and said "well, I some times like to make sure the horse is really dead."

But I think a large portion of idioms are unnecessary, most of the time. I don't even consider them 'good' English. Metaphor and analogy have their place at times, though. And this is what I mean by getting fancy, I can't think of any situation that actually -requires- you to use an idiom, especially a very abstract one such as beating a horse.

So perhaps 'native' is an advantage, but to me it is a very small one.
Click to expand...

I don't think our views are so different. I think perhaps I simply consider the issue from a wider viewpoint due to age and experience.

Idioms may perhaps be unnecessary, but they are in fact a very real and often used part of every language, and demonstrate a fluidity in thought. Croncreteness has its place, but if we were to all restrict ourselves to that which can only be demonstrated concretely, we would never be able to see gray areas in any situation, nor would we have advanced, as a society, to the degree that we have. Einstein, the great novelists, Gallileo, the philosophers, etc. have all contributed to the advancement of society as a whole, and all had to step outside the box and see things in new and unique ways, and then be able to communicate that in language.
 
deafskeptic said:
Speaking of idioms, although I've been told I have a flair for writing, I do not pick up idioms easily because idioms by their very nature are more commonly used in spoken English. Hearing can learn them via everyday conservation. Idioms had to be taught to me. Likewise, the same can be said for slang. A lot of teens and 20 something use a lot of that and I rarely pick it up from every day conservation. The only expecation to the rule is via IMs or when I play World of Warcraft and I have to see it in printed form.

I would not use idioms in a formal essay but I may use it in creative writing depending on the situation.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Hearing are able to intuit the contextual meaning of an idiom because they have acquired the spoken language from birth and have internalized it.
 
If you are curious about a perspective on this from outside the deaf community, I'll tell you about my experience today (if you aren't, I suppose you can skip this post).

I'm a prosecutor, and an investigation came across my desk involving a suspect who is deaf. The police investigators, who probably have very little experience with d/hh individuals, tried having a conversation with the suspect by writing back and forth on a pad of paper. The investigation also involved a lot of IM chatting prior to the arrest. Additionally, the suspect provided a written admission regarding the matter.

As I reviewed the written communications, I was confused. The grammar was very odd. I knew the suspect had been born and raised in the US. While I also knew he was deaf, it hadn't occurred to me that he would have difficulty writing. I assumed that since you don't need hearing to read and write, a deaf person would do both as well as a person who could hear the language spoken.

At first, I thought he might have been stupid. I know that reaction might make some angry---that's understandable---but I suspect my first reaction isn't unusual. As I read more of his writing, however, it clicked: he wasn't a native speaker. The grammatical mistakes were the same mistakes I've heard from non-native speakers. In fact, reading the transcripts out loud, I fell into a Russian accent. It fit.

Believe it or not, as a prosecutor I am very concerned about the rights of defendants. In this case, it occurred to me that there would be issues with communication; the police, the judge, and any future jury should fully appreciate that English and ASL are different languages, and that while a deaf person may have been exposed to English in written form their whole life, that doesn't mean it is their best means of communication.

I discussed the matter with a friend who has done extensive work with deaf students, and I googled the issue and came up with this thread. By reading your discussion here, I've learned a lot. You all have helped me tremendously with my work on this matter, and I thank you for that.

Beyond that, I'd like to share some insight from a "hearie" perspective. Grammar isn't easy. I'm a lawyer, so use of the written language is an important part of my job. Even so, I'm always checking and double-checking my sentence construction and word use. In fact, today I looked up usage discussions on "till" and "until". When typing the previous sentence, I decided at the last second to switch a word from the back of the sentence to near the front, and in this sentence, the phrase "at the last second" was originally written "at the last minute".

Very often, when reviewing my writing, I think about how a sentence "sounds". Sometimes I even speak it aloud. Much of what I know about grammar comes from my experience hearing the language. This has been discussed earlier in the thread, and a deaf person doesn't have that advantage. However, most of what I know about grammar comes from reading and writing, and we all can master grammar in that way.
 
