Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T18:34:27.388Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Building the tower of Babel: International Sign, linguistic commensuration, and moral orientation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2014

E. Mara Green
E. Mara Green*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley 232 Kroeber Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines International Sign (IS), a mode of signed cross-linguistic communication, in the context of the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD). I contend that the WFD General Assembly's language policy, which bans interpreters and requires that delegates use IS, formalizes the commonsense deaf notion that what is particular about deaf people is their capacity for connecting across differences, rooted in and materialized through the ability to use sign across language boundaries. While such an ability has been explained primarily in terms of the affordances of the visual-gestural modality, this article foregrounds and theorizes the irreducibly relational dimensions of linguistic commensuration. I argue that communicating in IS relies on and produces mutual moral orientation among signers, and that ultimately, it is the labor involved in using IS that deaf people value and that the WFD General Assembly institutionalizes. (International Sign, sign language, deaf, linguistic commensuration, moral orientation)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , September 2014 , pp. 445 - 465
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allsop, Lorna; Woll, Bencie; & Brauti, Jon Martin (1995). International Sign: The creation of an international deaf community and sign language. In Bos, Heleen F. & Schermer, Gertrude M. (eds.), Sign language research 1994: Proceedings of the 4th European Congress on sign language research, 171–88. Hamburg: Signum.Google Scholar
Breivik, Jan-Kåre; Hilde Haualand; & Solvang, Per (2002). Rome – A temporary deaf city. (Rokkan Working Paper 2.) Bergen: Rokkansenteret.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary, & Hall, Kira (2005). Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7(4–5):584–614.Google Scholar
Dudis, Paul (2007). Types of depiction in ASL. Online: http://www.gallaudet.edu/Documents/Academic/DRL-dudis2007.pdf; accessed March 27, 2014.Google Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro (2010). Husserl, intersubjectivity, and anthropology. Anthropological Theory 10(1):1–20.Google Scholar
Eco, Umberto (1995). The search for the perfect language. Fentress, James (trans.). Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Enfield, Nick J., & Levinson, Stephen C. (eds.) (2006). Roots of human sociality: Culture, cognition, and interaction. New York: Berg.Google Scholar
Fassin, Didier (ed.) (2012). A companion to moral anthropology. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
French, Brigittine M. (2009). Linguistic science and nationalist revolution: Expert knowledge and the making of sameness in pre-independence Ireland. Language in Society 38:607–25.Google Scholar
Friedner, Michele (2011). ‘Future life how?’ The making of deaf sociality and aspiration in urban India. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley, and San Francisco: University of California, San Francisco dissertation.Google Scholar
Friedner, Michele, & Kusters, Annelies (2014). On the possibilities and limits of “DEAF DEAF SAME”: Tourism and empowerment camps in Adamorobe (Ghana), Bangalore and Mumbia (India). Disability Studies Quarterly, to appear.Google Scholar
Goffman, Ervin (1964). The neglected situation. American Anthropologist 66(6):133–36. Reprinted in Pier Paolo Giglioli (ed.), Language and social context, 61–66. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1972.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles (2006). Human sociality as mutual orientation in a rich interactive environment: Multimodal utterances and pointing in aphasia. In Enfield & Levinson 2006, 96–125.Google Scholar
Hanks, William F. (1996). Language and communicative practices. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Hanks, William F. (2013). Counterparts: Co-presence and ritual intersubjectivity. Language and Communication 33(3):263–77.Google Scholar
Haualand, Hilde (2007). The two-week village: The significance of sacred occasions for the Deaf community. In Ingstad, Benedicte & Whyte, Susan Reynolds (eds.), Disability in local and global worlds, 33–55. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hiddinga, Anja, & Crasborn, Otto (2011). Signed languages and globalization. Language in Society 40:483–505.Google Scholar
Irvine, Judith, & Gal, Susan (2000). Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In Kroskrity, Paul (ed.), Regimes of language: Ideologies, polities, and identities, 35–84. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Kasnitz, Devva, & Block, Pamela (2012). Participation, time, effort, and speech disability justice. In Pollard, Nick & Sakellarious, Dikaios (eds.), Politics of occupation-centred practice: Reflections on occupational engagement across cultures, 197–216. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kusters, Annelies, & De Meulder, Maartje (2013). Understanding Deafhood: In search of its meanings. American Annals of the Deaf 158(5):428–38.Google Scholar
Ladd, Paddy (2003). Understanding Deaf culture: In search of Deafhood. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ladd, Paddy (2008). Colonialism and resistance: A brief history of Deafhood. In Bauman, H-Dirksen L. (ed.), Open your eyes: Deaf Studies talking. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Lambek, Michael (ed.) (2010a). Ordinary ethics: Anthropology, language, and action. New York: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
