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”
“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”
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 2nd 2013 from http://psych.nyu.edu/pelli/#intel
Learning and Skills Improvement
Service. Deaf people and literacy. Retrieved on
February 1st 2013 from repository.excellencegateway.org.uk