I want to congratulate you on your sensitivity and insight regarding deaf defendants and the language problems that are inherent, especially when the person is strictly ASL. Often times, effective communication requires not just an interpreter, but a certified specialist in deaf communications to compensate for the differences in conceptual meaning. ASL does not translate word for word into English. And when he attempts to write in English, it sounds as if he is using ASL syntax and concept, which can lead to great confusion over what he is attempting to say when it is read by an English speaker.

Again, thank you for your sensitivity and concern for this individual.
 
jillio said:
You can be fluent, and you will improve your fluency in time. But early language acquisition is necessary to demonstrate native usage. The thing is, and this is why shel and I both advocate for sign from the time a child is diagnosed....if a child developes native skills in sign, and then English is introduced as a second langauge, they can transfer the skills they obtained as a native signer to English....or any other language. But when a child does not receive the stimulation visually, delays are created and those delays are also transferred to any other language learned. Because even a child with a mild to moderate loss will miss out on auditory stimulation to some degree, they miss out on all of the opportunities to develop native langauge skills. That is why I have said so many times that just because oral language may be the only language a child has does not mean that they are native users. They may be fluent users, but that does not imply nativity because the language had to be taught through directed and active learning processes, rather than the more passive acquisition process. This is also evident in the differences in language usage for prelingula deaf children of hearing parents and psotlingual deaf children of hearing parents, and in the language performance of deaf children of deaf parents and deaf children of hearing parents. Some delays, scuh as vocabulary, can be remediated. Incidental exposure cannot.

LOL, I can get very long winded in my explanations of this topic, but I feel it is important for people to understand exactly how the problems are created in the beginning.
Click to expand...

Thank you, Jillio for answering my question. :)
 
jillio said:
I don't think our views are so different. I think perhaps I simply consider the issue from a wider viewpoint due to age and experience.

Idioms may perhaps be unnecessary, but they are in fact a very real and often used part of every language, and demonstrate a fluidity in thought. Croncreteness has its place, but if we were to all restrict ourselves to that which can only be demonstrated concretely, we would never be able to see gray areas in any situation, nor would we have advanced, as a society, to the degree that we have. Einstein, the great novelists, Gallileo, the philosophers, etc. have all contributed to the advancement of society as a whole, and all had to step outside the box and see things in new and unique ways, and then be able to communicate that in language.
Click to expand...

Yes, however I think that is more due to analogy (allegory, metaphor, simile, etc.) these are widely used in maths, sciences and philosophy. To me, idiom is simply 'artful'. Which can be nice, and shows creativity, but I think by the very basis of it, it makes already complex languages needlessly more complex.

Edit:
Example, let us look at the difference between the way two phrases are said.
1. "You are beating a dead horse." There is no clue here, or comparison, for those who don't know what it means. It is completely unrelated to what it actually means if you don't already know, similar to "kick the bucket" (which is a really bad idiom, to me)

2. "Continuing this conversation is like beating a dead horse" Now the listener/reader is informed that a comparison is being made. It is just as creative, but it is also more plain. One should know that beating a dead horse is useless, and also says the conversation is useless to continue, by comparison.
 
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Lycurgus ...

An interesting post you composed. Going the extra mile to find out about the Deaf and their struggles with language was an excellent action on your part. I'm glad that this thread has helped you in some way to recognize the hardships the Deaf go through.

Also I would like to add, thank you for giving this individual as we Aussies say a 'fair go'. :)
 
Lycurgus said:
If you are curious about a perspective on this from outside the deaf community, I'll tell you about my experience today (if you aren't, I suppose you can skip this post).

I'm a prosecutor, and an investigation came across my desk involving a suspect who is deaf. The police investigators, who probably have very little experience with d/hh individuals, tried having a conversation with the suspect by writing back and forth on a pad of paper. The investigation also involved a lot of IM chatting prior to the arrest. Additionally, the suspect provided a written admission regarding the matter.

