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Reviewed by:
  • Deaf Gain: Raising the Stakes for Human Diversity ed. by H-Dirksen L. Bauman and Joseph J. Murray
  • Flavia S. Fleischer and William G. Garrow
Deaf Gain: Raising the Stakes for Human Diversity, ed. H-Dirksen L. Bauman and Joseph J. Murray ( Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014, 521 pp., softcover, $34.95, ISBN 978-0-8166-9122-7)

Deaf Gain: Raising the Stakes for Human Diversity, edited by H-Dirksen Bauman and Joseph Murray, is uniquely situated in the field of Deaf studies. While most books in the field are dissections of Deaf people’s experiences or other historical accounts, Deaf Gain delves into various ways in which, because of a different orientation to the world, Deaf people have contributed to our overall society and also explores what it ultimately means to be human.

The book is divided into six sections: Philosophical Gains, Language Gains, Language Gains in Action, Sensory Gains, Social Gains, and Creative Gains. The editors begin with a section on terminology, which serves as an orientation. Although many readers may be familiar with Deaf people and the field of Deaf studies, this book lends itself to a wide variety of disciplines, including but not limited to disability studies and cultural/ethnic studies. Thus, this introductory section is of value to those who are unfamiliar with the subject.

The first section explores ways in which variation in “ableness” is a valuable component of human biodiversity. The three chapters here rely heavily on the concept that Deaf people are “natural” and that society’s “abnormalizing” ideology of Deaf people needs to be debunked. The chapter by James Tabery states that the “human species could very well find itself at some point in an environment where being Deaf is a decided advantage over being hearing” (p. 33). This highlights the ideological framework that biodiversity is both natural and positive for the survival of our species.

The second and third sections investigate ways in which signed languages and research on them adds to our human experience. Since William Stokoe’s groundbreaking work in the 1960s, the field of [End Page 295] linguistics has pushed our understanding of language to new heights by including the analysis of signed languages. The topics in these sections range from the origins of human language to how the brain understands language. Our favorite part of section 2 is the contribution by Cindee Calton: “Linguists were fighting ideological resistance to sign languages both inside and outside of linguistics” (p. 116). This resistance occurred on several different levels, from proving that signed languages are full-fledged human languages to language policy and planning. This has had a huge impact on—and has many implications for—our understanding of what it means to be human.

Building on the second section’s theoretical investigation into signed languages, section 3 concentrates on the applicable aspects of linguistic research. All four chapters here discuss various ways in which learning a natural signed language benefits humans. The two chapters that jumped out at us were the one by Peter Hauser and Geo Kartheiser and that by Kristin Snoddon. Both focus on the many advantages of learning a natural signed language, from various processing (face and memory) to baby signing for all children. One cannot diminish the value of signed language to everyone: “[A]ll parents, regardless of whether they have deaf children, should be aware of Sign Gain, because learning a sign language is a great brain exercise” (p. 143). This statement on the importance of signed languages to humans sums up section 3 perfectly.

Does the fact that Deaf people are deaf and therefore have sensory perception that differs from that of hearing people change their orientation to the world? Section 4 explores this question. The five chapters here discuss topics such as tactile differences, how deafness affected a German engineer, and how various standardized instruments have been modified to benefit everyone. Touching on this general idea, Benjamin Bahan’s chapter concludes that a different sensory orientation to the world provides a new way of viewing cultural expectations and hegemony.

Section 5 explores the emergent social networks that both signing communities and Deaf...

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