Asl And English Frame Analysis

By having effective implementation of Total Communication, students would not end up bilingual with effective communication in both oral English and American Sign Language. American Sign Language is an independent language that has its own set of rules away from the structure of English. Like most sign languages, ASL is very different from any other spoken language. Total Communication, on the other hand, is an approach that tries to represent a specific oral language, English. Total Communication was developed during the 1970s and late 80’s after the high number of “failures” in Oralism. The purpose of Total Communication was to achieve English in reading, writing, and speech for deaf children. Researchers at the time realized that sign was

The frame analysis is divided into four matrixes, the top two being the most culturally diverse. The top right matrix in the Nash and Nash model is the high acculturation frame which measures a strong Deaf character, for example an individual who is heavily involved in the Deaf community, speaks ASL, and accepts being different. The top left matrix is the high socialization frame which measures a strong deaf character, a deaf individual who doesn’t use ASL, pursues English through speech, and isn’t part of the deaf community. In conclusion to this, individuals brought up in Total Communication successfully would not have attitudes and behaviors that would automatically be best described generally in the upper right quadrant but in the upper left quadrant. To start off, 95 percent of all deaf children are born into a hearing family. Since at birth parents are responsible for the decisions made in their child’s life, the child’s culture and lifestyle is dependent on their parent’s decisions. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, if Total Communication is implemented, the child’s goal is not to learn ASL but to learn English. For high acculturation/Deaf individuals, ASL holds a deep value since it is a central part of their lives and forms part of the Deaf identity. If ASL is not practiced than that excludes the individual from the Deaf community. By learning English trough Total Communication, the child is being deprived from the Deaf culture’s natural language. As Dr.Bernstein said in lecture, once parents have made the difficult decision of what language path to implement in their child’s learning a lot of decisions have already been made for them. For example, if a parent decides to adopt Total Communication the family will most likely avoid the Deaf culture