THERE are over 30 muscles in the human face. It takes 14 muscles working together just to make you smile! Imagine what your conversations would be like without these muscles. Appealing? Hardly. For those who are deaf, though, the facial muscles do much more than animate conversations. When combined with physical gestures, they are a significant means of conveying thoughts and ideas. Many people have marveled at how sign language is able to express even complex thoughts along with every nuance.

Seeing Is Hearing

There are many misconceptions concerning deaf people and sign language. Let us clear up some of them. Deaf people can drive automobiles. Lipreading is extremely difficult for them. Sign language has nothing in common with Braille, and it is not simply pantomime. There is not one universal sign language. Moreover, deaf people do have regional accents when signing.

Can deaf people read? While some read well, the truth is that the vast majority of the deaf struggle with reading. Why? Because what is on the printed page originates from a spoken language. Consider how a child with the ability to hear learns a language. From the moment the child is born, he is surrounded by people who speak the local tongue. In a short time, he is able to string words together and form sentences. This comes naturally just from hearing the language spoken. Thus, when hearing children begin to read, it is a matter of learning that the black marks on the page correspond to the sounds and words they already know.

Now imagine yourself in a foreign country in a soundproof room made of glass. You have never heard the local language spoken. Each day, the local people come to you and try to speak to you through the glass. You cannot hear what they are saying. You see only that their lips are moving. Realizing that you do not understand them, they write those same words on a piece of paper and show you through the glass what they have written. They think that you must be able to understand it. How well do you think you would do? You would find communication nearly impossible in this situation. Why? Because what is written represents a language that you have never heard spoken. This is precisely the situation in which most deaf people find themselves.

Sign language is a perfect vehicle for deaf people. A person uses signs to set up concepts in the space surrounding his body. His movements in that space along with his facial expressions follow the rules of grammar of sign language. Thus emerges a visual language that makes it possible to convey information to the eyes.

In fact, almost every move a deaf person makes with his hands, body, and face while signing has meaning. Facial expressions are not made just for the sake of dramatic impact. They are an integral part of the grammar of sign language. To illustrate: Asking a question with the eyebrows raised could indicate either a rhetorical question or one that elicits a yes or no answer. If eyebrows are lowered, this could indicate a who, what, where, when, why, or how question. Certain mouth movements may suggest the size of an object or the intensity of an action. The way a deaf person moves his head, lifts his shoulders, twitches his cheeks, and blinks his eyes all add subtle shades of meaning to the thought being conveyed.

These elements combine to create a linguistic feast for the eyes. Using this rich form of expression, deaf people who know sign language well are equipped to convey any concept​—from poetic to technical, from romantic to humorous, from concrete to abstract.