Re-defining Deaf - Movie
[A good looking African-American woman walking down the busy street]
I used to dream militant dreams of taking over America to show these white folks how it should be I used to dream radical dreams of blowing everybody away with my perceptive powers of correct analysis to stop the riot and negotiate the peace then I woke and dug that if I dreamed natural dreams of being natural woman doing what a woman does when she’s natural. I would have a revolution
[Credits showing in here]
[Headline]
Media, Power & Ideology: Re-Presenting D-E-A-f
[A man with eyeglass and start-to-graying ponytail/goatee signing]
This is a public proposal to the signing community to establish a media center for the purpose of producing …TV shows and movies to be distributed through the internet… iPods … Cable as well as theaters…. Showcasing the use of ASL as a human language and to renovated and redefine… this four-letter word, D-E-A-F. What does it really mean? [The woman was walking into the bar where there are other deaf people signing.] Let me ask you this: What comes to mind when you hear or read the word “deaf”? Why it is a popular belief that Deaf people have poor English skills? Why are the majority of the deaf people assisted with Social Security Income? Why is the federal government spending millions on “hearing loss” research? Why is learning sign language a multi-million dollar industry for hearing people while… Deaf babies are refused access to the language that is most natural to them? Why did it take Gallaudet University 143 years to embrace a bilingual mission - incorporating ASL and English in the academics? Lastly, why has there been a 150-year-long international campaign to rid the world of deaf people? Deaf babies born around the world are receiving cochlear implants at an exponential rate. Answer? Ideology.
[Multiple pictures of image going by so fast and then this heading]
Ideology - “The dimension of social experience in which meanings and values are produced.” - Valentin Voloshinov
[A party is going on. A white man with glasses walked up to the woman (same woman in the beginning) and started asking her for her name]
Man: What is your name?
Woman: Mary
Man: I’m Keith.
Man smiles (he got dimples) and shyly walked away to another white man in a black hat. The man in hat (he got 5 o’clock shadow - beard that is starting to grow and he is bald - just top part) took off his hat and start signing a song.]
Dream… [tried to grab something in the air] Dream…. [caught something in the air and holding it as if it‘s a ball-shaped.] Dream… [flattening the ball shaped ‘object‘ and it started to crumbling] Dream… [showed something had sprouted skyward. The woman had gotten up and walked up to the man in the hat, and started to smile.]
[Back to the speaker]
Ideology. What do you think it means? I’ll give you an example.
[An image of the title page - ‘A Dissertation On Speech, in which not only the human voice and the Art of Speaking are traced from their origin, but the means are also described by which those who have been deaf and dumb from their birth may acquire speech, and those who speak imperfectly may learn how to correct their impediments.’ John Conrad Amman, M.D. Plurima jam fiunt, fieri quae posse negabant] He published a booklet in 1700 describing how to train deaf children to speak orally. In his article, he used the following words to describe deaf people:
[Image of the booklet (page 2) where some words are bolded for us “How dull are they in general! How little do they differ from animals!” especially if their parents and relations have neglected them, and taken no trouble by nods and signs to get rid of their natural incapacity and produce a certain manner of thinking. And even if their parents are most attentive to them, how inadequate and defective is the language of gestures and signs which they must use! To how few relatives and friends is their intercourse restricted! How little do they comprehend, (page 3) even superficially, those things which concern the health of the body, the improvement of the mind, or their moral duties! Who does not pity their wretched condition? Who will refuse to relieve it by all the contrivances which can be devised? But it is an aggravation of this heavy calamity that the appliances of medicine and art have been believed by every one, as far as I know, unavailable for its relief, and that it has been ranked among incurable evils. After close investigation, I found that most of the mutes have their organs of speech perfect, and that they are speechless because they are deaf; and although I have despaired.]
Reading his words may upset you. However, hold your blame for a moment. Imagine yourself in 1700’s. In 1760, 60 years later, the first class of Deaf students were initiated by Abbe de l’Epee… of which Larent Clerc later attended. That was in 1760. Prior to that time, there was no formal education, no formal training, signing … nor a place for deaf children to socialize. None. All over Europe. Nothing, Sure, there were private tutors here and there….But there were no deaf schools to gather at. None. So what was to become of them once a deaf child was born? In essence, they’d be wandering aimlessly…and mimicking the environment around them. Conrad watched this with his own eyes; his learned values of speech, of what was right and wrong…. And interpreted this behavior as deviant according to the understanding that was instilled into him. This contradiction came into being because of his ideological perspective. Was this perspective a fault of his? Who knows? How could he possibly know the proper way to view them? He interpreted this behavior the only way he understood it, and put it into words. He wasn’t the only one who did so. There were several others, as well. For instance, in 1653, John Wallis published a booklet on how to train the deaf to speak. There were several others just like him. Remember, this is key: RE-PRESENTATION. Seeing it, visualizing it, interpreting it, and documenting it. This documentation is distributed throughout society, into public awareness. Another person would read this document, then redistribute it through his/her own cycle, and so on. The cycle continues to no end.
