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(Interpreter) Piano, p,
is my favorite musical symbol.
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It means to play softly.
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If you're playing a musical instrument
and you notice a p in the score,
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you need to play softer.
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Two p's -- even softer.
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Four p's -- extremely soft.
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This is my drawing of a p-tree,
which demonstrates
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no matter how many thousands
upon thousands of p's there may be,
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you'll never reach complete silence.
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That's my current definition of silence,
a very obscure sound.
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I'd like to share a little bit
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about the history of
American Sign Language (ASL)
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plus a bit of my own background.
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French sign language was brought
to America during the early 1800's,
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and as time went by,
mixed with local signs,
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it evolved into the language
we know today as ASL.
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So it has a history of about 200 years.
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I was born deaf,
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and I was taught to believe
that sound wasn't a part of my life.
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And I believe it to be true.
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Yet I realize now that
that wasn't the case at all.
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Sound was very much a part of my life,
really on my mind everyday.
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As a deaf person living
in a world of sound,
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it's as if I was living
in a foreign country,
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blindly following its rules,
customs, behaviors and norms
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without ever questioning them.
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So how is it that I understand sound?
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Well I watch how people
behave and respond to sound.
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You people are like my loudspeakers,
and amplify sound.
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I learn and mirror that behavior.
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At the same time, I've learned
that I create sound,
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and I've seen how people respond to me.
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Thus I've learned, for example,
don't slam the door,
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don't make too much noise when
you're eating from the potato chip bag,
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don't burp and when you're eating
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make sure that you don't scrape
your utensils on the plate.
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All of these things
I term "sound etiquette."
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Maybe I think about sound etiquette
more than the average person does.
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I'm hyper-vigilant around sound.
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And I'm always waiting and eager,
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nervous anticipation, around sound
about what's the to come next.
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Hence, this drawing.
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TBD, to be decided.
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TBC, to be continued.
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TBA, to be announced.
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And you notice the staff --
there are no notes contained in the lines.
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That's because the lines
already contain sound
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through the subtle smudges and smears.
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In deaf culture,
movement is equivalent to sound.
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This is a sign for staff in ASL.
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A typical staff contains five lines,
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yet for me signing it
with my thumb sticking up
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like that doesn't feel natural.
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That's why you'll notice in my drawings
I stick to four lines on paper.
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In the year 2008 I had the opportunity
to travel to Berlin, Germany
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for an artist residency there.
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Prior to this time I had been
working as a painter.
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During this summer, I visited
different museums and gallery spaces,
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and as I went from one place to the next
I noticed there was no visual art there.
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At that time, sound was trending,
and this struck me --
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there was no visual art,
everything was auditory.
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Now sound has come into my art territory.
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Is it going to further
distance me from art?
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I realized that doesn't
have to be the case at all.
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I actually know sound, I know it so well
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that it doesn't have to be something
that's just experienced through the ears.
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It could be felt tactually.
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Or experienced as a visual.
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Or even as an idea.
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So I decided to reclaim ownership of sound
and to put it into my art practice.
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And everything that I had been
taught regarding sound
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I decided to do away with and unlearn.
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I started creating a new body of work,
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and when I presented this
to the art community,
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I was blown away with the amount
of support and attention I received.
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I realized: sound is like money,
power, control -- social currency.
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In the back of my mind, I've always felt
that sound was your thing,
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a hearing person's thing.
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And sound is so powerful
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that it could either disempower me
and my artwork, or it could empower me.
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I chose to be empowered.
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There's a massive culture
around spoken language.
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And just because I don't use
my literal voice to communicate,
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in society's eyes
it's as if I don't have a voice at all.
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So I need to work with individuals
who can support me as an equal
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and become my voice.
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And that way, I'm able to maintain
relevancy in society today.
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So at school, at works and institutions,
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I work with many
different ASL interpreters.
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And their voice becomes
my voice and identity.
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They help me to be heard,
and their voices hold value and currency.
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Ironically, by borrowing out their voices,
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I'm able to maintain
a temporary form of currency,
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kind of like taking out a loan
with a very high interest rate.
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If I didn't continue this practice,
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I feel that I could just
fade off into oblivion
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and not maintain
any form of social currency.
