The new deaf generation....speaking and listening

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Jiro said:
Grendel - you are so mistaken about your so-called definition of fluency. Please don't get so defensive.

When a person is fluent in any language - it usually means one is able to effectively and clearly communicate with other people. What good is your fluency if nobody can understand you? That applies to both ASL and spoken language.

I see some posters talking about "being comfortable" with your language. That has NOTHING to do with fluency. Again - what good is your comfort with your language if nobody can understand you?
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Being comfortable leads to ease, if you aren't comfortable with your grasp of language, you are halting, slow. Not fluent.

Communicating effectively doesn't require that you sound like a BBC broadcaster. Have you ever heard Daniel Schorr or Barbara Walters speak? Do they sound like they have "perfect diction" or like your typical hearie? No, and yet they are most certainly fluent.
 
Jiro said:
Grendel - you are so mistaken about your so-called definition of fluency. Please don't get so defensive.

When a person is fluent in any language - it usually means one is able to effectively and clearly communicate with other people. What good is your fluency if nobody can understand you? That applies to both ASL and spoken language.

I see some posters talking about "being comfortable" with your language. That has NOTHING to do with fluency. Again - what good is your comfort with your language if nobody can understand you? My parents are fluent in both English and Korean languages but they are much more comfortable with Korean language. and I am fluent in English and ASL but I am much more comfortable with English language.

It's fine if you know multiple languages but you'll need to be fluent in any language in order to communicate with others otherwise it's useless except for yourself.
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That is what I was trying to get across in the other thread with the language fluency poll - that fluency is a two way street kinda deal.
 
GrendelQ said:
Being comfortable leads to ease, if you aren't comfortable with your grasp of language, you are halting, slow. Not fluent.

Communicating effectively doesn't require that you sound like a BBC broadcaster. Have you ever heard Daniel Schorr or Barbara Walters speak? Do they sound like they have "perfect diction" or like your typical hearie? No, and yet they are most certainly fluent.
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A man knows only one language - English. He's hearing and yet he is not comfortable with speaking English. Why? He's a stutter.

Communicating effectively DOES require you to be understandable by many people. If you were to talk to 100 random people who are fluent in English - chance is.... 90%+ will be able to understand you. If I, as oral deafie, were to talk to same 100 random people - chance is... it won't even be anywhere close to 50% and I'm not talking about me trying to listen to them. It's them trying to understand me.
 
Beach girl said:
If you have time to read the links I posted, Grendel, I'd love to know where you'd rate your daughter on that scale. Maybe 3+? Able to converse well on many topics, but with some pronounciation errors?
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Wow, this is very interesting, beach girl ! I wonder where I'd fall out on this scale, if my buried long island accent might trip me up as a stigatized dialect :)

Really hard to map a 5 yo against this scale. I don't know if it's possible. But I'll put some thought into it, maybe use someone else who I can assume to be fluent at that age against the scale and adjust it accordingly.
 
Jiro said:
A man knows only one language - English. He's hearing and yet he is not comfortable with speaking English. Why? He's a stutter.

Communicating effectively DOES require you to be understandable by many people. If you were to talk to 100 random people who are fluent in English - chance is.... 90%+ will be able to understand you. If I, as oral deafie, were to talk to same 100 random people - chance is... it won't even be anywhere close to 50% and I'm not talking about me trying to listen to them. It's them trying to understand me.
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Do you consider yourself fluent when using spoken English, Jiro?
 
The issue is not whether someone "speaks like hearies" or "the miracle of CI/HA". It's about how comfortable someone is in the use of language: fluency is flow, ease, speed. The issue is fluency. You can be perfectly fluent and not have perfect diction. You can be perfectly fluent and slur. You can be perfectly fluent and not "speak the same as a hearie."
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We're saying that yes, you can be fluent spoken language wise. Although......now define fluency......Fluency to me means the abilty to have a sophisticated usage of a language. Meaning on par verbal IQ, understands the figures of speech, and expressions and slang.
Like did you know a kid (inclduing an AVT'd kid) could be able to speak but still say stuff like " How many spiders have legs?" for " how many legs do spiders have?" We HAVE moved past the time when oral simply meant handful of words, and semi sophisticated speech.
But you're missing that SPEECH is ALSO a large part of fluency. Most born/early dhh kids will never have the speech part of being fluent in English down the way a hearing, native English speaker will. As a matter of fact, MANY if not most dhh kids, including orally trained ones will still approach English as a second language....Like they'll have a pretty good grasp on the language, but still come out with odd turns of the language. I've seen this personally.
It is exactly exactly like the way my friend who is quebecosis, is pretty fluent in English....but not native fluent. Her spoken English can still be very off. ...and it's also very hard for her to maintain fluency. I remember at camp, at the end of the day, she would have "language meltdowns" b/c it was so hard for her to keep speaking.
That is why you get a lot of "ADD" type of dx with oral only kids, whereas that dx isn't too common in Deaf ed.
 
GrendelQ said:
Do you consider yourself fluent when using spoken English, Jiro?
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Yes I am fluent and comfortable with my spoken English. I know all slangs, lingo, street talk, etc. if that's what you mean.

