A STUDY ON THE ATTITUDES TOWARDS ADDRESS TERMS OF HEARING AND DEAF COMMUNITIES IN CHINA

Abstract

The present study adopts a mixed method, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. It investigates the frequently used titles by members of the deaf community and hearing people and it also explores the differences in the hearing and the deaf groups’ attitudes towards the titles. The results show that the hearing group's acceptance of descriptive language and normal language is significantly higher than that of the deaf group, suggesting that deaf people are more sensitive to titles emphasizing their hearing disability and titles emphasizing the normality of the hearing people.