33.2553, Review: Sign Language; Historical Linguistics; Language Documentation; Sociolinguistics: Pfau, Göksel, Hosemann (2021)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-33-2553. Thu Aug 18 2022. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 33.2553, Review: Sign Language; Historical Linguistics; Language Documentation; Sociolinguistics: Pfau, Göksel, Hosemann (2021)

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Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2022 21:44:22
From: Serpil Karabuklu [serpilkarabuklu at gmail.com]
Subject: Our Lives – Our Stories: Life Experiences of Elderly Deaf People

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/32/32-1280.html

EDITOR: Roland  Pfau
EDITOR: Aslı  Göksel
EDITOR: Jana  Hosemann
TITLE: Our Lives – Our Stories: Life Experiences of Elderly Deaf People
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2021

REVIEWER: Serpil Karabuklu, Purdue University

SUMMARY

“Our Lives – Our Stories: Life Experiences of Elderly Deaf People”, edited by
Roland Pfau, Aslı Göksel, and Jana Hosemann, is the first collection of the
Sign Languages and Deaf Studies series documenting the stories, lives, and
experiences of elderly Deaf members (66-97) of signing communities within and
outside of Europe. The book is one of the outcomes of the project “The
SIGN-HUB: Preserving, researching, and fostering the linguistic, historical,
and cultural heritage of European Deaf signing communities with an integral
source”. The chapters are carved from interviews with  Deaf elders held in the
online repository (https://sign-hub.eu/digital-archive/digital-archive-main).

The collection contains fourteen chapters in five parts, written by hearing
and Deaf researchers. The chapters present life stories from various signing
communities, the first part of which introduces the interview methodology. The
second part focuses on the educational, cultural, and identity issues that
Deaf elders experienced in relation with the hearing world, the LGBTIQ
community, and oral schools. The third part presents experiences during World
War II, the Spanish Civil War, and the Francoist regime, by emphasizing
communication barriers. The fourth part includes two chapters on the
linguistics of the Philadelphian variety of American Sign Language (ASL) and
Israeli Sign Language (ISL). The last part is dedicated to a care home for
Deaf elders in the Netherlands, where the design is deaf-friendly and the
caregivers are trained for Deaf elders’ needs. This broad collection targets
linguists, sociologists, historians, and anthropologists.    

Part I:

The introduction (Pfau, Göksel, and Hosemann) emphasizes that documenting Deaf
elders’ experiences is crucial because the Deaf communities are oral due to
the lack of a writing system. Thus, it is an essential need to present Deaf
perspectives on their social lives, identities, and historical events. The
editors give information about the SIGN-HUB project, its aims, and outcomes.
They continue with a detailed presentation of Deaf elders’ life stories and
conclude with overviews of the chapters. 

The first chapter (Cramer and Steinbach) presents the procedures used in
preparing and conducting the interviews and in disseminating the results by
highlighting the technical aspects of the methodology, Deaf interviewers’
experiences, and the challenges involved. All partners in the project
developed a template questionnaire that was then locally adapted for the
historical and cultural situations specific to the community. Interviewers
focused on the parts that the interviewee was more interested in to lead to a
natural conversation. Deaf team members conducted and recorded the interviews.
The challenges included the difficulty in contacting Deaf elders in rural
areas, arranging a suitable interview place, Deaf elders’ camera-shyness, and
their uneasiness in telling private stories. Despite these challenges, the
authors conclude by sharing that the experience was valuable to the
interviewers and the interviewees. 

The second chapter (Hosemann and Steinbach) explains how the authors created a
learning experience to disseminate their findings, by offering a class where
students examined the stories and planned an exhibition based on recurring
themes in the interviews. The first theme included the Deaf schools, their
teaching methodologies (oral or signing), how they changed across time, and
the Deaf elders’ memories of their schools. The second theme contained
information about the elders’ occupations and the language barrier
experienced, which is a recurring topic in the volume. The third theme focused
on the core part of Deaf societies – Deaf clubs and associations. Deaf elders’
social life was documented based on the collected interviews, gazettes, and
journals prepared by and for Deafs. The last theme that is the most
vulnerable, yet crucial to document, was Deaf people in Nazi Germany, Nazi
perspectives on deafness, and treatment of Deafs. Later in the exhibition, the
team displayed these themes in their findings from the interviews, historical
objects, and interactive booths to give the hearing participants a taste of
Deaf life.   

