Language access and Deaf activism in Mexico and Nepal

Language socialization, the simultaneous process of learning language and culture, occurs spontaneously in most families. However, deaf children born to hearing parents cannot fully access the spoken languages of their families and hearing society. This study provides data illustrating that Mexico's therapeutic approach to language does not constitute language socialization for deaf children; simultaneously, it affirms that signing communities offer sites where deaf people can actively engage in this critical process. Mexican families with deaf children and deaf adults from the same community reflect upon their oralist upbringings and (1) depict the consequences of the therapeutic approach to language for Mexican deaf people and (2) illustrate how strictly oralist approaches did not constitute language socialization, and in fact, served to constrain these processes in ways that often came at a great linguistic, emotional, and educational cost to participants. La socializací on del lenguaje es un proceso simultáneo del aprendizaje del lenguaje y de la cultura, y ocurre espontáneamente en la mayoría de las familias. Sin embargo, los niños sordos que nacen a papás oyentes no pueden acceder completamente a los idiomas hablados de sus familias y de la sociedad oyente. Este studio de investigací on proporciona datos que ilustran como el enfoque terapéutico mexicano del lenguaje no es igual a la socializací on del lenguaje para los niños sordos. Simultáneamente, afirma que las comunidades donde se utiliza la lengua de señas ofrecen oportunidades y espacios para que gente sorda pueda participar activa-mente en el proceso crítico de la socializací on del lenguaje. Las familias mexicanas con niños sordos y adultos sordos de la misma comunidad reflexionan sobre sus creencias oralistas y (1) representan las consecuencias del enfoque terapéutico del lenguaje para la gente sorda de México e (2) ilustran como un enfoque estrictamente oralista no constituye la socializací on del lenguaje, y de hecho, sirve para constreñir estos procesos de tal forma que se producen daños en términos lingüísticos, emocionales, y educacionales para los participantes. Widely accepted estimates claim that between 90 and 98% of deaf children are born into hearing families. 1 This situation disrupts the unwritten and unspoken assumption parents have that they will be able to communicate naturally with their children in their own language(s). Hearing parents without a history of familial deafness typically have no experience with deaf people, no contact with deaf communities, and know little or nothing about signed language. Thus, when it comes to two of the most basic of parental obligations, communication and socialization, hearing parents of deaf children are faced with decisions they never expect to have to make. This study illuminates how Mexican parents facing this quandary encountered a dominant, medicalized, therapeutic approach to language for their deaf children. Data presented in this article illustrate how Mexico's therapeutic approach does not acknowledge the complex relationship

Springer eBooks, 2017

Language socialization in Deaf communities is unique in ways that are challenging for language socialization theory. Worldwide, indigenous signed languages emerge wherever Deaf individuals have sustained social interaction among themselves, but historically they have been stigmatized and marginalized. Most Deaf children are born into non-Deaf households without access to signed language from birth, often acquiring a signed language through informal social networks in later years. Following the recognition of signed languages as bona fide linguistic systems in the 1960s, ethnographic studies documented language socialization in a variety of contexts: families, educational settings, Deaf clubs, isolated Deaf/ non-Deaf rural communities, and transnational events. As evidence of the linguistic status of natural signed languages mounted, political movements championing the rights of Deaf people as linguistic and cultural minorities led to the establishment of bilingual education programs for Deaf children. Simultaneously, changes in educational policy and advances in technology and medicine began to negatively affect patterns of signed language socialization. Most Deaf children are now educated in local school settings where signed languages are usually absent, and the dominant discourses promoting the techno-medical eradication of Deaf people threaten to obfuscate and trivialize the Deaf child's need for optimal language socialization in natural signed languages and majority spoken languages. One surprising characteristic of signed language communities is their tenacity in the face of efforts to suppress and eradicate them, especially given the discontinuity of traditional caregiver-to-child language socialization across generations. Signed language socialization studies in such circumstances promise contributions to theory building offered by few communities.

