Toward a new cultural concept. Linguistic Mercenaries ?

According to UKCoD, there is no unity in deaf and hard-of-hearing people, they should know as the major UK 'umbrella' group here ! Some deaf or hard-of-hearing people want to hear better and have little or no interest in using or learning any form of sign language. Differences in attitude stem from factors such as being born deaf, the school they went to, their ability to hear and use hearing aids, CI's, their view on deaf 'cures', genetics, whether BSL is their first language, or lip-reading the favoured mode etc.

Key to their diversity may be the models of deafness that have evolved from the disability rights movement of the 1970s, they show the path a deaf person may take towards acknowledgment of Deaf Culture, although not all deaf and hard-of-hearing people follow or agree with this principle, and recent times many are openly questioning social models in deaf terms and even suggesting it is non-identifiable in most, and leaning towards idealism.... Recent medical issues like genetics and CI's has proven 'ammunition' for opponents to refute deaf culture as a viable concept, a few years ago few disagreed in deaf culture, now many pay no heed to the demands of it.

Cultural-linguistic/social Model

Born–deaf or prelingually deaf people, Deaf families and Deaf communities are most likely to relate to this model because they regard deafness not as a disability, but as a cultural identity, well, a lot do, not all ! This model e.g. is the most diametrically opposed to the 'medical model' because it emphasizes what the person has gained (as opposed to “lost”) through being deaf, i.e. a strong community, a language with its own syntax and grammar, enhanced visual perception, and a culture that he can truly empathise with.

What of The Acquired Deaf 'model' ? Is there one ?

This sector is a mass of contradictions.... they baulk at the black and white identity definitions expressed,and suggest they are non-viable in their respect. They may acquire a profound loss or deafness during later educational or formative years or at later ages, the difference being, they have no 'bond' with being born deaf or au fait with sign language or it's culture, it's just another 'tool' t work with, so nothing to relate to but the hearing identity that has gone, and their only cultural reference point being a hearing/spoken one.

Acquired Deaf (What the Americans called 'deafened' and the British don't, because it suggests a 'deliberate' act), have no direct groupings to represent to either the social or the medical models or deafness, but can still aspire to both, or even neither, after going deaf. This sector poses continuous confusions and conflict of interests on support or language and lifestyles as each individual struggles to regain an identity lost as hearing people, and frantically trying to stamp it on sectors that don't recognise this so they can fit in more easily. Other deaf sectors see this negatively, having no such confusions of ID to them, and not willing to change to adapt to them either.

By and large few manage to replace an hearing culture with a deaf one,they will struggle with communication, may well learn sign language, attend deaf clubs, but never integrate with the deaf, being what deaf cultural academics like Paddy Ladd suggest, are "Colonists", or even 'linguistic mercenaries', as the AD sector takes what it will, to do what it can, with no attempt to integrate with the host culture that uses it, except on 'hearing terms' via their now deaf perception of it, and try to adapt deaf ways and means, to re-integrate into hearing mainstreams, and invited the wrath of acquired deaf so doing. They will go at deaf systems and try to adapt them to what they believe they need, because they see nothing else visible they can use, again this invites conflict.

Mostly this continues to fail at many points, and they can resent the fact they have learnt deaf communications and then find as deaf do, hearing show little or no interest in it on the street where they want it, and annoyed the cultural deaf are happy with their lot, because they are not, and then may feel they are fighting the cultural deaf for access and help too.. The thinking is now to abandon deaf culture and hearing cultural approaches, to seek the 'third way' and option. IS there now a place for an Culture based on acquiring a deafness ? Many now are thinking this, having failed to integrate with deaf, or to re-integrate with hearing, or to join in groups that simply have no awareness of the conflicts and confusions taking place. John Lennon wrote a song called 'Nowhere Man' For 25 years this has been their anthem.

He's a real nowhere man,
Sitting in his Nowhere Land,
Making all his Nowhere plans
for nobody.

Nowhere Man, don't worry,
Take your time, don't hurry,
Leave it all till somebody else
lends you a hand...

But no-one did... Often that is how we can see ourselves, we want, we need an new ID, we reject deaf hoods and hearing-hoods and other hoods. We are tri-cultural ? but still non-culturally define ? time to trim the dead wood of aspirations to things we cannot be ? The confusion has to stop....