UNAIR NEWS – Deaf person often cannot understand words spoken by other people and vice versa even though they learned sign language. Therefore, Master of Management (MM) batch 51 Afternoon class Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) in collaboration with Komunitas Arek Tuli Surabaya (KARTU Surabaya) and Karya Mulya Special Needs School (SLB) for the Deaf, Surabaya held “Linking Heart with Sign Language” workshop in Supoyo Hall, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) UNAIR on Saturday, May 4, 2019.
General public, hearing friends are expected to understand the deaf people or deaf friends by knowing how they communicate. Sign language is a language that uses gestures, hand movements, and lip movements as a visualization of communication.
According to Kintan, the speaker from KARTU Surabaya as interpreted by Rachmat, the method used by Deaf friends to communicate, among others, is using mother tongue, BISINDO (Indonesian sign language), verbal language and writing. Mother tongue, she continued, is a language often spoken by mothers or families of deaf friends in their communication.
Furthermore, BISINDO is an Indonesian sign language that uses hand gestures and expressions. It is often used in the general public. For verbal language, it is usually in the form of lip movements or expressions. And, if a deaf friend does not understand the mother tongue or BISINDO, written language can be used.
There are two languages of deaf friends, SIBI (Indonesian sign language system) and BISINDO. BISINDO uses two-handed movements and SIBI uses one hand.
“SIBI uses one hand, while BISINDO uses two hands,” Rachmat interpreted.
Moreover, BISINDO does not use word sequences while SIBI uses word sequences. BISINDO is easier to understand, while SIBI is sometimes not easy to understand because there is a sequence of words that not everyone can understand.
The usage of BISINDO and SIBI can be seen from the habits of deaf friends in communicating with their friends and they also have preferences on them.
We also need to know that every region in Indonesia has its own deaf culture. It also means that the use of sign language in each region also varies. (*)
Author: Asthesia Dhea C.
Editor: Feri Fenoria Rifa’i
