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Many Deaf people today consider themselves a linguistic minority with a culture distinct from the mainstream hearing society. This is in large part because they communicate through an independent language——American Sign Language (ASL). However, two hundreds years ago, sign language was a “common language” for communication between hearing and deaf people within the institutional framework of “manualism.” Manualism is a pedagogical system of sign language introduced mainly from France in order to buttress the campaign for deaf education in the early-19th-century America. In 1817, a hearing man Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (1787-1851) and a deaf Frenchman Laurent Clerc (1785-1869) co-founded the first residential school for the deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. These early manualists shaped sign language within the evangelical framework of “moral government.” They believed that the divine origin of signs would lead the spiritual redemption of people who could not hear. Inside manual institutions, the religiously defined practice of signing, which claimed to transform the “heathen deaf” into being the “signing Christian,” enabled the process of assimilation into a shared “signing community.” The rapid expansion of manual institutions hence fostered a strong and separate deaf culture that continues to influence today’s deaf communities in the United States. However, social reformers in the mid-nineteenth century who advocated “oralism” perceived manualism as a threat to social integration. “Oralists” pursued a different model of deaf education in the 1860s, campaigning against sign language and hoping to replace it entirely with the skills in lip-reading and speech. The exploration of this tension leads to important questions: Were people who could not hear “(dis)abled” in the religious context of the early United States? In what ways did the manual institutions train students to become “able-bodied” citizens? How did this religiously framed pedagogy come to terms with the “hearing line” in the mid 19th century? In answering these questions, this dissertation analyzes the early history of manual education in relation to the formation and diffusion of religious governmentality, a topic that continues to influence deaf culture to this day. / published_or_final_version / Modern Languages and Cultures / Master / Master of Philosophy

During the past few years, Deaf culture has emerged as an important philosophy that could lead to a radical restructuring of Deaf education methods. The purpose of this study was to determine attitudes concerning Deaf culture from teachers of residential based schools for the Deaf who are Deaf and Hearing.Prior to initiating direct contact with the teachers, the superintendents or principals of the selected residential schools were contacted via mail, and their permission secured. In the United States, 279 teachers (69 teachers who are Deaf, 210 teachers who are Hearing) from seven midwest residential based schools for the Deaf and in South Korea 310 teachers (26 teachers who are Deaf, 284 teachers who are Hearing) from all eleven residential based schools for the Deaf participated.Two-factor ANOVA procedures with repeated measures on one factor were utilized to analyze the teachers' attitudes toward Deaf culture in America and South Korea from a 30-question survey using a five-point Likert scale.This study concluded that: (a) Deaf culture was a subculture in mainstream society whether it was a multi- or singular cultural society--although attitudes toward Deaf culture were accepted more negatively in a singular society than those in a multi-cultural society; (b) Deaf culture was accepted by teachers of schools for the Deaf who are Deaf more readily than those who are Hearing in both multi- or singular cultural societies; and (c) there was no significant correlation between attitudes of teachers who were employed at different levels of instruction, such as elementary and middle or secondary school. / Department of Special Education