British Sign Language: History, Culture, and Impact on Deaf Life

This essay explores British Sign Language (BSL) and its significance within Deaf culture. It discusses how Deaf culture is a unique combination of social beliefs, behaviors, and traditions, emphasizing that Deaf individuals often view their deafness as a cultural identity rather than a disability. The essay traces the history of BSL, from its early development to its modern usage, highlighting key milestones and the impact of technology on the Deaf community. It also examines the changing role of Deaf clubs and the influence of social media on communication within the Deaf community, noting both the positive and negative impacts of technological advancements. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of BSL as a means of preserving Deaf culture and fostering a sense of community among Deaf individuals.

Running head: BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE
BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE
Answer 1
Culture is the combination of behavioral, customs and traditions of any community which
makes the community differ from others. In Deaf culture, a set of social behavior, art, beliefs,
historical, and art-literature traditions, that helps to unite a community that uses sign language as
their primary mode of communication. The deaf culture do not relate their deafness their
inability to hearing as disability, but as deaf pride (their cultural identity) (Maiorana-Basas and
Pagliaro 2012). Further, another cultural dimension for deaf people are their closeness and
distance from the people with hearing ability. This relationship between deaf and hearing people
has been changed over the time, as previous discriminations depending on someone’s hearing
ability do not hamper the attainment of success of people with hearing disability nowadays
(University of Bristol 2018). The history of deaf community determined that in the United
Kingdom the deaf community were at different stages of development as the acceptance of these
people within the society gradually increased. To mitigate such differences, several events took
place such as civil rights movement in 1960’s and 1980 in Washington. Further after generation
of British Sign languages or BSL, the status of deaf people started changing and nowadays they
struggle equally with hearing people, for their part of success in life (National Deaf Children's
Society 2018).
Answer 2
Sign language is the visual method of communicating within the deaf community or
people with hearing to a deaf person using means such as facial expressions, hand gestures and
body languages. British Sign language or BSL is the sign language used in UK and has different
set of grammatical syntax and structure (BSL Timeline 2018). Further this sign language is not

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dependent on any other language and is spoken by more than 145,000 people as the reports
published in 2011. The development of recent BSL stated from 1253, when first defined use of
fingers to describe alphabets were described. Further Sir Edward Gostwicke developed sign
language tokens so that communication between deaf communities can be ungraded. By the year
of 1760, Thomas Braidwood’s institute for deaf people was developed. After this period over the
years, several rules, regulations, educational policy, communicational policy were developed
(National Deaf Children's Society 2018). The 20th and early 21st century witnessed the
development of teaching materials, BSL dictionaries, and different BSL recognition campaigns
so that unity among the deaf community can be protected (BSL Timeline 2018).
Answer 3
Several technological advancement, throughout the century has affected the deaf culture
strongly. Starting from telephone to advance usage of social media has affected the deaf culture
positively as well as negatively. Where usage of telephone in workplaces, affect their mental
strength by creating a gap, developmental use of internet over the time has provided them with
an opportunity to communicate with deaf as well as people with hearing without any difficulty
(Halawani and Zaitun 2012). Besides these, social media also affected the communication
between deaf community as well as deaf to hearing community stronger as it mended the gap and
increased the chances of communication between them. However, several technological
development such as Cochlear Implant has affected the deaf community as this technology
requires clear speech and hearing ability to operate. Therefore, besides the telecommunication
and this Cochlear implant technology, the deaf community developed their communication style
using technological advancements. I the past decades, FM radio, telecommunication, mobile
phones, internet system, social media communication and so on has brought new and different

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challenges to the deaf community. In these where many technological advancements has affected
the deaf community negatively and diminish their status, other technological advancements
helped the community to uplift and upgrade their ability while communicating.
Answer 4
Deaf clubs are places, where deaf community can explore communication with strangers
and it works as a gateway using which the community can indoctrinated into deaf culture.
However, as per Emerson and Bishop (2012) due to technological advancements, the number of
deaf clubs are reducing every day. Due to technological advancements, people are more aware,
highly educated and are struggling for their rights at workplace, deaf clubs are shrinking and
memberships are dropping extensively (Maiorana-Basas and Pagliaro 2012). Further, due to
extensive use of social media s such as Facebook and twitter, people are preferring
communication over internet that face to face communication. Further, television and movies are
also an important part of it as it allowed the deaf community to with an opportunity to be at equal
par with people with hearing and for the purpose, they included open subtitles, thereby making
the deaf community to commentate less among themselves This is the way, advanced
technological advancement has affected the deaf communication and decreased the number of
deaf clubs (Emerson and Bishop 2012).

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References
BSL Timeline 2018. BSL Timeline. [online] Ucl.ac.uk. Available at:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/bslhistory/timeline-bsl [Accessed 1 Jul. 2018].
Emerson, J. and Bishop, J., 2012. Videophone technology and students with deaf-blindness: A
method for increasing access and communication. Journal of Visual Impairment &
Blindness, 106(10), p.622.
Halawani, S.M. and Zaitun, A.B., 2012. An avatar based translation system from arabic speech
to arabic sign language for deaf people. International Journal of Information Science and
Education, 2(1), pp.13-20.
Maiorana-Basas, M. and Pagliaro, C.M., 2014. Technology use among adults who are deaf and
hard of hearing: A national survey. Journal of deaf studies and deaf education, 19(3), pp.400-
410.
National Deaf Children's Society 2018. About the National Deaf Children's Society. [online]
NDCS.org.uk. Available at:
http://www.ndcs.org.uk/about_us/about_the_national_deaf_childrens_society/index.html
[Accessed 1 Jul. 2018].
University of Bristol 2018. chapter 4:Deaf History to Culture. [online] Bris.ac.uk. Available at:
http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/DeafStudiesTeaching/dhcwww/chapter4.htm [Accessed 1 Jul.
2018].