Dorothy Miles Research Paper

Dorothy (Dot) Miles is known as a central figure in sign language poetry. Throughout her adult career she strived to create a form of poetry that both deaf and hearing people could enjoy simultaneously. She played a pivotal role in the growing popularity of signed poetry, as well as the use of sign language in theatre. Because of this role, Miles is also renowned as one of the pioneers in American Sign Language and British Sign Language poetry, and also English poetry. She was born in Wales, in 1931 and died in 1993 at the age of 61 (Miles, 2015). During her lifetime she was able to make a great impact on the literary heritage of sign language and also Deaf and hearing culture.

Dorothy Miles was born hearing and considered her first language …show more content…
Her poetry was a huge contribution to American Sign Language literature. Nelson Mandela said, "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart" (Lapiak, 1996). Now, thanks to Dorothy Miles, there is literature that the Deaf community can appreciate and relate to. Later, she returned to England where she continued her work, but with British Sign Language. Throughout her life, Dorothy Miles published many books ranging from poetry to BSL training manuals (Sutton-Spence, 2003), but her biggest impact on the Deaf community would be the large affect her poetry had on Deaf culture. She broke through barriers and stereotypes that Deaf individuals could not be artists because of their deafness. By combining English and sign language, Miles created amazing poetry and drama that deaf and hearing people could watch and enjoy together, eliminating a large amount of seclusion that the Deaf community had previously …show more content…
However, Dorothy Miles used sign language in poetry as an act of empowerment for the Deaf community as members of an oppressed minority language group by making sign language a language that can be used in poetry, making it equal to English. Miles wanted to be appreciated as an artist, not just a Deaf artist. She teaches us to have a better appreciation for sign language poetry, but also to have a better appreciation of the artwork itself. We should learn that her poetry should not be appreciated only because it was created by a deaf individual, but because it is worthy of being appreciated. Miles was able to combine sign language and English in her poetry so that members of the Hearing and Deaf communities could be united and appreciate a piece of literature together. Although Miles was very confident with her deafness, she also struggled with being seen as equal. I think that something we can learn from her today would be that sometimes, we may not be able change the way that people view us, but that doesn't mean that we have to also view ourselves this