On Facebook: Deaf People Written Expression in Solo Deaf Community

Abstract

This study examines the phenomenon of deaf people from Solo deaf community written expression on social media, in this case, facebook. The data was taken from daily status posted by three deaf people and one online interview with non-deaf people who is also part of the community as a volunteer. The data shows that eventhough the deaf people written expression on facebook is harder to be understood than their sign language, they could still understand and interact with each other. The analysis describes the difficulties in recognizing the appropriate word order, and the use of prefix and sufix, in expressing their thoughts and feelings through written expression on facebook.

Keywords

Deaf, written expression, interaction, facebook

The research aims to explore how deaf people express their thoughts and feelings in written expression through facebook. In the studied case here, matters are on the words chosen and the word order they use which are not understandable by most of non-deaf people but understandable for the other deaf people. The research subject is the deaf people from a community called GERKATIN (Gerakan untuk Kesejahteraan Tunarungu Indonesia) in Solo. The community does not only consist of deaf people, but also non-deaf people who become volunteers in order to help deaf members in gaining information and helping them to communicate with non-deaf people. From the pre-eliminary interview with one of deaf person in the community, it is uncovered that deaf people have huge difficulties in reading and writing. The first language that they know is sign language, and until now there is not any specific sign language pattern that is approved to be used by all of deaf community in the world, even in Indonesia, every region has different sign language.

When sign language is agreed among a community member, the intention of its development itself is to facilitate communication between deaf people and between deaf and non-deaf people, and so they use to simplify the language, or in this case, the words.

They did not recognize any punctuation mark in written language because they could not express their thoughts and feelings with intonation and voice tone. In sign language, there is not any prefix or sufix, since sign language are made for the importance of its function which is as a media to exchange spoken language, for example, if in spoken language we may say “dia membantu saya”, or “saya dibantu oleh dia”, in sign language it will be “dia-bantu-saya”.  It is shown on the following facebook status:

G: “tadi sore aq am tmnku normal smk 9 bs terjemah isyarat utk informasi lomba fotografi di kantor fotografi lumission solo yg besok minggu tgl 10 februari utk lomba fotografi di ngarsopuro solo. Tp karena aq belum bisa latihan angkat terbang caranya bagaimana. Besok aq mencoba latihan fotografi utk angkat terbang iya.”

The words: “bisa terjemah isyarat” should have been “bisa menerjemahkan isyarat”

Conversation on Facebook 1:

G:    “tadi aq skg nonton tv EMPAT MATA ada jorge lorenzo trans 7. Ayo nonton trans 7”

It is followed by comments from some of his friends:

M:   “Barusan ada tv yang datang lorenzo di Empat mata ya.”

G:    “bagus2 siip”

M:   “siiippp. Kok. Lorenzo datang ke Jakarta bisa ketemu Empat Mata saja, Lorenzo sendiri mana?”

G:    “ooh kemarin hr jumat rossi n lorenzo datang ke jakarta iya. Tp lorenzo sendiri utk tamu empat mata trans 7  iya.”

H:   “jorge lorenzo berkomunikasi dia memang lorenzo ga ngerti”

G:    “iya benar tp ad terjemah bs bhs spanyol iya”

M:   “Oh ya,”

G:    “siip”

In sign language, some word orders are also reverse, for example in spoken language, we could say “tidak merokok”, but in sign language, it usually shows the sign of “merokok”, and then followed by the sign of “tidak”. In the conversation on facebook 2, it is shown when M said; “Barusan ada tv yang datang lorenzo di Empat mata ya.” Which normally, non-deaf people would say “Barusan ada lorenzo di tv yang datang ke Empat mata ya” .

Conversation on Facebook 2:

A:    “tadi teman2ku sudah makan selesai lagi maen omong tuk cerita2 tertawa sangat lucu...n_n”

Ay:  “omong2 dan cerita apa hayooo... ;)”

A:    “gak...tentang lucu gitu...”

From above facebook  conversations, they are showing that there is an agreement about the use of language and so they could interact with each other while non-deaf people cannot understand the talk easily. Both of reverse and the omission/inappropriate use of prefix and sufix and also the inappropriate word chosen is shown when A said; “tadi teman2ku sudah makan selesai lagi maen omong tuk cerita2 tertawa sangat lucu...n_n” which could be translated into “tadi setelah selesai makan teman-temanku sambil mengobrol membicarakan sesuatu yang sangat lucu”

The sequence of words understanding processed by non-deaf people is described by Azbel (2004) by putting some experts’ definition into an order:

“It is usually supposed that people encode what they just heard into a phonemic code, and encode what they are about to say in an articulatory code, but it has been suggested that they might be the same code (Adair, Schwartz, Williamson, Raymer, & Heilman, 1999). Phonological recoding allows the reader to handle the memory demands of reading (Kleiman, 1975). For the hearing, it is known that the working memory works most efficiently with phonemic input. In a memory task, errors that occur tend to be based on phonological similarity or rhyming (Wicklegren, 1965 in).”