This thesis examines written debates and discussions about Deaf ways of being and signed languages from within a selection of South Australian public print-media documents. Drawing on texts of both Deaf and hearing writers, the study also investigates Deaf and hearing relationships as played out within these discursive interactions, and documents a thirty year period in the community’s process of ‘coming to voice’ (Humphries 1996; 2008). The primary focus of the thesis is towards investigating and informing both theory and practice in deaf education. Data is sourced from English print media texts that appeared within South Australian Deaf community and mainstream press from 1970 until 2000. Sample texts were predominantly collected via Deaf community networks, with some also found in Deaf community and State library or archive collections. Data was subject to multi-layered analysis, beginning with grounded theory inductive thematic analysis, after which QSR NVIVO software program was used to further explore intertextuality. Next, a textual analysis, consisting primarily of linguistic metaphor analysis was conducted. This was followed by a narrative analysis and then finally by using Humphries’ 1996 and 2008 ‘strange’ and ‘Modern Deaf-self’ notions as a lens. Thematic and narrative analysis found the media discourse tending towards a number of key themes. Much of this centred around differing views about appropriate language use by deaf people, which incorporated exchanges and at times angry debates about the validity of Sign Languages and Deaf culture. Pedagogies within deaf education, and the structures of the education system itself, generated much heated discussion, along with differing views about skills, credentials, aptitudes and attitudes of teachers of the deaf. Other key debates were in relation to the cochlear implantation of deaf children, and the public representation of Deaf people and their Sign Language and culture. Analysis via Humphries’ 1996 and 2008 ‘strange’ and ‘Modern Deaf-self’ frames yielded numerous in-text samples of the expression of differing theories and core beliefs regarding Deaf ways of being. Also revealed within both this layer of analysis and the textual analysis are examples of a number of linguistic strategies used in maintaining and countering oppressive constructs and seeking the upper hand in debate. Such language use also reveals unacknowledged underlying theories about Deaf people held by the writers. Among the identified linguistic devices, metaphor featured heavily in creating and sustaining beliefs about interpersonal separation and connection, and the naturalness or otherwise of being deaf. Particularly important were metaphors of ‘barriers’, ‘silence’ and different ‘worlds’. The findings challenge educators and administrators to explore their own underlying beliefs regarding the authenticity and completeness of the biology and episteme of the deaf students whom they seek to educate, and to reflect on the value or otherwise that they place on adult Deaf indigenous ways of knowing as sources of information. The study also provides insight into Deaf and hearing relationships and communication practices, as well as heightening awareness of ways in which metaphorically framed representations can help or hinder understanding.

Sage Publiciations, 2011

Summary of modern viewpoints from Deaf authors collaborated with a Hearing ally.

Handbook on Promoting Social Justice in Education

In this chapter, it will be argued that there are two fundamentally different ways in which deafness can be conceptualized: as a pathological medical condition (deafness) and as a distinctive linguistic, cultural, and social identity (Deafness). The characteristics and attributes of the Deaf cultural community (called the DEAF-WORLD in American Sign Language) will be explored: the role and place of its vernacular language (ASL), the awareness of group identity shared by its members, its distinctive behavioral norms, its endogamous marital patterns, the cultural artifacts that are most closely associated with it, its shared, insider

Language in Society, 1997

SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2011-036, 2011

In this report, we describe the deaf people and sign languages in 24 different locations, and contextualize this information within the broader social context of each place. The following countries, departments, collectivities, territories, and provinces are discussed: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, The Bahamas, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Falkland Islands, French Guiana, Greenland, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Martinique, Montserrat, Netherlands Antilles, Quebec, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Suriname, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. Nine sign languages are found to be present in these locations, including American Sign Language, British Sign Language, Danish Sign Language, Sign Language of the Netherlands (also called Dutch Sign Language), French Sign Language, Guyanese Sign Language (also called Guyanan or Guyana Sign Language), Kajana Sign Language, Quebec Sign Language, and Surinamese Sign Language (also called Suriname Sign Language).

2019

In this article we discuss the practice and politics of translanguaging in the context of deaf signers. Applying the translanguaging concept to deaf signers brings a different perspective by focusing on sensorial accessibility. While the sensory orientations of deaf people are at the heart of their translanguaging practices, sensory asymmetries are often not acknowledged in translanguaging theory and research. This has led to a bias in the use of translanguaging in deaf educational settings overlooking existing power disparities conditioning individual languaging choices. We ask whether translanguaging and attending to deaf signers’ fluid language practices is compatible with on-going and necessary efforts to maintain and promote sign languages as named languages. The concept of translanguaging challenges the six decade long project of sign linguistics and by extension Deaf Studies to legitimize the status of sign languages as minority languages. We argue that the minority language paradigm is still useful in finding tools to understand deaf people’s languaging practices and close with a call for closer attention to the level of sensory conditions, and the corresponding sensory politics, in shaping languaging practices. The emancipatory potential of acknowledging deaf people’s translanguaging skills must acknowledge the historical and contemporary contexts constantly conditioning individual languaging choices.