Translator: Paul Meighan Reviewer: Valentina Franzoni
(Italian interpretation throughout the talk)
It's better if you applaud me in this way,
a visual applause, see?
I need to see your applause.
Very good.
I was born 36 years ago,
in what which those of you can hear would perhaps call the world of silence.
It's a world very different from yours.
Yours is a world made of sounds,
but I will try to make you understand the difference.
When those of you who can hear talk amongst yourselves,
I can't hear anything
and you seem like fish inside an aquarium.
When I was small, I wasn't aware I was deaf.
One day, I was walking with my cousin,
and suddenly, a scooter passed by.
That scooter scared me,
and my cousin looked at me strangely.
She thought I had somehow heard the sound of the scooter.
Actually, I felt some vibrations made by the scooter,
and it almost seemed like I could hear.
During a cinema workshop with Deaf people,
which took place in L'Aquila not so long ago,
the Deaf participants told me how they experienced
the 2009 earthquake there.
At 03:32 A.M., they felt a very strong tremor.
Try to imagine that.
A silent tremor.
Those people were sound asleep,
and suddenly woke up, startled, because the bed was moving.
Things were falling off the shelves,
walls were becoming distorted, the room was changing shape.
People on the street were screaming, the city began to collapse.
The Deaf experienced a silent earthquake.
So undoubtedly, the first thing they felt would have been a movement,
and then they would have been able to perceive and see with their eyes
what was going on,
and experience what they were perceiving with their bodies.
As for the perception of the outside world,
ours is most definitely a vibratory one.
We, Deaf people, perceive through the vibrations of our bodies.
For example, we like to go dancing in clubs,
but we usually go near the loudspeakers,
because in that way, we can perceive the rhythm
through the vibrations.
At some places, they even put these metal panes over the speakers,
and we dance on those,
because they manage to transfer the rhythm's vibrations.
And as far as communicating with hearing people goes,
we are certainly capable of that,
but it's always necessary to use lip-reading
and we get used to it when we're kids.
I've been used to it since I was a kid,
and in fact, it's not always easy,
because some people speak faster, some slower,
some speak more clearly, others have their lips closer together.
I want to show you a video.
(No sound)
(Laughter)
Did you understand it?
It's tiring, right?
Great.
When I am sitting in the audience,
say, during a theater performance,
and I want to follow the actor who's talking,
it's very difficult for me.
Can you see? It's like looking through binoculars.
Is nothing happening?
Here we are, finally.
You see? You need to focus on the details.
I can concentrate on the details, on lip-reading,
but I lose all the rest, and it's a great limitation:
I lose the body movement and non-verbal language.
I myself specialize in theater,
and fortunately, some performances are interpreted in sign language.
Sign language, or more specifically, LIS, Italian Sign Language.
Hearing people who don't know Italian Sign Language
when they see people using it in the street,
they may think it's just gesticulating, but this is a great misunderstanding.
LIS is for all intents and purposes a true, real language,
so it has nothing to do with gestures.
Gesticulating supports speech, spoken language,
but Italian Sign Language is a valid language,
with its own grammar, and its own rules.
I'll show you a small example.
In Italian, we "I'm going to the cinema."
In LIS, we sign "I cinema go."
Like all languages, LIS also evolves.
In Italian, you used to say "giuoco," and now one says "gioco."
In LIS, this used to be the sign for "telephone,"
but it has since evolved into this sign.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Remember to applaud me like this.
LIS also has its own alphabet,
a finger-spelling alphabet.
I am sure some of you, when you were younger,
learned a manual alphabet.
But ours is much faster, and done with one hand.
There was a time when two hands were used, remember?
A, B, F, S, T...
Now, we use only one hand.
And this is the alphabet, very fast.
I believe all children should be taught our finger-spelling alphabet,
because it would make it easier to communicate with Deaf people.
Deaf people have their own culture, their own identity.
For example, you say "my lips are sealed," right?
We say "signs in pockets."
(Laughter)
Or "hands in pockets."
All right, I am a little overwhelmed.
LIS is a real language, it is a visual-gestural language.
Facial expressions are used a lot, as is body posture and body movements.
