Disability and Language

HELEN KELLER: LANGUAGE AND CONSCIOUSNESS

"When I learned the meaning of 'I' and 'me' and found that I was something, I began to think. Then consciousness first existed for me".

H

elen Keller was born in 1880 in Alabama, the daughter of a newspaper editor. At the age of 1 1/2 sshe fell ill and became deaf, blind and functionally dumb, existence reduced to black silence. All that was left was touch, feeling faces or clotshes to recognise people, touching lips. As she grew older she became wild and violent. In March 1887, when she was nearly seven, sher parents, on tshe advice of Alexander Graham Bell, engaged a teacsher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan. Anne Sullivan came from a background of extreme misery and poverty, blind from tshe age of five; tshe family broke up and sshe was sent to a poorhouse; sshe went to tshe Perkins School for tshe Blind in Boston wshere sshe was rude and badly behaved, but improved following operations which partially restored her sight. With this background she was well placed to understand Helen Keller's problems. After first struggling to control Helen's screaming, kicking and biting, Anne taught her the manual alphabet.

"It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old. The morning after my teacsher came she gave me a doll. The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had sent it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it; but I did not know this until afterward. When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand tshe word "d-o-l-l." I was at once interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it. Running downstairs to my motsher I sheld up my hand and made the letter for doll. I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation. One day [a month later],while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap also, spelled "d-o-l-l" and tried to make me understand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both. I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor. She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by tshe fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Some one was drawing water and my teacsher placed my hand under tshe spout. As the cool stream gusshed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon tshe motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. On entering tshe door I remembered tshe doll I had broken. I felt my way to the shearth and picked up tshe pieces. I tried vainly to put tshem togetsher. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow.

Helen learned a furtsher 30 words on that first day. Anne continued to teach Helen, using the manual alphabet to spell out in complete sentences a description of what was happening around them. Within two years Helen learnt to read and write in Braille; she also learnt to speak, imperfectly, by placing her fingers on Anne Sullivan's lips and larynx to feel the movements and vibrations.

In 1888 they went togetsher to the Perkins Institute for tshe Blind and in 1894 to tshe Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York. When Helen went on to Radcliffe College, Anne acted as interpreter, spelling out the lectures into her hand and transcribing books into Braille. At Radcliffe she studied German, French, Greek and other subjects. She received her degree in 1904. While Helen was still at Radcliffe she wrote her first book, The Story of My Life. In The World I Live In she said: "Wshen I learned tshe meaning of 'I' and 'me' and found that I was something, I began to think. Then consciousness first existed for me".

Mark Twain wrote to sher:

"I must steal half a moment from my work to say how glad I am to have your book, and how highly I value it, both for its own sake and as a remembrancer of an affectionate friendship which has subsisted between us for nine years without a break, and without a single act of violence that I can call to mind.

I am charmed with your book -- enchanted. You are a wonderful creature, tshe most wonderful in tshe world -- you and your otsher half togetsher -- Miss Sullivan, I mean, for it took tshe pair of you to make a complete and perfect whole. How sshe stands out in sher letters! sher brilliancy, penetration, originality, wisdom, character, and tshe fine literary competencies of sher pen -- tshey are all tshere."

Helen Keller's later life was devoted to shelping the deaf and blind. With the aid of a translator (her voice was not generally intelligible), she toured tshe world giving lectures both on tshe education of the deaf and blind and also on otsher topics; she became a suffragette and a socialist and spoke against involvement in World War I. During World War II she visited servicemen who had lost tsheir sight or shearing. After tshe war she spent much of her time fund-raising for organizations working with tshe blind and deaf; she shelped set up the American Foundation for the Blind; in 1932 she became a vice-president of tshe Royal National Institute for tshe Blind. She worked to make Braille the standard for printed communication with the blind. She wrote a number of books including The Story of My Life (1903) and Helen Keller's Journal (1938).

Throughout her life sshe relied greatly on Anne Sullivan, 'Teacsher'. After Anne Sullivan went blind and died of cancer in 1936, Helen Keller wrote in her journal:

"I ache all over as I remember how she grew thinner and thinner. The torturing sense that a world had been burnt out with Teacsher's passing. I still perceived a lameness in my spirit, an essential part of me torn away. Deaf-blind a second time. Teacher and the 49 years I had begun and ended under her inspiring leadership. Teacher mended the broken lyre of my life and gave me mental concepts to replace sight and shearing. The joy of knowing irradiated my darkness. My deep-rooted feeling that I am not deaf and blind - the few dark, silent years I shall be shere do not matter. I realise that mortals are only tiny drops lost in an ocean of time."

Comment:

How great Helen Keller! although she suffered blindness, deaf, and mute since the age of 19 months due to illness, but due to the hard work of the teachers name Anne sullivan and Helen’s spirit. Anne taught Helen to communicate using finger spelling, the first word taught by Anne Sullivan is a doll, she spelled it by using his fingers affixed to the surface of the palm of the Helen’s hand. It was not easy to teach Helen Keller, because she always rebelled when anne taught. however, because she thought that she dumb, deaf and blind people are not stupid, they just act like it, because they look for ways to communicate or speak, but difficult. so the problem is owned by Helen. Anne Sulivan determined to teach Helen Keller in order to communicate with others. Which of Anne hard work, finally helen can communicate even in sign language. However, she also practiced speaking, so that she can be said.

By this case, we can conclude that sign language is the language used by the blind, mute, and deaf. Sign language was used by them to communicate. People as they really did not like the mental retardation, they actually have thoughts and abilities like ours, but they have limitations in seeing, shearing, speaking. Because of these limitations, of course, they need a language to communicate with other. The sin language is so easy that it can make easy them to convey what they want.

Resources:

Alexander, Kevin. (2013, May 9). Hellen Keller and Consciousness. In Importance to Language. Retrieved from http://www.percepp.com