Week 7 Storytelling in Deaf Culture

This week we had Deaf Studies professors Dr. Mark Rust and Dr. Ricky Rose give a presentation on storytelling in ASL.  It was interesting to see the difference between  the deaf and hearing cultures.  The deaf storytelling is much more animated.  The story is told with the entire body.  Emotion can be seen on the face and in the intensity of the body movements whereas in hearing cultures emotions can only be indicated with voice and facial expressions.  It took me a little bit to adjust to the new style of performing, but once I did I found that I enjoyed it more than hearing it regularly.  It became more of a play with the narrator as the actor than someone just reciting a story.  Dr. Rose also changed the place he was standing when he was reading as different characters.  This visual really helped to make the story come to life.
This lecture gave me an appreciation for the use of body and facial expressions in storytelling.  One of the characteristics of a fairytale is that they are depthless.  The main character doesn’t experience much emotion, if any in tales.  The facial and body expressions adds some depth to the character and thus makes the story more gripping than one with no emotion.