Part II:

The first chapter (Dorides and Rita) presents the cultural, social, and
educational aspects of Italian Deaf elders’ lives by focusing on the power
dynamics between the Deaf and hearing communities. In this respect, the
authors highlight that being Deaf and associated with the Deaf community and
having power have different layers and continuity rather than being rigid and
binary. Deaf elders’ anecdotes show how hearing families misinterpreted not
using spoken language as a lack of intelligence or as a psychological anomaly.
As a result, many Deaf people were sent to asylums in the 19th and 20th
centuries. Parents, including Deaf ones, did not want their children to sign
in public because of intimidating looks from others unaware of sign language.
An important historical event was the International Conference of the
Educators of the Deaf in Milan in 1880, known as the “Milan Congress”, after
which Deaf education nearly all around the world switched to oralist
education. As the authors highlight, this caused “the rejection of the natural
language of Deaf” (p. 79) even in Deaf schools, where the students were forced
to use spoken language and sign was forbidden. The authors also discuss how
Deaf women were often expected to stay home, not work, and raise the kids,
highlighting the intersection of these two marginalized identities. 

The second chapter (Göksel et al.) covers an extensive overview of Deaf
elders’ lives in Turkey in terms of history, education, culture,
communication, professional, and social life. Deaf elders’ anecdotes about
World War II show difficulties in the interviewees’ lives even though Turkey
was not part of the war. However, the authors note that the elders did not
focus on political events in Turkey, such as military coups or the conflict
between Turkish forces and Kurdish insurgents. In terms of education, there
were three Deaf schools, in Istanbul, Merzifon, and Izmir, two of which were
reported to give bilingual education with oral and manual departments before
the 1950s. Süleyman Gök was one of the most prominent and influential people
who improved not only bilingual education, but also culture. He founded a Deaf
organization, an association, and a school from the association’s income. He
ensured that the education system was based on sign language by training the
directors and chairpersons under the influence of the French Deaf education
system. Despite the existence of deaf schools, Deaf elders experienced
communication issues with hearing friends, family, and colleagues. Expecting
Deaf people to adapt to the hearing world resembles Italian Deaf elders’
experiences in terms of power dynamics. Deaf elders shared the fact that
others commented on their voice quality or skills in their jobs and diminished
their abilities, showing the hierarchical difference between the hearing and
deaf worlds. Despite the hearing world’s perspective, Deaf elders participated
in social and cultural activities, such as travelling nationally and
internationally, and participating in Deaflympics and beauty contests.   

The last chapter (Pfau et al.) presents the Deaf elders’ experiences with
multiple marginalized identities: being Deaf and a part of the LGBTIQ
community. Each individual experiences this intersectionality in a unique way
because both groups represent less visible minorities. Thus, discrimination is
not only from the dominant majority group but also within the minority group.
Deaf LGBTIQ members may identify themselves first as being Deaf, LGBTIQ, or
both. The authors show the need for a place welcoming both identities by
documenting the history of Roze Gebaar, the Dutch Association for Deaf LGBTIQ
people. Elders’ stories underline the fact that homosexuality was still taboo;
they experienced disapproval and discrimination both within and outside of the
Deaf community. Deaf elders had difficulty interpreting their feelings and
communicating them in hearing groups. Beyond creating a safe space, Roze
Gabaar removed the communicative barrier and the lack of access to the
information that Deaf people face in hearing LGBTIQ groups. The authors
conclude that different layers of identities exist in the Deaf community just
as in the hearing community, yet Deaf people experience discrimination in both
worlds by belonging to multiple marginalized sub-groups. 

Part III:

The third section is devoted to the theme of “experiences in conflict and
oppression”, especially Deaf elders’ memories during the Nazi regime and the
sterilization process. The first chapter (Mittelstädt and Hosemann) presents
elders’ experiences by discussing how deafness and disability were defined in
the Nazi regime. One perspective viewed Deaf people as having a hereditary
disease, which ran against the Nazi idea of a “healthy nation”. Sterilizing a
person with a hereditary disease was legal to prevent unhealthy offspring and
to create a so-called “healthy nation”. This perceives deafness as “less”
capable and deviant from physical and societal norms. The authors also share
elders’ positive comments about that time, including the togetherness in the
youth camps leading to the feeling of belonging, and the lack of information
about the sterilization process and what happened to the Jews. One participant
responds to the interviewer’s question about the Jews as “no one told him
about it”. The perspective of hearing and “normal” people reappears in the
discussion of Deaf schools viewed as either an economic burden or an
opportunity to easily identify the Deaf children for sterilization. Deaf
schools were also seen as a way to teach German because the language was
considered a core value of being associated with the German nation. 

