There’s a new language in the Marketplace. The weekly Language Tables sessions — which take place in the Marketplace on Tuesdays from 12:15 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. — hosted an American Sign Language (ASL) group for the first time Feb. 3.
Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science Shengyun Gu currently teaches Language and Culture in the Deaf Communities. Gu said she thinks the debut of the ASL language table is a milestone for Occidental and a long-awaited addition for many students.
“I think some [students] have been missing this kind of community since there are no ASL classes offered here,” Gu said. “But students want this kind of language environment to nurture them and also stimulate them to continuously learn and practice this language.”
Luz Forero ’98, Occidental’s Language Education Specialist and founder of the Languages Tables program, said the idea of adding ASL to the language tables originated at a meeting of the Accessibility Collective in the fall, when a student approached Forero about taking ASL classes locally and possibly starting a club or table on campus. The Accessibility Collective is a group of students, staff, and faculty who meet to discuss accessibility issues on campus.
This semester, the ASL table is set, with Autumm Battles (senior) at its head.
“Honestly, it was so great, I wasn’t expecting so many people to be interested,” Battles said. “But it was awesome and we had so many different levels of either they wanted to learn or they [had] already taken a class.”
Battles said she learned ASL at her high school in Chicago, which had the largest deaf and hard of hearing population in Illinois.
Battles said she would love to see an ASL class at Occidental, and she sees the new ASL table as a potential avenue for that to happen.
“I just hope that we can build a stronger community and also show to Oxy that there is interest in ASL here so that eventually we could get a class or, you know, faculty that are deaf or hard of hearing,” Battles said.
Gu said she notices growing interest in learning ASL on college campuses across the country and has been asking herself why that is. Gu said she believes part of this increase has to do with our cognition.
“[ASL] revives something that is deep in our mind or deep in our cognition, but we don’t use it since we live in the hearing world, and we use speech mainly to communicate,” Gu said. “But it doesn’t mean that we do not have this ability or capacity for a way to visually use a language or realize a language in a million visual ways.”
Battles said she hopes to help share the beauty of the language through the new table.
“ASL is such a beautiful language and deaf culture is so beautiful in and of itself,” Battles said. “Often, I think we’re very focused on spoken languages, but the manual languages are just as important to us. [People] don’t really understand that you can tell a story with your hands or you can tell a story without even opening your mouth.”
Forero said she wants newcomers to feel comfortable at the Language Tables regardless of their skill levels. She said the Language Tables are the perfect way to learn a new language because it provides students with a low-stakes way to practice.
Battles said she wants to improve her own ASL skills through the new table.
“It’s always a learning process and I don’t think you have to be scared to be here,” Battles said. “If anything, any progress we make in learning ASL is better for the next deaf or hard of hearing person we encounter.”
Contact Claire Wilson-Black at wilsonblack@oxy.edu
