Language Piracy of a Different Type

Like all sign languages around the world, American Sign Language (ASL) is completely global in scope. We view the world through our own sign language and culture, and we can translate and interpret for ourselves.

In a true democracy, each of us needs sign language in order to review the facts and, through a critical discourse, participate in actions and events that will support our conclusions. In the United States and most Canada, this is only possible because we do have access to ASL.

However, in our high technology society, the cochlear implant and battery corporations have shown themselves to be guilty of bigotry and excluding ASL from consideration. Using the English language to engage in fancy rhetorical footwork, they confound our American society with "rags-to-riches", "unknown-to-known", and "deaf person-can-now-hear" propaganda. Only when there is diversity will we not only preserve ASL but also be able to use ASL to get the facts, participate in analyses, and follow up with possibilities and solutions.

Today the term "ASL" is being misused by what might be called "language piracy". For example, the word "sign" becomes improperly applied. It should refer to ASL, the language, the object of the whole term. "Signs" are easily limited and restricted to English word order. Taking signs from ASL, bastardizing them and turning them into something else is what I call "language piracy."

The English language is known to be imperfect in respect to its inability to represent ASL; even more imperfect is its inability of translating and interpreting ASL. Presenting only ASL in a translated form, without using it in the primary sense, cannot be the best way to facilitate communication, much less the ideal way to conduct education. Many of us treasure ASL as used by the hearing, but are also horrified to see the linguistic effects of English on some of ASL, such as when initialized signs are created. Mainstreamed Deaf children are therefore suffering from this type of language piracy.

ASL is precisely the dialogue form that alleviates the shortcomings of translating and interpreting. Those who think that adapting ASL to other forms can yield results that are clear or certain must be quite naive. Or are they simply language pirates.

Translating and interpreting ASL involves meaning shifts. Most of us have stories about the history of ASL-English misunderstanding, and we're shocked and irritated when we find no mention of these in the textbooks. Unfortunately, with the way interpreters' codes of ethics are applied nowadays, there's usually no evidence for our cross-linguistic/cross-cultural tales. Worse than that, it's perfectly acceptable to practice language piracy on ASL.

Language piracy must stop. ASL is here to stay. And the same goes for all other sign languages of the world.