Many Ways to Be Deaf: International Variation in Deaf Communities

Preface

Preface The core arguments of this book’s chapters were written before September 11, 2001. This preface was written shortly afterwards. For us, the tragedy of 9–11 makes an international perspective even more important than before, and that perspective is exactly what this book provides. Deaf communities, like all communities , have commonalities and differences. Deaf people in Austria, Japan, and Nigeria are not only Deaf but also Austrian, Japanese, or Nigerian. They live in worlds of sight and gesture within specific national, social, political, and economic systems and, yet, are also part of an international world of Deaf people. One of the most remarkable aspects of the writings here is how the authors bear witness to the massive changes that have happened in Deaf communities everywhere. Starting in 1880, the dominant mode of education of deaf people was “oralism.” (Notable exceptions include some places in the United States and Ireland.) Deaf children were expected to learn to speak and to understand speech despite the fact that they had little access to spoken language. Although schools for deaf children focused on training children to fit into a hearing world, Deaf adults gathered in cities and towns where they formed their own communities, often based on school ties from childhood, and communicated freely with one another, usually in sign language. In 1960, however, academic views began to change. Research on American Sign Language showed that signed languages’ linguistic properties similar to other languages. Systematic studies of signed languages around the world have shown how every language is both unique and complex and how new languages spring up wherever deaf people have been cut off from other signing groups. The growing awareness of the uniqueness and complexity of language has evolved in tandem with the growing political self-determination of Deaf people (such as the March 1988 Deaf President Now [DPN] protests at Gallaudet University ) and the recognition that signed languages are just one aspect of rich cultures. The title of this volume, Many Ways to Be Deaf, is an allusion to the groundbreaking international conferences and celebrations, Deaf Way and Deaf Way II, sponsored in 1989 and 2002 by Gallaudet University, that followed on the success of these DPN protests. The title has been recast, however, to emphasize the variation that exists everywhere. The challenges faced by deaf people in Sweden are quite different from those in Nicaragua and are set on a common global stage. The Deaf world is not only changing rapidly but also, as this book shows, changing in many different ways. These chapters on communities in Europe, ix x Preface Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the United States are a product of both a growing international consensus on the issues that need to be examined and a strong belief that variation and change are at the heart of what we need to consider. Key themes of this volume include how Deaf communities have survived despite opposition by those who thought and think that Deaf people should not be allowed to have their own separate communities outside of hearing cultures, how forms of education interact with and are reflections of larger sociocultural processes , and how signed languages are crucial parts of Deaf communities everywhere . Examples of repression include the genocidal policies of the Austrian Nazi government against deaf and other disabled people, and an international history of widespread and active denial of natural signed languages. Development of schools for the deaf has closely followed the rise of nationalism around the world, and in turn these schools have often been the seeds of signing Deaf communities. Even when schools have been oralist in nature, children’s desire to communicate has led to the repeated reinvention of signed languages. Commonalities among the authors include that we all work within a Stokoean linguistic paradigm, see signed languages as natural languages with the same kind of variation found in spoken languages, and value the roles that culture and history play in the formation of Deaf cultures and sign languages. On the other hand, the authors come from a wide range of disciplines, from socio- and historical linguistics to linguistic anthropology, sociology, history, education, and literature . Although all the authors have in-depth knowledge of at least one Deaf community, some are natives of the cultures they are describing, including being Deaf, hard of hearing, a child of a Deaf parent, or are a member of the larger hearing culture of a particular society. Others have worked completely outside their first...