Deaf and Hearing Cultures: A Comparison of Communication Value Systems - Part One

Presented by Linda A. Siple, Ph.D.
Reported by Cheryl Heppner

Editor: Here's Cheryl's report on an ALDAcon workshop comparing Deaf and hearing cultures. Note that Dr. Siple is talking about Deaf folks, not hard of hearing or late-deafened folks.

This is part one of three parts.

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Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Value Systems and Culture

The foundation for this workshop came from Dr. Siple's graduate work in intercultural communication, courses she's taught, reading and studying about cultural differences, and what deaf people have taught her for over 30 years. The National Technical Institute for the Deaf has a B.S. degree in Intercultural Communication, and students take courses in the subject.

Marshall Singer said in 1987, "We experience everything in the world not as it is, but as the world comes to us through our culture." How we are raised influences how we see the world. Value systems are the rules we use to judge behavior. They're learned from our families and the people around us. The values are shared with others in our culture and represent what is expected or required. We tend to view our value systems as superior to those of others.

In one study, a group of children from rural Mexico and a group of children from rural America were shown two pictures through a stereoscope. One picture was of a bullfight and the other of a baseball. The Mexican children saw the bullfight and the American children saw the baseball. Their minds pushed aside the picture they were not familiar with. This illustrates how our brains can manipulate what we see.

Another study involving Caucasian mothers and Navajo mothers gathered their reactions to a videotape of children interacting. The Navajo mothers saw behaviors that they felt were negative and should be punished. The Caucasian mothers saw the same behaviors as ones that should be encouraged.

American Culture

Americans say that we really don't have a culture, just a melting pot. But we do have an American culture. We value individualism, privacy, equality, materialism, time, goodness and humanity, and competition. Some of these values can be contradictory.

Our American value system for hearing people puts individualism at the top of the list. We have the most individual culture in the world. We are trained since early childhood to be responsible for ourselves and often don't recognize that we share a culture with others. Familiar sayings illustrate that individualism:
"God helps those who help themselves"
"You have to decide for yourself"
"You made your bed, now lie in it"
"Fend for yourself"
"Paddle your own canoe"

American children are encouraged to be independent, self-reliant, focus on their individual accomplishments, have autonomy, and be self-sufficient. Our heroes are admired as people who did it on their own, standing out from the crowd as rugged individualists.

Dr. Siple used a personal illustration of a family member of Indian descent and his wife who is of Irish heritage. When their child was invited to a sleepover with a small group of other girls, the father was shocked by the invitation. He couldn't understand why such independence should be encouraged.

Our Constitution gives us the right to privacy, and we believe all people need time alone. Some of the things that are considered wrong are: reading mail that doesn't belong to you, listening in on another person's conversation, sharing a secret, and asking for personal information and entering without knocking.

American Co-Cultures

Americans actually have co-cultures, formerly called subcultures. These co-cultures are groups that share communication values different from the dominant culture. Examples are be Native Americans, Latino Americans, and Deaf Americans. For these co-cultures to survive in a dominant culture, some have to become bicultural and manipulate their values to fit those of the dominant culture.

A study of co-cultures found some interesting similarities. All of the co-cultures reported the same things:
- Low satisfaction in communication by the dominant culture
- A belief that there is an unequal distribution of power
- A lack of respect of their culture by the dominant one
- A feeling that they are invisible or overlooked by the dominant culture

Primary Deaf culture values have been identified in books by Dr. Carol Padden and Dr. Tom Humphries. Dr. Siple listed these values, which she found from reading and observation: collectivism, open communication, use of American Sign Language, directness, and cultural pride.

Collectivism

Deaf culture emphasizes the goals of the group and pooling resources. It is considered a duty to share information. There is loyalty and strong identification to the group. Deaf heroes tend to be people who are admired because they helped other Deaf people, such as Fred Schreiber.

Open Communication

Collectivism, which results in groups of people working toward the same goal, depends on open communication to maintain and support the culture. Passing along personal information shows people care about each other. Withholding information or inhibiting access to open communication is a taboo.

With these two primary values, you can see that the stage is set for a lot of communication conflict. Reports of experiences that show varying degrees of communication conflict, called critical incident reports, help us to see our own communication behavior from another perspective. Dr. Siple collected critical incident reports (CIRs) from NTID Deaf faculty, staff and students. Her goal was to help them improve communication at NTID. She found three themes: daily communication atmosphere, meetings and group interactions, and one-to-one communication. Below are examples of comments she found in the work environment, where people are expected to know each other.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

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