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So with sound as my new art medium,
I delved into the world of music.
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And I was surprised to see
the similarities between music and ASL.
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For example, a musical note cannot
be fully captured and expressed on paper,
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and the same holds true
for a concept in ASL.
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They're both highly spatial
and highly inflected,
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meaning that subtle changes
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can affect the entire meaning
of both signs and sounds.
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I'd like to share with you
a piano metaphor,
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to have you have a better
understanding of how ASL works.
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So, envision a piano.
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ASL is broken down into
many different grammatical parameters.
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If you assign a different parameter
to each finger as your play the piano --
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such as facial expression, body movement,
speed, hand shape and so on,
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as you play the piano --
English is a linear language,
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as if one key is being pressed at a time.
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However, ASL is more like a chord --
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all 10 fingers need to come
down simultaneously
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to express a clear concept or idea in ASL.
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If just one of those keys
were to change the chord,
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it would create a completely
different meaning.
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The same applies to music
in regards to pitch, tone and volume.
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In ASL, by playing around with these
different grammatical parameters,
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you can express different ideas.
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For example, take the sign "to look at."
This is the sign "to look at."
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I'm looking at you.
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Staring at you.
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Mhm.
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Oof -- busted.
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Uh-oh.
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What are you looking at?
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Aw, stop.
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I then started thinking, "What if I was
to look at ASL through a musical lens?"
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If I was to create a sign
and repeat it over and over,
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it could become
like a piece of visual music.
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For example, this is the sign for "day,"
as the sun rises and sets.
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This is "all day."
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If I was to repeat it and slow it down,
visually it looks like a piece of music.
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All...day.
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I feel the same holds true
for "all night."
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"All night."
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This is "all night,"
represented in this drawing.
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And this led me to thinking
about three different kinds of nights.
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"Last night," "overnight,"
and "all night long."
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I feel like the third one has
a lot more musicality than the other two.
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This represents how time
is expressed in ASL
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and how the distance from your body
can express the changes in time.
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For example, 1H is one hand,
2H is two hand,
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present tense happens closest
and in front of the body,
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future is in front of the body
and the past is to your back.
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So the first example is "a long time ago."
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Then "past,"
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"used to"
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and the last one,
which is my favorite,
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with the very romantic
and dramatic notion to it,
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"once upon a time."
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"Common time" is a musical term
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with a specific time signature
of four beats per measure.
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Yet when I see the word "common time,"
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what automatically comes to mind for me
is "at the same time."
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So notice RH: right hand, LH: left hand.
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We have the staff across
the head and the chest.
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I'm now going to demonstrate
a hand shape called the "flash claw."
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Can you please follow along with me?
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Everybody, hands up.
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Now we're going to do it
in both the head and the chest,
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kind of like common time
or at the same time.
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Yes, got it.
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That means "to fall in love"
in International Sign Language.
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International Sign Language, as a note,
is a visual tool to help communicate
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across cultures and sign languages
around the world.
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The second one I'd like
to demonstrate is this --
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please follow along with me again.
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And now this.
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This is "colonization" in ASL.
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Now the third, please follow along again.
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And again.
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This is "enlightenment" in ASL.
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So let's do all three together.
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"Fall in love,"
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"colonization"
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and "enlightenment."
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Good job, everyone.
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Notice how all three signs
are very similar,
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they all happen at the head and the chest,
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but they convey quite different meanings.
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So it's amazing to see
how ASL is alive and thriving,
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just like music is.
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However, in this day and age,
we live in a very audio-centric world,
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and just because ASL has no sound to it,
it automatically holds no social currency.
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We need to start thinking harder
about what defines social currency
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and allow ASL to develop its own form
of social currency without sound.
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And this could possibly be a step
to lead to a more inclusive society.
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And maybe people will understand that
you don't have to be deaf to learn ASL,
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nor do you have to be hearing
to learn music.
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ASL is such a rich treasure that
I'd like you to have the same experience.
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And I'd like to invite you
to open your ears,
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to open your eyes,
take part in our culture
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and experience our visual language.
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And you never know,
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you might just fall in love with us.
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Thank you.