CHI TIẾT NGHIÊN CỨU …
Tiêu đề
How deaf women produce gendered signs
Tác giả
Kelly A.B.
Năm xuất bản
2006
Source title
Women and Deafness: Double Visions
Số trích dẫn
1
DOI
Liên kết
Tóm tắt
Deaf female teachers of mostly hearing American Sign Language (ASL) learners must attempt to bridge the gap between Deaf culture and the mainstream hearing culture through teaching ASL and Deaf culture. To find out how they construct gender and feminism and then name the cultural sources of their constructions, I conducted an ethnographic study of five ASL teachers, whom I call Helen, Sadie, Gina, Jenny, and Lee. All of the women were born deaf, and all except Lee had hearing parents and learned ASL as their primary language when they entered school (between the ages of three and six).1 Although Lee began acquiring signs at birth, she hesitates to label this as ASL because the term did not appear until much later in her life and because her parents were both hard of hearing and oral.2 In fact, her parents did not sign until they had two deaf children and began to socialize with other signing Deaf people. Furthermore, because both parents were hard of hearing, they used voice to communicate with each other. Lee's own signing fluency did not surface until sometime between high school and college. Lee was often the bridge between her parents and the Deaf world, much like a hearing child who usually interprets the hearing world for Deaf parents. Lee explains, I OFTEN CALL MYSELF DEAF CODA [child of deaf adults], ALWAYS HAVE TO EXPLAIN THINGS TO MY PARENTS, I THEIR INTERPRETER, HELP TEACH THEM. MY PARENTS NOT THAT EDUCATED. HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO THEM.3 For most of the women in this study, communication at home with hearing parents was mediocre at best. Three reported that none of their parents learned to sign; thus as children, they relied on lipreading, gesturing, or writing. Communication with other hearing relatives varied. For example, Jenny, who has a younger Deaf brother, used gestures in her family. Some of her hearing siblings could sign and finger spell fairly well. Often family members resorted to writing. Jenny recalled that during family gatherings, she and her Deaf brother would pair off to chat or to play. Now that both Jenny and her brother are married, their Deaf spouses have joined their small circle at family gatherings. At the time of the study, the participants ranged in age from thirty-five to sixty. They grew up from the 1960s to the late 1980s. Although they had varied educational backgrounds, Deaf institutes (residential schools for deaf children) were clearly prominent in most of their lives.4 During this time period, the United States underwent significant changes that resulted in the recognition of equal rights for racial and cultural minorities and for women. These changes occurred both within and outside the Deaf world. Two of the women were in their twenties when ASL was recognized as a bona fide language and when the women's movement reemerged in 1965. Even after ASL gained recognition as a language, many hearing teachers believed it was an inferior language and that it was inadequate as the language of instruction. As a result, manually coded English systems that incorporated elements of ASL and English emerged. Many Deaf people found themselves on a linguistic seesaw, including most of my participants. Because Gallaudet College (now University) was (and still is) the world's only liberal arts college for Deaf people, and most other colleges did not provide interpreters at that time, the women in this study attended and graduated from Gallaudet between 1961 and 1983. Each woman was positive about her Gallaudet experience, finding it an explo sion both of cultural awareness and personal growth. All but one received a masters degree from Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College), in either Deaf Education or the Teaching ASL Program (TAP) between 1976 and 1994, and all of them had been teaching ASL for at least five years. Religion became a topic of interest after the first round of interviews when Gina and Lee both mentioned their links to Judaism. One was born into it, and the other married into it after a Presbyterian upbringing. I then wondered if religion had an influence on their willingness to reach across cultures. In the second round of interviews, I learned that Helen, who was raised as a Lutheran, married into Judaism as well. Sadie's parents were of different faiths, and she was further influenced by a third religion imposed by her Deaf institute. Because of this mishmash of beliefs, Sadie has chosen not to practice a specific religion. Jenny, raised as a Catholic, views her being deaf as a "gift from God" because this characteristic allows her to make an important difference in people's lives. Although we discussed religion and the notion of bridging cultures, it seems religion plays a relatively minor role in the lives of four of the women and a major role for only one. © 2006 by Gallaudet University. All rights reserved.
Từ khóa
Tài liệu tham khảo
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Nơi xuất bản
Gallaudet University Press
Hình thức xuất bản
Book chapter
Open Access
Nguồn
Scopus