As I reviewed the written communications, I was confused. The grammar was very odd. I knew the suspect had been born and raised in the US. While I also knew he was deaf, it hadn't occurred to me that he would have difficulty writing. I assumed that since you don't need hearing to read and write, a deaf person would do both as well as a person who could hear the language spoken.

At first, I thought he might have been stupid. I know that reaction might make some angry---that's understandable---but I suspect my first reaction isn't unusual. As I read more of his writing, however, it clicked: he wasn't a native speaker. The grammatical mistakes were the same mistakes I've heard from non-native speakers. In fact, reading the transcripts out loud, I fell into a Russian accent. It fit.

Believe it or not, as a prosecutor I am very concerned about the rights of defendants. In this case, it occurred to me that there would be issues with communication; the police, the judge, and any future jury should fully appreciate that English and ASL are different languages, and that while a deaf person may have been exposed to English in written form their whole life, that doesn't mean it is their best means of communication.

I discussed the matter with a friend who has done extensive work with deaf students, and I googled the issue and came up with this thread. By reading your discussion here, I've learned a lot. You all have helped me tremendously with my work on this matter, and I thank you for that.

Beyond that, I'd like to share some insight from a "hearie" perspective. Grammar isn't easy. I'm a lawyer, so use of the written language is an important part of my job. Even so, I'm always checking and double-checking my sentence construction and word use. In fact, today I looked up usage discussions on "till" and "until". When typing the previous sentence, I decided at the last second to switch a word from the back of the sentence to near the front, and in this sentence, the phrase "at the last second" was originally written "at the last minute".

Very often, when reviewing my writing, I think about how a sentence "sounds". Sometimes I even speak it aloud. Much of what I know about grammar comes from my experience hearing the language. This has been discussed earlier in the thread, and a deaf person doesn't have that advantage. However, most of what I know about grammar comes from reading and writing, and we all can master grammar in that way.
Click to expand...

I am impressed by your sensitivity in a difficult matter regarding a deaf defender. One word of advice regarding ASL, a lot of hearing do not believe it is a real language and you will have to bring in qualified experts in Linguistics in order to convince your jury regarding ASL and you would do well learn who William C. Stokes and Laruent Clerc is. I wish more hearing were like you.
 
jillio said:
I want to congratulate you on your sensitivity and insight regarding deaf defendants and the language problems that are inherent, especially when the person is strictly ASL. Often times, effective communication requires not just an interpreter, but a certified specialist in deaf communications to compensate for the differences in conceptual meaning. ASL does not translate word for word into English. And when he attempts to write in English, it sounds as if he is using ASL syntax and concept, which can lead to great confusion over what he is attempting to say when it is read by an English speaker.

Again, thank you for your sensitivity and concern for this individual.
Click to expand...

*Tousi throwing his Lawyer Jokes book under the couch*

Seriously, Lycurgus, that was a great post, thank you.
 
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jenni-m said:
Yes, however I think that is more due to analogy (allegory, metaphor, simile, etc.) these are widely used in maths, sciences and philosophy. To me, idiom is simply 'artful'. Which can be nice, and shows creativity, but I think by the very basis of it, it makes already complex languages needlessly more complex.

Edit:
Example, let us look at the difference between the way two phrases are said.
1. "You are beating a dead horse." There is no clue here, or comparison, for those who don't know what it means. It is completely unrelated to what it actually means if you don't already know, similar to "kick the bucket" (which is a really bad idiom, to me)

2. "Continuing this conversation is like beating a dead horse" Now the listener/reader is informed that a comparison is being made. It is just as creative, but it is also more plain. One should know that beating a dead horse is useless, and also says the conversation is useless to continue, by comparison.
Click to expand...

Further edit:
Things get really interesting when people ad-lib, or make personalized statements or idioms, such as
"he is really flogging that poor horse"
"the horse is dead!"
"stop whipping the horse already"
etc.
 
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