[Solomon Alberti - 1591
G. Bonifacio - 1616
Juan Pablo Bonet - 1620
John Bulwer - 1648, 1654
John Wallis - 1633
George Delgarno - 1680
Johann Conrad Amman - 1694, 1700
(Davis 1995)]
The documents are passed through generation after generation…and are given to you today; your understanding of the world are based on assumptions. Your understanding of the world is filled with information from your upbringing, bits and pieces from other places….in addition to those written articles you have read, and is snowballed to this large sphere of ‘knowledge”… which combine to construct your views. This construct is ideology. All based on assumptions. Ideology is the problem. How does one change ideology? In your social experiences as you were brought up, you produced meanings and values. What is the significance of meanings and values? Let’s take the word “Earth”, for instance. What do you think of when you hear or read this word? Where you live, the smell of the air, the forest... There’s a wide variety of things connected to the word, “Earth”. When it comes to values, this could vary widely, some would care heavily about it and other would not. That’s the framework of meanings and values. The framework is the system of representation. And what is the significance of this system? It’s called culture. To change ideology, you must change the representation. One instance of representation, is “deaf”. Once a deaf baby is born, it doesn’t hear, That’s a fact. A biological fact. However, what does the fact that the baby doesn’t hear actually mean? That it’ll grow up isolated. Is that really the case? That thought is created by ideology.
[Out in the street, the woman cross the street with the man in the hat, holding hands.]
Before we change representations. One must understand what a sign entails… and how the meanings affixed to signs brought us here. Ferdinand de Saussure, dubbed as Father of 20th Century Linguistics…mapped out sign into tow parts, the signifier and the signified. A signifier is the symbol expressed in a language, such as the spoken or signed word, “Earth”. That’s a signifier. Take “Earth” to mean a globe of water.. That is what the word signifies.
[Image of a smiley with caption “Earth is flat” with “Signifier“ pointing at the captions. The smiley is thinking about ships falling over the edge of flat earth. The word “signified‘ is pointing at the ships going over the edge. Now the plus sign showed up between “signified“ and “signifier“ and then an equal sign and the word ‘sign‘. Now “signified“ + “signifier“ is equal to “sign“.]
The visual image of “Earth” has changed over time. People once thought Earth was flat. The word “Earth” remained… but the image of it changed from flat to round. A rocket shop took images of the planet from above, and saw that it was an actual living organism.
[Back to the smiley thinking about the falling ships. The thought cloud had change to that of planet Earth.]
As you can see, what is signified changes over time. That’s why people say language is a living thing. Language always grows and changes. As you can see, that is the case. If you compare the old perspective and the current perspective of sign language… you will see that it has changed as well. How did that came about?
[Caption: ‘We proceed tentatively with our words; they soar with their signs.” Fauchet 1790]
During the mid-17th century, philosophers held sign language in high regard. It was even suggested that every Parisian should learn to sign. At that time, sign language represented truth, nature and the divine. All this changed within the next few decades.
[The woman and the man in the hat stepped out of the house. They started kissing.]
[Caption: Sign Language is a natural and true human language… what happened?]
[Portrait of a curly-haired man in high collar with caption: Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard - Chief Physician at National Institution for Deaf-Mutes.]
The “Wild Boy of Aveyron”, named Victor, was discovered, taken in and …studied by Itard from 1801 to 1805. This particular boy lived his life in the woods with animals. He could hear, He could speak, He had hearing, but wasn’t considered “hearing”. He didn’t speak like the majority, or understand the majority. They tried to train this boy to speak and communicate, but it was unsuccessful. This particular training was applied towards the deaf students at the institute. That lead to the concept of “deafness”.
