6 | Monday, March 29, 2021 HONG KONG EDITION | CHINA DAILY CHINA

TALKING POINT Preference for style over substance helps no one

State broadcaster, have failed to get through to many deaf people. Li Lei These programs are brimming with abstract terms, ranging from “socialism” to “economic construc­ tion”, and words coined to describe “Sign language is a combination recent trends. of signs — the shape, location, ori­ However, no extra time is given entation and movement of the for interpreters to explain them hands — facial expressions and fully, so to keep up with the body gestures,” said Zheng Xuan, anchor’s speech interpreters usu­ an expert on Chinese Sign Lan­ ally condense or omit information. guage, during a recent phone call. Some render the terms in Pinyin One of a small number of deaf — the phonetic system used to linguists in China, she paired her write Chinese words in the Roman Bluetooth hearing aid and her alphabet — but the practice is not phone so she would be comfortable popular among most sign lan­ during our hourlong conversation. guage users. “Audism has undermined how Gu Dingqian, a specialist in deaf sign language is presented via the education who was involved in the media,” she said. drafting process of the dictionary The term “Audism” is used to of Chinese Sign Language, said describe the discriminatory belief some interpreters even “make up that the ability to hear makes a per­ vocabulary” on the spot to keep the Zheng Xuan delivers a lecture to hearing­impaired students at Chongqing Normal University in 2019. CHEN LIN / FOR CHINA DAILY son superior to someone with a flow smooth. hearing impairment. In contrast with the robotic During my years as a civil affairs interpretations seen on television, reporter, I’ve spoken with and mes­ Sun’s unorthodox style of signing saged deaf livestreamers and art­ has its own glamour: the power, ists, sign language interpreters, beauty and richness of feelings. Partially deaf linguist drives researchers drafting the CSL dic­ That led me to contemplate how tionary and the nongovernmental mainstream aesthetics have erod­ groups promoting its application. ed the function of this very differ­ In all those exchanges, one com­ ent language system, which relies plaint has been ubiquitous. solely on visual signals to convey While the presence of sign inter­ meaning as well as emotion. acceptance of sign language pretation is expanding in the To please mainstream audien­ media and at venues ranging from ces, sign interpreters have been central government news confer­ instructed to act in a graceful and Hearing­impaired researcher is working hard to eradicate discrimination ences to national legislative gath­ serious manner, even at the erings, as required by law, it is not expense of some of the most as comprehensible as it may seem. informative parts of the signing By LI LEI hood. Her hearing was impaired at ary talent, Zheng met with him on deaf education and a major figure That fact prompted Sun Yan’e, a process. [email protected] age 2 as a result of large vestibular the Wuhan University campus. in the compilation of CSL vocabu­ deaf influencer in Dalian, Liaoning To make matters worse, inter­ aqueduct syndrome, a hereditary On a sunny, breezy weekend, lary since the 1990s, said the “lack province, to make videos early last preters are confined to a palm­ ith her chant of condition that results in a malfor­ Three Stones, who is 10 years of theoretical support” from lin­ year featuring the “natural” sign sized window, which hovers lonely “Nothing about us, mation of the inner ear. Zheng’s senior, sat on a lawn and guists led earlier researchers to take language, or dialect, used by the at the lower left corner of the TV without us”, a disabili­ Prompted by her parents, Zheng taught her the rudiments of the a “roundabout route”. deaf community and show them screen, straining the viewer’s eye­ ty empowerment slo­ learned to speak Mandarin. Her “natural”, or dialect, sign language In the 1960s, the central authori­ on the video­streaming platform sight. gan,W Zheng Xuan, a deaf expert on parents saved up for a radio, and it used by Wuhan’s deaf community. ties established a sign language Kuaishou. Zheng, who learned American Chinese Sign Language, finds her­ always played at full volume to help It was through him that Zheng reform committee, which compiled The videos were aimed at guid­ Sign Language during an exchange self almost alone. her perfect her pronunciation. met more people like herself — deaf four thin pamphlets containing ing deaf people through the vortex program to the United States in For generations, linguistic She also learned to lip­read, people who were excelling in their about 2,000 signs. By 2011, the of misinformation related to the 2016, said the space reserved for research into CSL has been domi­ which allowed her to blend in large­ respective fields. She has main­ vocabulary had nearly tripled. COVID­19 epidemic. interpreters can account for one­ nated by people with unimpaired ly unnoticed with hearing children. tained friendships with many of Though some signs