The second chapter (Brockman and Kozelka) discusses forced sterilization
during the Nazi regime. The authors present how hereditary diseases were
defined and used to argue for the sterilization law, reminiscent of the
discussion and the perception of the (dis)ability in the previous chapter. The
authors also emphasize that Deaf German-Jews suffered more due to their two
sub-marginalized identities, similar to the discussions in the previous part.
Unfortunately, documentation shows that the procedures were carried out via
torture and that little information was shared with victims. The language
barrier compounded the lack of information and caused what happened to long
remain unknown. The impact of the processes only caught attention decades
later, when a few survivors shared their experiences. Deaf minors were taken
from their homes to have sterilization surgery under imposed silence. Although
the authors note that the victims were compensated for the forced
sterilization after 1988, they conclude the chapter by discussing the
avoidance of in-depth discussion of its effects and the need for compensation
beyond material means.       

The third chapter (Rombouts and Vermeerbergen) presents Flemish Deafs’
experiences during World War II by discussing the Nazi perspective on
(dis)ability, Deaf people’s education, the language barrier, and the lack of
information about the war. As in the previous two chapters, the authors first
present that Nazi regime as focused on creating the “perfect” nation by
eliminating “deviants”. Like German Deafs, Flemish Deafs experienced forced
sterilization. Deaf elders also shared memories about the war, the Deaf
school, Nazis, and the arrest of Jews. The most common theme in their memories
was not knowing what was happening when hearing people were listening to
radios, running around in panic, or mentioning food rationing. This confusion
is apparent in an elder’s quotation “I was at a loss at school…”. The authors
highlight the lack of communication in their discussion of the treatment of
children in the family and the fact that Deaf children were in Deaf boarding
schools. The chapter concludes by pointing out that the documentation of this
time will always be incomplete without the perspective of Deaf eyewitnesses.

The last chapter (Sanchez-Amat et al.) presents Deaf elders’ experiences
during the Francoist regime from opposing political perspectives. Some elders
reported unhappiness due to economic scarcity whereas some favored it due to
less corruption, more security, and control. The authors discuss elders who
were not direct witnesses of the regime because they were either too young or
not yet born. Most elders also reported not receiving much information from
their families, which is explained as the Franco regime’s depoliticization
strategy. Elders’ memories show their fear of talking about politics as
“...the school…allowed no talking about politics…”. Education was also
profoundly affected by many restrictions, most importantly by forbidding the
teaching of sign language. A female elder’s memories of such classes as
embroidery, drawing, or religion show that the education system portrayed
women as the caregiver in the family. The same stereotype appears in the
experiences related to family, morals, work, and social life, where women were
supposed to be “caregivers” and “wives”. The authors conclude the first study
reporting the Deaf perspective on Franco’s regime by stating that the regime
had effects on all aspects of Deaf elders’ lives. 

Part IV:

The first chapter (Fisher et al.) presents Deaf Philadelphians’ experiences
from sociolinguistic and educational perspectives. Deaf schools were
manualist, then shifted to oralism, and elders reported continuing signing in
the dormitories although signing was forbidden. The role of Deaf schools in
learning sign appears in an elder’s quotation: “… You’re new and you’re
already skilled in sign! How?...”. Older students were shocked because they
were teaching signing to the newcomers who had not acquired it from their
hearing parents. An elder shares: “…It became easier to socialize. Then the
dorm is better than home.” Elders’ anecdotes also show the sociolinguistic
variation between signing in the school and other Deaf clubs and societies.
One cause of the difference was the segregation of Black Deaf Philadelphians.
Segregation affected Black Deafs linguistically and socially due to their
attending oralist day schools, learning ASL later in life, and being isolated
from Deaf communities. A few Black Deaf signers attended the Deaf schools but
most were in the vocational schools. Although Deaf schools provided community
and sign language, Black students faced discrimination in schools due to
administrators’ racist mindset. This minimized the interaction between the two
communities, increasing sociolinguistic variation. The authors conclude by
underlining the importance of educational institutions in elders’ social life
and linguistic improvement. 

