Reflections on Reframing Language Through Signed Signs and Deaf Gain

105 Refections on Reframing Language Through Signed Signs and Deaf Gain Mary McLevey up a particular (and by no means exhaust- Western University ive) set of it, namely, Deaf Studies’ attention to the question of language via refections on Jamie Rooney’s “‘You Can Make American Sign Language (hereafter ASL). Words Mean So Many Different Things’: A First, I consider responses from Deaf Studies to Study of Homesign” strings together, among Derrida’s grammatological project and its other things, research from Goldin-Mead- efforts to take up what Derrida leaves out. ows, a direct response to work on home- Second, I consider the concept of “Deaf Gain” sign by Endre Begby, and maxims from An- and the reframing of “deaf” beyond the par- glo-American philosophy of language, all ameters of individual bodies and signing com- with an eye to radically heterogeneous forms munities. I will thereby emphasize the social of communication and a designation of ges- and political implications of the privileging ture in “speech.” The complexity of his argu- of speech in hearing-dominant societies, as ments and his attention to both the details well as highlight some of the alternative con- of existing homesign research and larger cepts and questions that signed signs bring questions on the nature of communication is to communication. both compelling and thought provoking. But his article raises a couple of questions for Audism and Embodied Signs me: If Grice’s English-spoken philosophy of language provides the tools for a study of To begin, it is essential to explain the homesign, what do insights from signed lan- term “audism” and its relationship to Derrida’s guages contribute to theorizing beyond tacit critique of phonocentrism. In his article “Aud- assumptions about the nature of language? ism: Exploring the Metaphysics of Oppres- What of conceptions of communication that sion,” H-Dirksen Bauman gives a brief hist- are distinctly non-voiced, that is, what of the ory and explication of the “maturing concept” theory of viva non-voce? There is no shortage (240) of audism, a term gaining use in Deaf of such thinking, and in what follows I take Studies classrooms and that will hopefully Word of Mouth 106 Te Word Hoard Refections on Reframing Language become more recognized in other disciplines all levels lock gears with Derrida’s critique and inquiries into the nature of language. Gen- in a way that makes clear the “historical, in- erally, audism refers to discrimination against stitutional site of his project” (Bauman, “Lis- eaf eole ut more secicall the concet tening to Phonocentism,” n.p). Each of these names instances of oppression in the lives of dimensions of audism provide insight into the deaf and hard of hearing people, as well as way that the supposedly exclusive relation- wider structural oppressions found through- ship between speech and language is enforced out hearing dominant society. Critiques of within hearing-dominant societies. The arbi- individual audism emphasize the way that trary authority of “speech” is, in these con- deaf and hard of hearing people are subject to texts, undone through the centering of non- prejudices and micro-aggressions from hear- voiced and strictly gestural languages. ing people who assume that hearingness is Deaf perspectives open up to scrutiny better than and preferred to deafness and deaf several new dimensions of the relationship ways of life. Critiques of institutional audism between language, subjectivity, and every- link individual experiences of oppression with day life. An emphasis on the spatial aspect of wider matrices of power—such as those con- gesture, for example, raises a set of practical nected to education or medicine—that encour- questions about communication. DeafSpace is age and reward hearingness and hearing ways an approach to design and planning that aims of life.1 Metaphysical audism, a term coined to make spaces better suited for signing lan- by Bauman himself, traces the way that the guages and deaf ways of being. DeafSpace above levels of oppression are underpinned by considers factors of interpersonal visibility longstanding metaphysical assumptions about (such as the amount of lighting in an area and the nature of human subjectivity—particularly the number and height of walls in a room) as “the orientation that links human identity and essential conditions for communication. For eing ith language ene as seech example, Gallaudet University outlines six Meditating on the connections between the components of DeafSpace on its Campus De- philosophical privileging of speaking subjects sign and Planning webpage: sensory reach, and the realities of individual and institutional mobility, proximity, light, color, and acoustics audism, Bauman points out that Derrida’s cri- (“What is DeafSpace?”). As these priorities tique of phonocentrism is of invaluable import imply, the question “what does