The Issue of ‘Impairment’: An analysis of diverging discourses used to represent d/Deaf people in the United States of America Lindsay Comello Nickels BA, MA This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Lancaster University I declare that this thesis is my own work, and has not been submitted in substantially the same form for the award of a higher degree elsewhere. 2019 Acknowledgements – LCNickels LAEL PhD T&C Thesis 2 Acknowledgements The completion of this thesis required the inspiration, support and guidance of many people outside of myself, only a few of which I have space to give particular mention to here. To use a well-known adage, it is only possible to contribute to knowledge in the way PhD research allows by standing on the shoulders of giants. For this reason, I would like to start by offering my thanks to Ruth Wodak and Norman Fairclough whose research and writings introduced me to critical discourse analysis and inspired me to take a chance at applying to and pursuing a doctoral degree at Lancaster University. I would also like to acknowledge Lancaster University and the Department of Linguistics and English Language for the financial and academic support offered to me through the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Research Scholarship, without which I would not have been able to complete this thesis, and the coursework and eager guidance provided to me by the faculty of LAEL, which gave me the tools and confidence I needed to push through the difficult times of these past six years. I am grateful to Johann Unger, Paul Baker, and Alison Sealey for their insightful comments at each of my panels, which helped direct my research and writing, as well as Christopher Hart who on several occasions enthusiastically indulged my and other colleagues’ incessant curiosity and desire to continue the discussion of CDA beyond the bounds of class time. I would also like to give a special mention to Susanne Kopf, Anne Murphy and Jeremy Holland, three of my Lancaster colleagues who continually offered their most earnest encouragement throughout this process, engaged in intense theoretical discussions, and steadily challenged my ideas helping shape my understanding of discourse and my trajectory for this thesis. My sincerest gratitude goes to my supervisor, Karin Tusting, for the invaluable guidance and support she has offered to me over these last six years. With unwavering encouragement, Karin has warmly engaged in conversation about everything from personal tragedy to theoretical grounding, loyally provided constructive feedback on my writing even with only 24 hours’ notice, adamantly reassured me in times of intense self-criticism, and continuously applied the gentle pressure needed to inspire me to keep pushing. Without her, there would be no thesis to offer and for her support I will be forever grateful. Lastly, to my yet to be born baby girl and loving boys, Matthew and Thatcher, who have given their time, love, energy, and personal wishes to help me through the completion of this degree. For baby girl, who has given me that last bit of motivation needed to push through Acknowledgements – LCNickels LAEL PhD T&C Thesis 3 the final few chapters. You, little lady, will be a most welcome reward at the completion of my tenure as a student. For Thatcher, who has unknowingly sacrificed so much time with Mama during these first three years of life, time that is impossible to recover and that I will spend my life trying to replenish. You, sweet boy, have brought me joy even on the darkest of writing days. For Matthew, who has devoted six of our nine married years supporting me through this process despite hardships, major life events, and aspirations for his own career which have had to be put on hold. You, my love, deserve my most heartfelt appreciation for without you none of this would have been possible; thank you for selflessly embarking on this journey with me. Abstract – LCNickels LAEL PhD T&C Thesis 4 Abstract The aim of this thesis is to study the discourse that surrounds two common reference terms, ‘d/Deaf’ and ‘hearing-impaired’, for the North American d/Deaf community and determine how this group is being represented through that discourse. The field of Deaf Studies has long discussed the two opposing viewpoints on d/Deaf people: the humanistic/cultural view and the medical/pathological view (Lane, 1995; 1999; Lane, Hoffmeister, & Bahan, 1996), each of which provide an understanding of a d/Deaf person’s status and social positioning as either a member of a cultural and linguistic minority or of a disabled population. While this provides us insight into the sociological understandings of d/Deaf people, which have been highly contested on both sides, there has been little to no focus