Week 12—Learning to be Deaf

Week 12—Learning to be Deaf

Main reading: Hoffmann-Dilloway (2011)

Other reading: Green (2022); Haviland (2022)

This and next week are new views on a larger problem of difference and the necessity of heteroglossia. Deafness can be experienced either as difference (lack of hearing) or an identity (a distinct set of practices shared with similar people). The Deaf will always live in a world where both frameworks are partly true, and will have to do a kind of codeswitching.

References

Green, E. Mara. 2022. “The Eye and the Other: Language and Ethics in Deaf Nepal.” American Anthropologist 124 (1): 21–38. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13709.

Haviland, John B. 2022. “How and When to Sign ‘Hey!’ Socialization into Grammar in Z, a 1st Generation Family Sign Language from Mexico.” Languages 7 (2): 80. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7020080.

Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika. 2011. “Lending a Hand: Competence Through Cooperation in Nepal’s Deaf Associations.” Language in Society 40 (3): 285–306. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404511000194.