another person to Deaf-centered projects that aim to end phon- need from me in order to communicate?” can ocentric violence and to re-frame “language” be usefully re-situated and re-contextualized to as a matter of more than words and mouths. account for physical space and location. Rob- While, importantly, Derrida never explicitly ert Sirvage’s work on Deaf Walkers expounds takes up Deaf History, critiques of audism on on this connection between space and lan- Issue 4, 2015 McLevey 107 guage, analyzing the norms and responsibil- The physicality of ASL, the renova- ities between signers when they are engaged tion of language to include three-dimensional in both conversation and walking.2 As ASL sace infuences ones orientation in com- requires direct eye contact with another, sign- municative social life as well as one’s orienta- ers keep a peripheral eye out for obstacles in tion in the more critical and imaginative realm the way of their conversation partners, alerting of one’s reading life. Accordingly, theory them to possible obstacles and shifting and philosophy, too, are opened up by signed positions as needed (Bauman and Murray perspectives. In his essay “Listening to Pho- xxv-xxvi). nocentrism with Deaf Eyes: Derrida’s Mute In this context, Begby’s notion of Philosophy of (Sign) Language,” Bauman “non-bidirectionality” and Rooney’s notion recounts an interaction he had, in his role as of “bidirectionality” (as well as the latter’s a Gallaudet ASL and Deaf Studies professor, emphasis on communicative responsibility) with a student struggling to read Foucault: take on alternative meanings: direction is im- mediately relevant in the sense of orientation e the stuent rst signe that it as if- and movement and responsibility involves cult to read, with his left hand representing both participating in social norms and active the book, open and facing him, and his involvement in the safety of another person right han as in a shae the to nger (Rooney 100). If these categories of linguis- tips representing his practice of reading, tic analyses are stretched through such an an- rereaing an then nall his ngers got alogy, then a stretch is part of the point, for closer to the oo an nall mae con- signed perspectives open up the meaning of tact; at this point, the eyes of the V shape words to the breadth of their contexts. While then became a digging apparatus, digging Rooney emphasizes the normative relation- deeper into the text. He then reached in be- ship between guardian and child as well as the teen the lines of the age no signie minimum conditions necessary for pragmatic the oen ngers of the left han an communication, an analysis of communicative began to pull ideas and new meanings from relationships need also consider street signs, underneath the text. The notion of read- passersby, and physical bumps on the path of ing eteen the lines gaine fesh as the communication. Even in the less motion-ori- hands literally grasped for buried mean- ented example of DeafSpace, relationships ings. The result of reading Foucault, he lie those of elo room an light ture said, changed his thinking forever, inspir- position become essential points of consider- ing him to invent a name-sign for Foucault. ation for the question of what we might make The sign he invented began with the signed words mean. letter “F” at the side of the forehead, and Word of Mouth 108 Te Word Hoard Refections on Reframing Language then twisting outward, showing the brain al import (“Deaf Studies” 9). Attention to the undergoing a radical reorientation. In a complexity of iconicity in signed languages concise image, the philosophy of Foucault renders patently false the too-familiar as- is given an iconic shape that is not one of sumption that iconicity is indicative of lesser mere mime—for it would be unintelligible cognitive functioning. Further, to name a more to a non-signing audience—but imbued concrete social gain, this complexity makes with the metaphorical iconic performance an argument for the importance of publica- of the ramications of stuing oucault tions such as the Deaf Studies Digital Journal and the circulation of video articles in ASL. While some nuances of some of the signs de- scribed may be lost to a reader not familiar Deaf Gain to ASL, two details here are worth hovering over. First is Bauman’s characterization of In an effort to tie together some of iconicity as the site of expressive possibility the above thoughts, we might say that per- and depth.3 Second, and less obvious, are the haps what the social and political dimen- implications of iconicity for embodied rela- sions of audism make most clear for theory tionships to texts, intimating a proliferation about speech and gesture is the need to make of relations and concepts that all follow from unfamiliar those relations between words and the modality of signing as gestural and visual meaning that seem most obvious.

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