Our Historical Memory

Lecture Post Response

Dr. Joseph Murray and Dr. Brian Greenwald’s lecture, "Our Historical Memory: The National Deaf-Mute College and Alexander Graham Bell," was an opportunity for me to learn more deeply about this particular aspect of Deaf history as well evaluate my overall signing abilities. The lecture discussed Bell’s influence on the Deaf community as well as the historical and political environment during his time. The most interesting and novel topic for me was the Gallaudet Presentation Days and the political philosophies that went along with this event. From the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant to that of Theodore Roosevelt, the president, the vice president, and other high ranking dignitaries attended Presentation Day at the National

One the the first aspects I noticed was that I was able to understand a greater amount of information from the lecturer without interpretation. The vocabulary in this lecture was also not as specialized as the more scientific and linguistic lectures beforehand, so I could better utilize context clues. I think I could understand nearly 50% which is a significant improvement from being completely lost in the previous semesters. Moreover, I was able to pick out a small mistake in interpretation. Concerning Bell’s speech to Gallaudet students about entering the hearing world upon graduation, the lecturer signed that the graduates need to be ready to go out and immerse themselves into the hearing world. However, the interpreter signed that they are going to compete with the hearing population. There might have been something I missed or it could have been something that was implied, but I did not think he mentioned competition. There were definitely many limitations to interpretation such as altered meaning, long pauses, and incomplete sentences, all which cause confusion. However, I think I was able to use the strategy of supplementing the interpretation with information gained from direct communication, which was very effective. Through these means, I was able to learn three new signs. I learned the sign for “power,”

I had the opportunity to first talk to Jackson, an ASL II student. Our whole entire conversation was in ASL, and most of the content was signed with a few finger spelling. To be able to do this, we had to keep the conversation at a vary novice level. We discussed the typical: our ASL level, teacher, our major, and our year. We also talked about the reasons for taking ASL. He took ASL because he thought it would be a useful skill to have if he became a lawyer and because his Korean was not good enough to fulfill the language requirement. In this section of the conversation, there were times when he did not know the vocabulary. In that case, I had to fingerspell the word. I attempted to explain the word in sign language at first, but this caused even more confusion. This was also the case for if we both did not know the sign, such as “lawyer” and “requirement.” Although there were difficulties in communication at times, I felt much less anxiety signing than in ASL I. It was interesting to sign with an ASL II student because it was a comparative way to see how much I have grown. I am nowhere near fluent, but I have certainly