The present study is concerned with the language of deaf children. For the purpose of this discussion a deaf person is a person whose residual capacity to hear is, before the acquisition of language, too small to be of any use for the normal perception or production of sound. One who is deaf in this sense is characterized in his behaviour as a visual man in contrast with a hearing man, who may be termed a visual-acoustic being.
The special aspect under which deaf children will be studied here is their language, i.e. the whole of the vocabulary and idioms that lie within the linguistic system by which social intercourse by means of universal signs is rendered possible. Language therefore is here taken to mean the whole complex system of symbolic forms representative of objects, together with their combinations, in so far as these embody a rule or any exception to a rule.
Outside the scope of this study, therefore, are persons with impaired hearing, who in their intercourse with others are still capable of sound-perception, as well as those who have become absolutely deaf after a first acquisition of language: we are only concerned with people who are totally deaf in the sense defined above. Physiological, psychological or pedagogical problems of the deaf are not considered; only linguistic phenomena in the conduct of the deaf are investigated.
The deaf children tested are pupils of the Institute for the Deaf, situated at St. Michielsgestel near Bois-le-Duc (Holland) where some 400 resident deaf children are educated, and where among other things they are taught to speak, write and read the vernacular. For two years (September 1950 -- September 1952) the writer was given the opportunity to study the behaviour of these children. The chief tests and experiments were carried out on five girls of normal intelligence, pupils of the eighth grade, twelve to fourteen years of age, Bea and Everdien (to retain their familiar Dutch names) in the film-test, to be described later on; and the same Bea and Everdien together with Dora, Grada and Francien in the word-gesture experiment, likewise set forth in the sequel. The language of these five children and of twenty others was also made the subject of an investigation in respect of reading, writing and speaking. Only part of the results obtained is included in the present publication.
Modern education of the deaf generally aims at raising the pupils to a cultural level as near as possible to that of the hearing community: this requires that the pupils should be taught the normal native language. But when the deaf have been so taught, the result is not quite satisfactory. For a long time, if not permanently, their speech deviates from that of the hearing; these deviations, moreover, will often be of a curiously stereotype but kindred character. A noteworthy point in this matter is that the linguistic behaviour of deaf children speaking with hearing partners is quite different from the conduct of the same children when conversing among themselves. Speaking with hearing partners evidently taxes their power and the conversation is slow and laboured; speaking among themselves on the other hand appears to be a tight affair and the pace seems to suit the intellectual activity. As a rule this private language is expressed in monotonous articulate sounds accompanied by gestures; only deaf children understand it fully. When they converse with hearing people it is not chiefly the monotone nor the indifferent articulation that makes their talk difficult to understand for the outsider; it is the many deviations from normal syntax that frequently mislead the hearer. Now the persistent presence of kindred deviations together with the varying behaviour towards hearing and non-hearing partners warrant the supposition that in their private intercourse these deaf children use a language of their own. Through constant use this language has become a mother tongue to them; its deviations exert a retarding influence when the children are called upon to acquire the language of the hearing community.
The foregoing suggests the existence of two languages, an esoteric and an exoteric one; one for mutual intercourse, the other for talk with outsiders. After a cursory observation both of the behaviour and the language of the children the writer made hold to adopt the mere supposition as a working hypothesis, and to try and raise it to the status of fact. It directed the rest of this investigation. He submitted the behaviour of the children to a close scrutiny and analysed a fragment of their private language: from the findings he feels justified in stating that there are in fact two languages, one esoteric, the other exoteric. Furthermore he has come to the conclusion that certain deviations in the handling of the exoteric language by the deaf can be traced back to the structural qualities of the esoteric language. As a general result the investigation has furnished a new point of departure to set the instruction on a fresh basis.
Exoteric material as it is written, spoken and read by the deaf was obtained from compositions written for the purpose, from records and from answers to a series of questions on a text set for private reading. The collection of esoteric material was a less simple affair. In the first place two children (Bea and Everdien) were filmed while engaged in normal esoteric conversation, i.e. with words and gestures; in the second part of the film gestures were the only means of communication. With the assistance of these two children and their class-fellows the language of the film was decoded, i.e. transposed into acoustic language (See Volume II : "Notering van de Film"). It then appeared that an exhaustive analysis could not be carried through, unless each relevant point in the conversation was understood; this required that every gesture should have its detailed form described. An account of the attending mimicry also appeared necessary. To make the esoteric language fully comprehensible some conversational fragments have been furnished with a running commentary and translation (See Volume I p. 146 ff.).
The analysis of the esoteric language bas been undertaken on the basis of the difference language -- no-language (ch. 3 and 5). Both linguistic and non-linguistic points of behaviour are described, analysed and classified. In the course of these operations the complex nature of the visual sign has come to the fore: it may be a word, a gesture or a combination of the two. At the same time the range of this complex sign has become clear: grammatical categories in which forms correspond to syntactical functions rarely occur; lexical categories on the other hand, in which a like form entails a like meaning, are of frequent occurrence. The latter categories are in many cases characteristically phonaesthetic (Vol. I p. 219 ff.); in a few cases elements of incipient morphological grammar may be discerned. One of these rare grammatical categories is formed by a group of linguistic signs which modally influence the whole of which they are part, and which exercise a sort of parenthetic function in that whole without being separately perceived. An incipient return to form may be seen in the new way in which the old manual alphabet is put to use in the function of the sound-deixis. In the lexical categories these phenomena are sometimes found to exercise a morphological function, which gives them a lexico-grammatical character. In this visual language the verb and the noun are not found as categories.