But seeing that many people are not able to understand me on first try... that was quite frustrating.

However I can say with certainty that more people understood my ASL than number of people being able to understand my spoken English on first try.

You know what was great? I've been to traffic courts several times (yes I'm a bad bad bad boy). It was tough because communication was bit tricky and I didn't know ASL at that time. Now..... the last time I went was few weeks ago - I had a terp. I communicated with prosecutor and judge thru terp. I've not spoken a single word during whole time. No one misunderstood on first try. Everything was settled quickly and satisfactory. Wish this was like that for my past experiences.
 
shel90 said:
I still struggle with articulately with many words especially "hamburger". I have to speak it slowly whenever I order it otherwise the cashiers will never understand me.
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I can't say barbecue correctly. I get blank looks when I order BBQ to go with my burgers.
 
GrendelQ said:
I could try to make a distinction between the two uses here, linguistic articulation (which refers to the production of precise sounds) and expressing oneself articulately (which refers to the clear use of language), but they are close enough -- I'll give you this one. Yes, someone needs to be able to express himself articulately to be fluent.

Now, you can have a deaf voice/accent, slur, and still express yourself articulately, still be fluent using spoken language. You can have arthritis and still express yourself articulately, still be fluent using written language. You can have tennis elbow and still be fluent in ASL.
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Grendel, even though you're using the term correctly, there's no point. :/ No one will concede to your opinions, which is rather unfortunate as I find you very refreshing.
 
Jiro said:
Yes I am fluent and comfortable with my spoken English. I know all slangs, lingo, street talk, etc. if that's what you mean.

But seeing that many people are not able to understand me on first try... that was quite frustrating.

However I can say with certainty that more people understood my ASL than number of people being able to understand my spoken English on first try.

You know what was great? I've been to traffic courts several times (yes I'm a bad bad bad boy). It was tough because communication was bit tricky and I didn't know ASL at that time. Now..... the last time I went was few weeks ago - I had a terp. I communicated with prosecutor and judge thru terp. I've not spoken a single word during whole time. No one misunderstood on first try. Everything was settled quickly and satisfactory. Wish this was like that for my past experiences.
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I understand, and I'm not in any way arguing that any one language is better than the other or that it's an either / or situation. I get what you are saying about your parents being more comfortable in one or the other. About you finding that even if you prefer to use spoken over ASL, you find that the ASL is more accessible to others (or at least, your ASL interpreted into English is more accessible in the case of court:) ).

You are absolutely right in that no matter how fluent you might be -- whether spoken, written, or signed -- if your expression of that language is unintelligible, it's not going to matter much. Let's say you are a writer with broken wrist that makes a mess of your handwriting or you are facing a large room of people and can't project your written words large enough for them to read; you have pulled a muscle and must sign with one hand or it's dark and can't get across your thoughts to a companion via ASL; you have laryngitis and can't speak, you have a powerful regional accent that your audience can't follow, you do speak, but the room is so loud no one can hear you or the microphone you use distorts your voice. You may be perfectly fluent (your language comes effortlessly, freely to you -- you've got flow, ease, speed) and you know exactly what you will express without thinking about the mechanics of forming each word ... and yet, that's not all there is to perfect communication if the other person can't read you. Fluency is not all there is to it.
 
deafskeptic said:
I can't say barbecue correctly. I get blank looks when I order BBQ to go with my burgers.
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I think I'm fluent in English, and there's a whole lot of words I can't pronounce. Sadly, I often don't realize it until I've committed to the word, and then I'm stuck with making some attempt at it :laugh2:.
 
If you can't say "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," you're not fluent. :lol:
 
StSapphire said:
I think her point is that in English, very often an adverb that modifies another verb when two verbs are present (as in the form of "X and Y ADVERBLY" or "ADVERBLY X and Y") is ambiguous and very often (and not necessarily incorrectly) interpreted as "X ADVERBLY and Y ADVERBLY".

This of it like math: You can have x + y * z or (x + y) * z. You meant the former (ie x + (y * z)) while DC interpreted it as the latter (ie (x * z) + (y * z)). English is an ambiguous language, and so neither interpretation is, grammatically speaking, wrong.
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Is there such a thing "listen fluently"? Does it make sense at all? Or does it make more sense to say "speak fluently"?
 
kokonut said:
Is there such a thing "listen fluently"? Does it make sense at all? Or does it make more sense to say "speak fluently"?
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quibbling, aren't ya?
 
GrendelQ said:
Being comfortable leads to ease, if you aren't comfortable with your grasp of language, you are halting, slow. Not fluent.

Communicating effectively doesn't require that you sound like a BBC broadcaster. Have you ever heard Daniel Schorr or Barbara Walters speak? Do they sound like they have "perfect diction" or like your typical hearie? No, and yet they are most certainly fluent.
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It kind of reminds me of the times when I'm using the relay and I could tell that what the operator typed is not what the other person said. In another word, even hearing people don't always 100% understand one another and all.
 
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