Sample Essay on:
‘Longing’ of the Deaf in Carol Padden and Tom Humphries’ “Deaf in America”

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Essay / Research Paper Abstract

A 6 page paper which examines the text’s contention that deaf people long to construct their own identity through the concepts of culture, community, and politics. No additional sources are used.

Page Count:

6 pages (~225 words per page)

File: TG15_TGdeafus.rtf

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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:

it, as Carol Padden and Tom Humphries opine in their insightful 1988 text, Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture, the term is representative of "a set of learned behaviors of a group of people who have their own language, values, rules for behaviors, and traditions" (p. 4). Deaf people are linked by a collective identity, life experiences (and prejudices), employ the same linguistic communication, and share the same value systems. Their unity is cemented not by what they lack but what the perspective they have which differs from that of society as a whole. According to Padden and Humphries (1988), "Deaf people must live almost entirely within the world of others. This peculiar social condition leads to a longing of their own, a longing to live lives designed by themselves rather than those imposed by others" (p. 112). This longing or yearning to construct a separate identity manifests itself through the concepts of culture, community and politics. It is important to understand that to them, being deaf is not regarded as a disability but describes an alternative lifestyle choice that is embraced, not disdained. The sets of beliefs they espouse are based upon their own experiences that hearing people cannot comprehend. Their circumstances have made it necessary to develop their own form of communications. Since there are varying degrees of deafness, naturally, there cannot be only one culture, but many subcultures. Padden and Humphries contend, "People who are Deaf can have a range of hearing abilities from hard of hearing to profoundly deaf, and, conversely, there are people with severe or profound hearing impairment who do not participate in the community of Deaf people" (2). For the Deaf, culture is reinforced and perpetuated by what is for many their primary ...

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