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The Medium Is the Message
- Gallaudet University Press
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110 The Medium Is the Message Now that the profession of sign language interpretation has developed its own standards and practices, it is evocative to read Newman in the following speech, where he expresses candor about his own impressions of communicating with hearing people. There are many interpretations of what Marshall McLuhan meant when he coined the phrase “The medium is the message.” For my purposes this afternoon, I am going to focus on and question the medium deaf speakers use to get their messages across to an audience. [. . .] At birthday parties, it was the custom for each child to sing a favorite song. When my turn came, my voice went something like this: “aaaAAAeeEEEawawAWAWarrrrahhhHHH.” For the audience of about thirty in the room I went on for what must have been an eternity. When I stopped, everybody clapped. I felt good. I was like other children . I could sing like them. It was not until ten years later when I began to have some sense that the whole scene hit me. I went into a cold sweat thinking how foolish I appeared, how my screams must have pierced the eardrums and almost shattered the cochleas of those who unfortunately were in attendance. When I stopped, they must have applauded wildly in relief. When most of you were yet unborn, I was elected class valedictorian . My teacher and principal asked me to use my voice and not to sign for my valedictory address. I was told again and again, “You have good speech.” I was told again and again by school people, “We can understand you.” Just before it came my turn to speak, I noticed staff members passing out sheets of paper, which turned out to be copies of my speech, to the people in the audience. When the graduation ceremonies were over, my brother came to me and said, “I understood everything.” My sense of accomplishment Workshop, Southern California Registry of Interpreters, Los Angeles Hilton, May 6, 1978 111 was all too brief when a moment later a fellow graduate sided up to me and with the bluntness of youth, remarked, “My mother did not understand you at all.” When I tried to say, “But . . . my brother . . . ,” he quickly responded, “Why do you think the papers of your talk were passed around?” It was a traumatic time yet a cleansing time, a time that helped me get rid of some illusions and see things as they really were. In the last twenty years I have given hundreds of talks to various parent groups, school and college programs, clubs and organizations in many parts of our country and in Canada. When the group was small and the meeting was in a small room, I would try to use my voice. I had a way of monitoring whether or not I was understood. At the beginning , I always told a humorous anecdote or two. My eyes would sweep the audience. If there was universal laughter, I felt I was understood. In addition, I would ask or practically beg to be stopped if I were not being understood. In spite of all precautions, I will never forget the time when I was visiting lecturer on the Principles and Practices of Teaching Mathematics to the Deaf. It was a series of four lectures held on four different days. On the third day, a student came to me with excitement all over her face. “Today,” she exclaimed, “I finally understood everything you said.” [. . .] But what was upsetting, more than anything else, was when a deaf speaker had a great message but delivered it in the wrong medium. It is understandable why many deaf persons choose to speak alone or to speak and sign for themselves. In one-on-one situations, they are easily understood. In restaurants and stores, no one winces when they order something. In the kingdom of the deaf, they have always been the star. Parents, teachers, relatives, friends encouraged, expected, or demanded that they use their voices turning off, by one way or another, the motor of their flying hands. On the psychological side, it was seared into them that the better they could talk, the less different and conspicuous they appeared. An interpreter came to me and asked, “Why is it that you are realistic and ask for a reverse interpreter, while others don’t?” I replied, “Have you given them feedback, and called a spade a spade?” The response I received was, “It is too touchy.” [18.209...