Typing on the Phone: How the Deaf Accomplish TTY Conversations

Transcriptions from teletypewriter conversations are described and analyzed as supplemental to the pre-existing social organization of the deaf community. The features of TTY conversations include patterned “errors,” openings and closings, and compensatory devices (for the limitations imposed by the system). Within these features such phenomena as typing-through, short-cutting, and using pidgin (or Sign-influenced) English are identified. A remarkable range of meaningful and genuinely personal exchanges is accomplished by TTY users. Several relationships among the characteristics of TTY users and the features of their conversations are depicted and related to symbolic interactionist literature.