were collect­ Unlike sign language interpret­ third or even half the screen in the hearing. When she was old enough, them. ed from users of natural sign lan­ ers on television, who maintain a US. “I am one of a very small number Zheng, wearing a hearing aid, They included a deaf poet named guage, many abstract terms were solemn face and upright posture, Many insiders have told me that, of deaf people in the field,” said attended mainstream schools. Her Zhang Peng, who composed verse devised by the compilers in the ear­ Sun used flamboyant gestures and despite repeated calls, the TV Zheng, a specialist in deaf educa­ uphill struggle in the hearing world in sign language. Sadly, Zhang had ly days, Gu said. dramatic facial expressions as she industry is reluctant to make more tion at Beijing Normal University, paid off — academically, at least. a heart attack in 2019 and died at a The lack of field studies meant explained the correct use of face room for fear of damaging the China’s top teacher training college. relatively young age. that Pinyin, the system for writing masks and the way the virus is “normal presentation of pictures”. In 2016, a Confucius Institute in Pretense Chinese words using the Roman transmitted. You don’t need to be deaf to Minnesota, United States, wanted In 1998, Zheng was one of a small Devotion alphabet, was overused — a prac­ In one viral video, the 54­year­ recognize the condescending to recruit deaf Chinese teachers for group of deaf students who sat the Mesmerized by the beauty of sign tice that many modern sign lan­ old cleverly compared her messy stance the hearing culture has tak­ an exchange program. As someone highly competitive gaokao, the language, Zheng made it the sub­ guage users find unacceptable — hair to the spikes protruding from en on its deaf counterpart, usually who could use spoken Mandarin national college entrance exam. ject of her dissertation for her mas­ and was chipping away at CSL’s the novel coronavirus in an effort unnoticed by people without such and English and was also a long­ She passed and was admitted to ter’s in linguistics. appeal. to explain the epidemic’s basics. problems. time user of CSL, the 40­year­old Wuhan University, a prestigious The paper, assessed as an “excel­ As a result, the vocabulary in the When asked about her inspira­ One recent example is the “fin­ had no rivals. mainstream school, to study Chi­ lent graduation thesis” by Wuhan latest CSL dictionary was over­ tion, Sun said such advice is badly ger dance”, a genre trending on vid­ The stigma attached to using sign nese language and literature. University, paved the way for her to hauled prior to its publication in needed, given the deaf communi­ eo­streaming platforms in which language — a telltale sign of hear­ At the time she felt “exhausted” become China’s first deaf doctoral 2019. ty’s poor access to information. chic young influencers — always ing loss — has led many high­ by pretending to be a hearing per­ candidate and she began studying “Only 40 percent of the previous people with unimpaired hearing — achieving deaf people to learn oral son. That feeling got worse as she CSL linguistics at Fudan University, vocabulary was retained,” Gu said. National system “sign” as they lip­sync to a back­ languages. grew older. a mainstream college in Shanghai. “The vocabulary currently in use For the past five years, the Com­ ground melody. Those who learn to sign are “Many deaf people use spoken It was then Zheng started to real­ is largely based on natural sign lan­ munist Party of China has used the The videos contain sign lan­ mostly educated at schools for deaf language, but they cannot hear ize how deaf people were underrep­ guage and has absorbed many establishment of a unified national guage elements, but the way they students, where academic curricu­ each other clearly. There’s no bond­ resented in the field. mature and comprehensible natu­ system for sign language and are rendered has been tweaked to lar are far less hectic than in main­ ing among them, not like the bond­ “I was my tutor’s only deaf stu­ ral signs and terms.” Braille as a crucial pillar in efforts make the process look better, stream schools. ing among sign language users,” dent, and after all these years I am Zheng, the linguist, said she is to build a “moderately prosperous according to Chen Qian, a junior at “Society has very low expecta­ she said. still the only one (he has had),” currently developing online cours­ society in all respects” by this year, Renmin University of China in Bei­ tions of students who use sign lan­ At age 19, Zheng embarked on a Zheng said. es to “teach CSL in a professional the Party’s centenary. jing. Chen heads a student group guage, and that’s a form of journey of self­discovery. She After receiving her doctorate in way”. That’s benefited cross­regional that promotes deaf culture among discrimination,” said Zheng, a learned to surf the internet and cre­ 2009, she began working at Chong­ Having become fluent in Ameri­ communication for the estimated hearing people like herself. member of an expert panel