The arrangment of the linguistic signs into groups and into units of speech might be termed a sort of syntax; but the basis is not primarily linguistic, since its principles are derived from the momentary visual behaviour, the general situation and the context.
The symbolic groups are marked and distinguished by the juncture, whose linguistic function is to indicate the transition. The form of this juncture varies greatly: it may be a pause, a break, hesitation, recession of the mimicry, the linking up of gesture-patterns. The relative disposition of these groups is not in the first place suggested by tangible syntactical relations but by principles outside the linguistic field; thus we distinguish arrangements in order of time, by simple co-ordination of statements, by the visual form, by emotional experience and finally by the word-order of a Dutch sentence.
The definition of a sentence in an acoustic language is applicable to the analogous unit of this esoteric language; hence the term sentence seems to be admissible. It is true that certain elements characteristic of an acoustic sentence, especially sentence-melody and syntactical construction, are absent, leaving the esoteric sentence a rather frail construction; yet the term sentence would seem to remain applicable to it, seeing that the statement is clearly rounded off by the rest, the break or the silence, which manifest the completion of the statement. After all it is the whole of the situation that gives to a sentence of this thinly structured language its definite and unequivocal meaning.
Ir rarely remains doubtful where a sentence ends and another begins, because as a rule every sentence of any length has a non-linguistic structure of its own, consisting of one or more introductory groups, a statement or body of statements, and one or more closing groups. The initial and final stages may be suitably subdivided, their internal arrangement is stable barring occasional transpositions.
The above is a concise statement of our analysis of the visual esoteric language. We submit a few conclusions.
The behaviour of the children is linguistic : hence we may speak of an esoteric language. Signs are used in various contexts, but they are identical in form and meaning while variously applied. There is a tendency towards morphological and syntactical categorizing: this tendency is still in a rudimentary state and is overlaid with attempts at forming categories which have no linguistic motivation.
The childrens' behaviour is unsophisticated, it is sui generis: hence their language may be termed esoteric. Contact is established and maintained by elements they cannot do without; these elements are non-linguistic. The esoteric language has not the function which the acoustic language has in the communication between adult and child. In the latter case the language is the bearer of a whole civilization, which sprang up ages ago, has blossomed for centuries and is charged with the culture of nations and generations; its contents are presented and transferred slowly and systematically when the sensitive age has been reached. In the esoteric language on the other hand it is a haphazard transference: what is transferred is the content of an auxiliary symbolism that serves the need of the moment, a factual knowledge of the little world roundabout. In its development the esoteric language is directed and channelled by the fact that it serves a small special group, whose immediate wants it satisfies. Full understanding of it can only be had in its context and situation. Thus the circle of its users is limited to those who understand these two.
The non-linguistic points in this behaviour are those non-linguistic features that actively contribute to the intellectual transfer at the moment this transfer is effected. In fact it is everything that the listener sees in the speaker over and above the symbolic signs issuing from him: the whole body in a general way, and in it the salient mimic features and the suggestive body-patterns. This aggregate of communicative effort perfuses and lights up the poor vocabulary which is being used by the speaker; and thus his power of expression in the context and in the situation is enhanced by a vivid realisation. At the moment the communication becomes a fact, the things communicated and their relations do not proceed from a child furnished with a varied fund of language; the thought to be communicated becomes communication from a behaviour, partly symbolic, partly non-symbolic, which the whole body through deep and effective realisation is engaged to put forward. Thus, for a deaf person, to speak is in a real sense to make language; in a stricter sense than is the case in the language of the hearing, the communication is created for the purpose of the moment; from a less ordered and less plentiful fund of language indeed, but from a normal need of establishing contact. This last feature is eminently the character of esoteric language.
The foregoing is an analysis of the esoteric language of two deaf children as sampled in a conversational fragment of about forty-five minutes' duration. It is supplemented by a few data furnished by a test of some other children from the same esoteric group. The next step would be to try and come to wider conclusions by applying the results obtained to the whole of the exoteric material that is at our disposal. This, however, would take us beyond the scope and limits of this essay, which purposes only to present a specimen of how exoteric language can be usefully investigated (See Vol. II "Proeve van Materiaal-Bewerking") with a view to improving the methods of instructing the deaf.
Two facts should be kept well in view. First of all there is a general tendency among teachers of the deaf to teach their pupils the language of those who hear; on the other hand the esoteric linguistic behaviour has never been adequately analysed, as far as the author is aware, and a deeper investigation may reveal that this esoteric language is governed by its own laws different from the laws of ordinary language. Thus there is room for new discoveries and these might supply a new point of departure.
It would seem to the writer that every deaf child is acquainted with an esoteric visual language. Its laws will deviate from the acoustic language, the measure of deviation may vary, nor need the deviations be all of the same kind as those described above. The deviations from the native tongue say in England, France and Germany may be expected to differ from those in Holland. It may be presumed, however, that common deviations will be found, and that all the esoteric languages will show common traits, since they are languages with their own visual structures and principles. For these esoteric languages arise and develop from similar causes under similar conditions and for a similar purpose, that is to say, they serve as a visual auxiliary system of means to establish personal contact and intercourse: on the one hand, therefore, they are directed by the acoustic language the deaf person is being taught, on the other they are shaped by the principles underlying the visual system. The results we have obtained so far will have to be checked by the findings of other investigators here and elsewhere. Thus a better insight into the appropriate instruction of the deaf may be attained as a further step towards an ideal system of education for those who are so seriously handicapped in the struggle for life.