Lambek, Michael (ed.) (2010b). Introduction to ordinary ethics. In Lambek 2010a, 1–36.Google Scholar
Lane, Harlan; Hoffmeister, Robert; & Bahan, Benjamin J. (1996). A journey into the Deaf world. San Diego, CA: Dawn Sign Press.Google Scholar
Liddell, Scott (2003). Grammar, gesture, and meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Madsen, Willard J. (n.d.). Gestuno – International Sign communication. [Manuscript received from the World Federation of the Deaf in response to author's request for information.]Google Scholar
Mathur, Gaurav, & Napoli, Donna Jo (2011). Deaf around the world: The impact of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McKee, Rachel Locker, & Napier, Jemina (2002). Interpreting into International Sign Pidgin: An analysis. Sign Language and Linguistics 5(1):27–54.Google Scholar
Milroy, James (2001). Language ideologies and the consequences of standardization. Journal of Sociolinguistics 5(4):530–55.Google Scholar
Mirzoeff, Nicholas (1995). Silent poetry: Deafness, sign, and visual culture in modern France. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Monaghan, Leila; Schmaling, Constanze; Nakamura, Karen; & Turner, Graham H. (eds.) (2003). Many ways to be deaf: International variation in deaf communities. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Moody, Bill (1979). La communication internationale chez les sourds. Reeducation Orthophonique 17:213–24.Google Scholar
Moody, Bill (1989). International communication among deaf people. Manuscript received from the World Federation of the Deaf in response to author's request for information; also cited in McKee & Napier (2002).Google Scholar
Moody, Bill (1994). International Sign: Language, pidgin, or charades? Paper presented at the Issues in Interpreting 2 Conference, University of Durham,UK.Google Scholar
Morgan, Michael (2009). Complexities of Ethiopian Sign Language contact phenomena and implications for AAU. French Centre for Ethiopian Studies, National Centre for Scientific Research in France. Online: https://www.academia.edu/1230482/Complexities_of_Ethiopian_Sign_Language_Contact_Phenomena_and_Implications_for_AAU; accessed April 9, 2014.Google Scholar
Murray, Joseph John (2007). ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin’: The transnational lives of Deaf Americans, 1870–1924. Iowa City: University of Iowa dissertation.Google Scholar
Padden, Carol (2011). Sign language geography. In Mathur & Napoli 2011, 19–37.Google Scholar
Padden, Carol A., & Humphries, Tom L. (1988). Deaf in America: Voices from a culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pietrandrea, Paola (2002). Iconicity and arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language. Sign Language Studies 2(3):296–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rée, Jonathan (1999). I see a voice: Deafness, language, and the senses – A philosophical history. New York: Metropolitan Books.Google Scholar
Rosenstock, Rachel (2008). The role of iconicity in International Sign. Sign Language Studies 8(2):132–59.Google Scholar
Rumsey, Alan (2010). Ethics, language, and human sociality. In Lambek 2010a, 105–22.Google Scholar
Sahasrabudhe, Sujit (n.d.). International sign = Visual sign? [video and text]. Online: http://fr6.frontrunners.dk/isl.html; accessed April 13, 2013.Google Scholar
Sidnell, Jack (2010). The ordinary ethics of everyday talk. In Lambek 2010a, 123–39.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (1979). Language structure and linguistic ideology. In Clyne, Paul, Hanks, William F., & Hofbauer, Carol L. (eds.), The elements: A parasession on linguistic units and levels, 193–247. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Supalla, Ted, & Webb, Rebecca (1995). The grammar of International Sign: A new look at pidgin languages. In Emmorey, Karen & Reilly, Judy S. (eds.), Language, gesture, and space, 333–52. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Taub, Sarah F. (2001). Language from the body: Iconicity and metaphor in American Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Max (1947). Social action and its types. In Parsons, Talcott (ed.), The theory of social and economic organization (Trans. A. M. Henderson & Talcott Parsons), 122–23. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press. Reprinted in Talcott Parsons, Edward Shils, Kaspar D. Naegele, & Jesse R. Pitts (ed.), Theories of society: Foundations of modern sociological theory, 173–79. New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1961.Google Scholar
Woll, Bencie (1990). International perspectives on sign language communication. International Journal of Sign Linguistics 1(2):107–20.Google Scholar
World Federation of the Deaf (2007a). WFD news: Magazine of the World Federation of the Deaf 18(1). Received at the WFD World Congress in Madrid, Spain.Google Scholar
World Federation of the Deaf (2007b). Official programme of the 15th World Congress of the Deaf. Received at the WFD World Congress in Madrid, Spain.Google Scholar
World Federation of the Deaf (2010). Perspectives on the concept and definition of International Sign: Compiled by Dr. Johanna Mesch. Online: http://www.wfdeaf.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Perspectives-on-the-Concept-and-Definition-of-IS_Mesch-FINAL.pdf; accessed April 15, 2013.Google Scholar
Wrigley, Owen (1996). The politics of deafness. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Zeshan, Ulrike; Sagara, Keiko; & Bradford, Anastasia (n.d.). Multilingual and multimodal aspects of ‘cross-signing’: A study of emerging communication in the domain of numerals. Online: http://www.uclan.ac.uk/research/environment/projects/assets/islands_multisign_cross_signing.pdf; accessed February 26, 2014.Google Scholar