review­ ated an account with CnDeaf, an qing Normal University in South­ can Sign Language in less than four 27 million hearing­impaired peo­ “The videos are made by hearing ing the CSL dictionary, which online forum favored by educated west China. months during an exchange pro­ ple scattered across China’s more people for hearing people and the explains the presentation of con­ people with impaired hearing. The college had just launched a gram to the US in 2016, she said than 30 provincial­level regions culture they embody is the main­ cepts and words in a unified nation­ On the platform, the sophomore program of special education for sign language has a “power to and 56 ethnic groups. stream one,” she said. al sign language. met a netizen with the username bachelor’s and master’s courses and unite” that transcends borders. Despite that progress, there is “However, I would still say the Like many people with impaired “Three Stones”, who doesn’t use was recruiting hearing­impaired “Signs and vocabulary vary from still much to do. The sad truth is genre’s popularity is a form of hearing, Zheng, from Wuhan, spoken language but writes beauti­ students. “I just wanted to be place to place, but the facial expres­ that well­intentioned sign lan­ progress in itself, because it shows Hubei province, worked hard to be ful essays. around deaf people,” she said. sions and grammar share similar guage­interpreted news programs that sign language is entering a “normal” person from early child­ Overwhelmed by the man’s liter­ Gu Dingqian, a hearing expert on rules,” she said. on China Central Television, the mainstream culture.” Anthem success fulfills signer’s deeply held wish

By LI LEI “It has fulfilled our (the sign lan­ the China Association of the Deaf the authorities to promote the use of guage community’s) strong wish to and Hard of Hearing, said that CSL. During the 13th Five­Year Plan How do we sign China’s national sign the national anthem (in uni­ before the advent of CSL, people (2016­20), China made the estab­ anthem? son),” said Tai, who is also director of from different regions had difficul­ lishment of a unified national sys­ Earlier this month, the meeting of the China Disabled People’s Per­ ty communicating. tem for sign language and Braille a the 13th National Committee of the forming Art Troupe, during an “The signs varied from place to major goal in promoting the welfare Chinese People’s Political Consulta­ interview with Beijing News. place, just like dialects,” he said. of people with disabilities. tive Conference, the country’s top Meanwhile, earlier this month, A media release by the China Dis­ In a landmark move, the federa­ political advisory body, offered a the China Disabled Persons’ Federa­ abled Persons’ Federation said the tion released the latest CSL diction­ textbook example. tion, which oversees policymaking rules will help fulfill the wishes of ary in 2019. At the Great Hall of the People in relating to disabilities, unveiled a set those who rely on sign language to Gu Dingqian, an expert on deaf downtown Beijing, thousands of of rules on how to present the join in when the national anthem is education who was involved in the political advisers rose for the nation­ national anthem in Chinese Sign sung. dictionary’s drafting, said the lack of al anthem, The March of the Volun­ Language. The March of the Volunteers was a unified sign language system teers, during the session, which was CSL, a unified national system, written during the War of Resist­ resulted in communication barriers livestreamed to a national audience. facilitates cross­regional communi­ ance Against Japanese Aggression for hearing­impaired people nation­ A camera suddenly zoomed in on cation for the nation’s estimated 27 (1931­45) and officially became the wide. Hearing students learn how to sign a pop song at Renmin University Tai Lihua, a deaf dancer and mem­ million hearing­impaired people. national anthem of the People’s “When I was conducting a field of China in Beijing in October. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY ber of the CPPCC 13th National Com­ The rules were unveiled on Republic of China in 1982. survey, many special education mittee. Along with her sign language March 1 at a factory in Beijing The federation said the new rules teachers told me that students from interpreter, Tai signed to the music where more than half the workers will allow hearing­impaired people different places signed in different The recent progress is in line with dents to travel from their home as the other political advisers burst have hearing impairments. to feel the national spirit and patri­ ways and many had to spend more government efforts to enroll more regions to other locations, which into a powerful vocal rendition of the While addressing the gathering, otism embedded in the anthem. than a week to unify how certain disabled students in colleges. How­ can often result in communication anthem. Liu Zaijun, honorary chairman of The rollout was the latest effort by things were signed,” he said. ever, that usually requires the stu­ problems.