[Caption: The Birth of Modern Deafness]
One would think, “the birth of modern deafness”? Deaf people have been around for thousands of years. True, but deafness as a major medical study? That began two hundred years ago. How did “deafness” come about? Itard performed tests on deaf students. He would make a loud sound, and the students would raise their hands when they heard it. Itard documented all of this, and worked with one deaf student after another. This was the first time that ranges of hearing became visible. Because of this particular documentation, Itard went to a medical assembly and gave a presentation titled:
[Caption: Itard delivered two memoirs to the society of the Faculty of Medicine “On the Means of Providing Hearing to Deaf-Mutes“ “On the Means of Providing Speech to Deaf-Mutes“]
As you can see, this is how the birth of deafness came about, and this coincided with oral education. Itard was known as the father of audiology. In regards to meanings, what did “deafness” mean at that time? An abnormality. Something that needed to be fixed. Remember what the French thought about sign language? It was highly regarded. The perspective that deaf people needed to be fixed tore down that high regard like a sinking ship. Sign language lost its spotlight. A French intellectual, Michel Foucault studied the relationship between power and institutions established in the 18th to 19th century. He concluded that human bodies became the site of a battlefield. Authorities claim the mind and body. Remember the Wild Boy? He was taken and studied and worked on by Itard, without his consent. Itard controlled him. Do you remember your speech therapy experience as you grew up? They grabbed and moved your face. Did they ask for your permission to do so? No. Do you remember your parents or teachers sending you to an etiologist to do work on your ears? They put things in your ears moving your head around. That particular act is called “normalizing judgment”.
[A picture of Michel Foucault - a totally bald man with wire-rimmed glasses. Caption: The establishment of Medico-Pedagogy…. The marriage of Medicine and Education: Deaf Education]
The goal of normalizing judgment is, for example…. If the person is not doing as the controller says, then they are disciplined, given consequence until…. They are finally under control of the controller. This method was brought into many teaching colleges, intended to be instilled into potential teachers. It soon became standard practice. The image of doctors with white coats and stethoscopes became a powerful ideological symbol. They became so powerful, almost to the equivalent of God. One wouldn’t dare challenge or question them.
[Caption: Apotheosis of Medical Personage: Doctors + Father, God]
The point is this: the marriage of medico-pedagogy (medicine and education)… locked the very defienation of “deaf:. People came to see deafness as an abnormality that needed to be fixed. The mentality was established in institutes all over: authoritative figures broadcasted their view of “deaf”. This view even contradicted the view deaf people held of themselves. Deaf people were gathering, socializing and feeling fine. They tried to speak out against this definition. Yet…their voice in society is very small, and without institutions strong enough to represent them, are easily oppressed.
[Caption: Institutions Locked the Meaning of “D-E-A-F“]
Back to Itard. As his death was slowly approaching… after he had distributed his studies about audiology, speech, and deafness… in his journal (which had not been distributed) he had written… what he thought, “After years and years of study, sign language has proven to be extremely valuable…. If we had used sign language, it would have been faster to develop the written language…faster than the transfer of spoken language to written language.” Sign language is visual, just like the written language is visual. Makes sense. It’d be faster. Spoken language is not visual, therefore it took thousands of years to convert it to writing. He believed that sign language would be the fastest way to develop a written language.
[Caption: “With this accomplishment, man could have embarked just as rapidly on the vast career that this discovery (sign language) opened to his intelligence.” Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard 1821 Traite pp. 325-326. 1842 ed.]
[The woman and the man in the hat are kissing passionately and the door slowly closed on them and then reopened. They moved inside the house? ]
Too late. The word “deaf: already had countless negative definitions broadcasted in public consciousness. The notion that Deaf people need to be fixed, the institutional view…. And the development of cochlear implants have impacted the entire world. Is this it? Before he died, Itard wrote that sign language is a true human language. Is it really too late?
[Captions of the timeline in related to Deaf events like laws on Deaf Education passed, Deaf school enrollments declined by thousands since 1975, Cochlear implants approved for adults in 1984, Deaf President Now protest rally in 1988, numbers of students taking ASL classes increased 432.2% from 1998 to 2002]
[A listing of foreign languages - Spanish is first and French is second then German comes in third and ASL is the fourth popular language. Other languages are listed after ASL. The 432.2 is high lightened clearly.]
432 percent. That’s a lot. Amongst community colleges from all over the US, ASL is the second most popular language course taken. Amongst universities, ASL is the fourth most popular language course. The French used to hold sign language in high regard, but that view plummeted. It eventually went back up again. Will it plummet again, or keep skyrocketing? I think we need to do something about this. How can we change this representation? Let’s meet Stuart Hall.