A Different Way of Thinking

REVIEW ARTICLE: Carol Padden & Tom Humphries. Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture. 1988. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard Univ Press. A DIFFERENT WAY OF THINKING Edward T. Hall This slim volume is obligatory for all who have anything to do with the Deaf and for those concerned with culture as communication. Both authors are Deaf: Carol, the daughter of Deaf parents, was born deaf; while Tom became deaf as a child and did not meet other Deaf people until he was in a college for the Deaf. The capitalization of the term deaf is a code suggested by James Woodward' and used by the authors to distinguish between the physiological condition of deafness and those Deaf people who share a language and a culture. The central issue raised by the authors revolves around the various considerations growing out of the unique culture of the deaf, pivoting as it does on the axis of their system of communication and the failure of the rest of us to recognize that culture and grant it a charter. We even learn (p. 58f) -- a fact that had escaped my notice -- that the gifted and insightful Edward Sapir as well as his student Leonard Bloomfield made the common mistake of classifying "signed languages" as derivatives of spoken languages. We know this is a mistake because signed languages are learned as first languages and are the primary mode of interaction for those who use them. Part of the ignorance of the hearing concerning the Deaf can be traced to widespread ignorance as to how communication systems -including language -- work in conjunction with culture. One of the characteristics of any language is that once learned its speakers and 1 Implications for sociolinguistic research among the deaf, Sign Language Studies 1, 1-7. @ 1989, E. T. Hall See note inside front cover ISSN 0302-1475 SLS 62 users have bonded-the essential elements of their system of communication to their very soul and react accordingly when outsiders either violate the rules, attempt to change them, or even to negate the entire system (as has been the case with the language of the Deaf). In fact, there would be no need for this book and those like it if it were not for the unconscious (emphasis on the unconscious) linguistic as well as cultural conventions and prejudices of the non-Deaf, which are as incongruent with Deaf culture as they are with more widely recognized cultures, including those of our ethnic minorities (more of this later). Thirty or more years ago this reviewer was asked to act as a consultant to two psychologists at Gallaudet College, who were beginning to take on the gargantuan task of untangling some of the complexities the Deaf were having in coping with the attitudes, preconceptions, and misconceptions of some of those who were teaching them. Having done research with the blind2 on how they used their senses when "traveling;" i.e. getting around without help. I was still unprepared for the vast gulf separating the deaf and the blind. As a cultural anthropologist, who was one of the originators of the early studies of "nonverbal communication" and of culture as a system of communication, 3 I was expected by my colleagues at Gallaudet to provide support, encouragement, and some additional perspectives on their research. Even in those days it was possible to see how the Deaf were seriously hampered in their communications by the lack of understanding of their "culture" on the part of hearing people. As it was explained to me then, hearing people, including a significant number of those involved in the training of the Deaf, had failed to recognize important elements of Deaf culture. This problem as I saw it had a lot to do with tone of voice and its analogues in the Deaf. For speakers of 2 This research was done incooperation with Dr. Warren Brody, a Washington, DC psychiatrist, inthe 1950s, and it has not to my knowledge been published. 3 Edward T.Hall, The Silent Language. 1959. Garden City, NY: Doubleday &Co. Also, Edward T.Hall &George L. Trager. "The Analysis of Culture." 1953. Washington: American Council of Learned Societies Reprints. Review: Padden & Humphries English, tone of voice is...