Reflection On A Deaf Event

The Deaf event that I attended was a silent dinner held at Starbucks coffee. Before I arrived to the silent dinner, I was not sure what to expect or how much of the conversation I would be able to keep up with.
When I was at the silent dinner, I was greeted kindly by those around me, and had the chance to meet many other signers that were a mix of both fellow Liberty students, and other people from the local community. The silent dinner that I attended was different than every other dinner event that I have attended, from the introduction that we made to the conversations and small talk that we shared. I learned that when you are still a beginner in ASL it is rather difficult to keep up with the advanced signers and it is even more difficult …show more content…
One of the many aspect of American Sign Language that I observed while attending the silent dinner that was new to me was how confusing Sign Language can be outside of the classroom as well as how different a Deaf event is compared to the hearing events that I am used to. At a typical hearing dinner, you tend to talk to the person sitting next to you at the table the most, but at the silent dinner, most people were talking to others that were seated across the room. One of the cultural aspect of the Deaf community that stood out to me the most at the silent dinner, was how different the Deaf culture is from the hearing community in large groups or at large events. In the Deaf culture when you have an event like we did at the silent dinner, the seating has to be adjusted to allow for signing conversations and maximum visibility. I also learned from attending this silent dinner, was that the open seating used in the Deaf community allowed for people to carry on conversations with others in sign language while still being able see the other signers in your group. I was glad that I attended this Deaf event and had the opportunity to get to know more about Deaf