on the linguistic realization of these opposing viewpoints. In this thesis, I investigate contemporary American discourse between the years 1990—2015, including a range of genres, within which the reference terms ‘d/Deaf’ and ‘hearing-impaired’ are found. In total, I explored the discourse from over 3000 texts, consisting of media, legal, educational, and other genres. The results of my study demonstrate the ways in which the ideologies behind each of the perspectives manifest in discourse, providing evidence to support the view that a choice in reference term (‘d/Deaf’ vs. ‘hearing- impaired’) primes a particular discourse that serves the agenda of the ideology within which it is grounded. Overall, this thesis applies the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to the context of Deaf studies, exemplifying the ways in which certain discourses perpetuate the unequal power dynamics that exist between d/Deaf and hearing individuals. Through a combination of corpus analyses, including concordances and collocations, and text analyses following the tradition of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) (Halliday, 1985; 1994a; Halliday & Mattheissen, 2014), including transitivity (Halliday, 1994a; Thompson, 2004, ), social actor representation (van Leeuwen, 1996) and Appraisal (Martin, 2000; Martin & White, 2005), this study explains the intricacies of how the social representation of d/Deaf people is linked with those reference terms and the discourse that surrounds them. It reveals that ‘hearing-impaired’ carries with it the connotation of pathology and is as such a representation of someone who is defective, incapable, and weak, while ‘d/Deaf’ has the ability to represent a person as able, competent, and proud. These findings call into question our use of identifying terms and what kind of implications our selections can have on the perception of that individual and the social group of which they are a member. List of Figures – LCNickels LAEL PhD T&C Thesis 5 List of Figures Figure 4.1. Concordance lines for the phrase ‘for the hearing-impaired’ ................................................... 68 Figure 4.2. van Leeuwen’s Representation of Social Actors in Discourse: system network (1996) ............ 77 Figure 4.3. Attitude domain visualization, adapted from Martin & White (2005) ....................................... 78 Figure 4.4. Appraisal – Judgement and subcategories visualization ........................................................... 80 Figure 5.1. Initial findings of ‘help’ in main sort of ‘hearing-impaired’, L1, L2 ......................................... 93 Figure 5.2. Unsorted selection of follow up ‘help*’ from main search ‘deaf’ ............................................. 97 Figure 6.1. Sample of concordance lines of ‘deaf’ as a collocate of ‘deaf’ ............................................... 136 Figure 8.1. van Leeuwen’s Representation of Social Actors in Discourse: system network (1996) .......... 166 Figure 9.1. Breakdown of Attitude domain of Appraisal (adapted from Martin & White, 2005) .............. 195 Figure 9.2. Judgement and appreciation as institutionalized affect (Martin & White, 2005, p. 45) .......... 196 List of Tables – LCNickels LAEL PhD T&C Thesis 6 List of Tables Table 5.1.1.1. Frequency of words preceding cluster ‘for the hearing-impaired’ ....................................... 83 Table 5.1.1.2. All terms preceding cluster ‘for the hearing-impaired’ ......................................................... 85 Table 5.1.1.3. Sample of ‘for the hearing-impaired’ concordance lines ...................................................... 85 Table 5.1.1.4. Sample of ‘device’ near ‘hearing-impaired’ when referencing amplifiers—full context ...... 86 Table 5.1.2.1. Frequency of words preceding cluster ‘for the deaf’............................................................. 89 Table 5.1.2.2. Occurrences of ‘technology/technologies for the deaf’—full context .................................... 91 Table 5.2.1.1. Use of help* in L5, R5 span with ‘hearing-impaired’—full context ...................................... 95 Table 5.2.1.2. ‘Hearing-impaired’ as helpers—full context ......................................................................... 95 Table 5.2.2.1. Hearing ‘helpers’ of d/Deaf—full context ............................................................................. 99 Table 5.2.2.2. ‘Help*’ as L2/L3 position with ‘deaf’ as node word—full context ...................................... 100 Table 5.3.1.1. Concordance hits of ‘hearing-impaired’ juvenile vs. adults ............................................... 101 Table 5.3.2.1. Concordance hits of ‘deaf’ juveniles vs. adults ..................................................................