            The sequence of words absorption process started with ‘hearing’, that is why the deaf have difficulties in understanding some words meaning. Eventhough the deaf have the ability of speechreading, or reading the movement of lip while somenone is speaking, they will find difficulties when they do not know the meaning of a word, and the word cannot be explained by gesturing or by the other words, for instance, the word “di”, “bahwa”, “tentang”, “saat”, etc. To find out how the deaf learn, process, and use the words, the researcher hold an interview with a non-deaf from the deaf community.

            The following conversation is an interview with a volunteer in GERKATIN (R) which is non-deaf and usually facilitates deaf people and non-deaf people to communicate and also teaches sign language to non-deaf people and Bahasa Indonesia to the deaf in Solo.

RE: “mas, bisa jelasin ngga secara garis besar bagaimana teman2 tunarungu dalam menulis kalimat, atau paragraf?”

R:    “haduh aku dan teman2 deaf juga belum bisa menemukan kenapa tulisan mereka terbolak-balik”
“tulisan mereka memang terbolak-balik dan membingungkan kalo dibaca, tapi kalo kita baca sambil berbahasa isyarat kita akan tau maksudnya. hampir semua deaf memiliki penulisan yg sama, tapi belum ada penelitian yg mendalami ttg hal itu”

RE: “mereka juga ngga mengenal kata imbuhan ya?”

R:    “mengenal, tapi penggunaannya kadang ga tepat”

RE: “orang2 yang non-deaf nya. kalo misalnya saya mau bilang "dia membantu saya" jadinya bahasa isyaratnya "dia bantu saya" ya?

R:    “hmm kalo pengamatanku, mereka lebih melihat ke kata dasarnya kayak "pemasukan" mereka mengartikan kalo itu "masuk". iyap betul banget”

RE: “terus bagaimana mereka bisa mengenal kata imbuhan?”

R:    “diajari sedikit demi sedikit”

RE: “dari teks bacaan?”

R:    “banyak  yg bisa pake kok sekarang
kami volunteer di solo ngajarin mereka bahasa indonesia seminggu sekali itu program gerkatin dan DVO seminggu dua kali ada program belajar bahasa isyarat. jadi saling belajar, mereka belajar bahasa indonesia, kita belajar bahasa isyarat”

RE: “kalo baca teks? mereka ada kesulitan ngga?”

R:    “kesulitan pake banget. apalagi di koran”

RE: “oya? terus mereka kalo mau dapet informasi darimana?”

R:    “tv. baca running text dan sedikit baca bibir dari presenter beritanya. kalo yg koran mereka jarang baca, karena sulit mengerti mungkin. tapi ga semua gitu, tergantung individunya”

R:    “oohh, kalo baca itu susah karena kata2nya terbalik2 dan ada istilah yang blm ada bahasa isyaratnya ya?”

RE: “bukan karena tidak ada bahasa isyaratnya, tapi karena mereka kurang dapat informasi.

       contoh kita yg dengar bisa dapet kata2 baru karena kita dengar dari orang bicara ataupun dari tv. sebagai perbandingan, coba dibandingkan penguasaan bahasa antara tunanetra dan tunarungu sama2 memiliki keterbatasan, tapi tunanetra kata2nya lebih kaya karena mereka bisa dengar”

The interview above leads to the fact that deaf people could understand each others’ writing because they write and read ‘with’ sign language as mentioned by the interviewee, for example:

G:    “aq pikir ide mw buat desain utk logo deaf fotografi. Aq belajar berusaha desain buat logo deaf  fotografi dulu”

            It is clear that deaf people write based on their knowledge of the use of Bahasa in sign language in the words “belajar berusaha” may seem awkward for non-deaf who does not recognize sign language, while the words is commonly used in sign language.

The use of prefix, sufix, and preposition also become the other obstacle for deaf people to read and write; first, because in sign language there is not prefix, sufix, and preposition, and the other reason is because they are lack of information since they could not hear, they cannot get information from news on TV while the only information they can absorb is only by the help of visualization, and sometimes some words meaning could not be explained or gestured eventhough the deaf could do speechreading. It is strengthened by Learning and Skills Improvement Service in UK which supported the improvement of deaf in literacy which state that; “Unfamiliar words, or words which have not been specifically introduced to the deaf person, cannot be lip-read.” That is why the written expression of deaf and non-deaf are different, non-deaf written expression are formed by the knowledge that they heard, and for the deaf it is formed by what they could express with sign language.

           

References

Azbel, L. (2004). How do the deaf read? The paradox of performing a phonemic task without sound. Intel Science Talent Search. retrieved on February 2^nd 2013 from http://psych.nyu.edu/pelli/#intel

Learning and Skills Improvement Service. Deaf  people and literacy. Retrieved on February 1^st 2013 from  repository.excellencegateway.org.uk