In my life, I have dedicated myself to teaching the art of the body.
I would say Deaf people use their bodies a lot to express themselves,
and for that reason, in theater classes,
both Deaf and hearing,
to learn to express themselves using their own body, posture,
body movement, facial expressions, their eyes.
Because the body has its own language, very much human.
(Music)
(Music ends)
The objective of my course is to allow people,
through mime, to express themselves.
They don't need to use spoken or sign language,
therefore absolutely everyone, in an equal way,
uses their own bodies and mime to express themselves.
I have noticed that people, both Deaf and hearing,
have problems, sometimes, in expressing themselves,
difficulties with non-verbal communication.
For example, Deaf people,
if it's not about gestures that are part of the LIS,
sometimes have difficulties communicating non-verbally,
and struggle switching from text to gesture-based communication.
And hearing people can be limited in this respect,
because their bodily movement and expression lack fluidity,
compared to Deaf people,
who grow up using their bodies to communicate,
and are much more fluid.
Now, I'd like to tell you a joke,
which will also help you understand the matter of cultural differences.
A joke that makes all Deaf people laugh,
but probably, when I start telling it, hearing people won't find it as funny.
I'll give you an example.
There are three people, a Deaf person, a blind person and a paraplegic person,
are traveling by plane.
The plane crashes, with no survivors and no bodies recovered.
So, one funeral is organized for all the casualties,
and during that funeral, they decide what to put into the grave.
For the blind person, they put their cane.
For the paraplegic person, they put in their wheelchair.
And for the deaf person?
Their sign-language interpreter.
(Laughter)
This is the joke, of course.
No, but it's a little like in your case,
we make a little fun of hearing people,
you make a little fun of the police, it's the same thing.
(Laughter)
In the way that communication is currently evolving,
there is a global interconnectedness,
and it has offered some great communicative opportunities
for us Deaf people.
There was a time when text messages didn't exist,
so if I wanted to meet a Deaf friend,
I was forced to ask my mom to do me a favor
and call my friend's family,
and then make a date so we could meet up.
When I used to watch movies and there weren't subtitles,
I tried to understand based on what I could see,
but in reality, it was more like inventing my own plot for my own movie.
These days, however, technology has evolved considerably,
and it has had a positive impact on the quality of our lives,
thanks to computers, tablets, video-chat, the Internet, text messages,
and the availability of smartphones.
For us, nowadays, communication is much easier.
Deaf people can now easily increase
their own ability to contact and communicate with others considerably.
There are virtual networks that connect everyone.
In this way, the possibility of debate, of dialog, of connection,
thanks to the virtual reality, has become important to the Deaf.
Our eyes want to see,
and in a way, we have substituted our eyes for our ears,
so we can receive the same information, thanks to our visual ability.
Now, I wanted to tell you about two great and important technological innovations,
and I will show you two clips.
The first is about the Tiburtina train station.
You know that we Deaf people can't hear the audio announcements.
The second clip is about a movie theater where there are no subtitles.
Now, let's try to see the first clip.
(Music)
(Audio announcement)
Did you see?
Using my smartphone and an app, I was able to receive information.
I wore some special glasses,
and everywhere I went, I received all the updates.
This was at a train station,
but the same thing goes for the subway and airports.
Now I'll show you another video.
I'm going to the cinema and there aren't any captions.
This system not only helps us Deaf people.
In fact, even hearing people sometimes opt for watching with subtitles,
in their language or the original language,
in order to follow the film more easily.
Let's watch the clip.
(Music)
[Hearing / Non-hearing]
(Movie dialog)
These projects are being elaborated for Expo 2015.
At Expo, well find out what will be the digital city,
what the smart city will be like.
An efficient and inclusive city
that will guarantee everyone can benefit from services on equal footing.
The projects that are being developed for Expo 2015,
will mean that all barriers,
be it architectural, linguistic or communicative barriers,
will be broken down
and it will be possible to create an augmented reality.
Therefore in these next three years there are going to be many opportunities
for disabled, Deaf, blind and deaf-blind people
to participate in this project.
People who can't hear will have opportunities,
people who can't see will be able to have different ones,
therefore there will be a chance for everyone.
Thank you very much.