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The American Heritage Dictionary Of The English Language

Satisfactory Essays

When I thought of deaf culture, I wanted to first see if I could find any definitions so that I could get a general idea as to what it meant before I started doing all my research on it. So I started with the word culture first. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (online version) states: 1. a. The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought. b. These patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population: Edwardian culture; Japanese culture; the culture of poverty. c. These patterns, traits, and products considered with respect to a particular category, such as a field, subject, or mode of expression: religious culture in the Middle Ages; musical culture; oral culture. d. The predominating attitudes and behavior that characterize the functioning of a group or organization. These definitions of culture were the ones that seemed to best describe the word (http://www.deafculture.com/definitions). In my opinion, these definitions would be how I would describe culture if I was asked. The word "deaf culture" is not in the dictionary, but there was a definition that I thought suited it very well. From For Hearing People Only: Third Edition, Chapter 55: One possible definition of U.S. Deaf culture (and there must be many!) is a social, communal, and creative force of, by, and for Deaf

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