The second chapter (Stomp et al.) focuses on the diachronic change of the sign
TIME-PASS in Israeli Sign Language (ISL) by examining elders’ usages. The
authors categorize two signs TIME-PASS1 and TIME-PASS2, arguing that the first
is a discourse marker while the latter connects the temporal relation between
two events. They analyze data in three main categories: manual rhythm and
prosody, nonmanual markers, and contexts. With regard to the first criterion,
they found TIME-PASS1 has a longer duration and more cyclic repetition by
forming intonational phrases alone. TIME-PASS2 is part of a larger
intonational phrase. For the second criterion, TIME-PASS2 mostly has head up
whereas TIME-PASS1 has head down, head nods, and open mouth. Lastly,
TIME-PASS1 appears with other discourse markers expressing discourse stance or
evaluation and atelic events, whereas TIME-PASS2 appears with other time
expressions and telic events. The authors analyze semantically related signs
as two different realizations of the metaphor ‘time is motion through space’. 

Part V:

The final part is dedicated to a care home for Deaf elders. The first chapter
(Reiff-de Groen and van Veen) presents its history. De Gelderhost evolved from
the Dovenvreugd care house when Deaf individuals decided to provide a place
for socially isolated Deaf seniors. Initially, the organization was
hearing-oriented, with a predominantly hearing board; communication with Deaf
residents was in sign supported Dutch. In time, the residents needed a larger
home, and thus  moved to De Gelderhorst. Deaf culture was reflected in
designing the building with extra light and vibrating alarms, and creating a
community by training the staff in sign language and Deaf culture. Team
members created a new vision to include residents, management, staff, and
external members. Residents participated in projects with schools and shared
their culture and language with younger generations. The chapter about the
inclusive care home concludes with a ‘bridge’ metaphor between the Deaf and
hearing world. 

The last chapter (Hiddinga & Research Collective) presents De Gelderhorst from
caregiving, belonging, and community perspectives. As in the previous chapter,
Deaf-friendly caregiving is the main theme, focusing on training caregivers in
Deaf culture and sign language. Interestingly, some Deaf elders wanted to be
in De Gelderhorst due to their familiarity with Deaf community rather than
with signing. The authors also underline the heterogeneity of residents’
language; that is, some residents sign, while others use Dutch or sign
supported Dutch. Some elders sign up for the house not because they want to go
there, but because they feel that they belong to the deaf world. Belonging is
discussed as a dynamic notion by becoming relational, a feeling, or a
tradition. De Gelderhorst provides carespace by embracing community in their
applications and Deaf-oriented environment. The authors describe multiple ways
of identifying oneself as Deaf: using sign language, feeling equal, or
familiarity with Deaf culture. 

EVALUATION

The editors clearly state that archiving Deaf elders’ lives is valuable
because most other work studies this population for sociolinguistic variation
or diachronic changes. The volume successfully presents Deaf elders’
experiences from within and outside of Europe (Chs. 11 and 12), under the
general discussions of identity, communication, language barrier, and
intersectionality of multiple marginalized groups. The volume is the first
collection focusing mainly on the social and cultural aspects of Deaf
individuals in the Sign Language and Deaf Communities (SLDS) series. 

Some chapters present various aspects of Deaf elders’ lives, while others
present findings from a specific perspective. For example, Hosemann &
Steinbach’s chapter provides information on their education, work and social
life, Nazi times, and Deaf clubs. Similarly, Göksel et al.’s chapter on
Turkish Deafs presents a wide range of examples of social life to Deaf
education. Some chapters present a similar range within a specific theme. For
example, Dorides and Sala’s chapter on Italian Deafs demonstrates Deafs’
social and cultural life by arguing power dynamics (Friedner, 2010).
Similarly, Fisher et al.’s chapter discusses Philadelphian Deafs’ education
from a sociolinguistic perspective. In contrast, some chapters, like that by
Pfau et al., bring crucial discussions on identity and intersectionality by
presenting their findings on LGBTIQ Deaf elders. Moreover, some parts, like
Parts III and V, are dedicated to a specific theme such as Nazi times,
oppression, (dis)ability, and aging, caregiving, and community. Having a depth
and breadth of various aspects makes this volume an excellent source both for
researchers working on Deaf populations in other fields and for those who are
experts on these topics but have not worked with Deaf populations. 

Beyond documenting Deaf elders’ lives, the volume clearly shows that Deafs in
different places have similar experiences, with recurring themes such as the
language barrier, relations with the hearing community, intersectionality, and
perception of (dis)ability. The language barrier is caused by the prominence
of oral education. Most elders reported being isolated locally in their
families without access to signing, in their schools by not understanding
teachers, or globally by not knowing about the war, or scarcity of resources.
Lack of awareness about signing in the hearing community causes
discriminations such as being ashamed of Deaf family members, forcing them to
speak, or asking them not to sign in public.  

Intersectionality in minority groups is mainly discussed in Ch. 6 by belonging
to both Deaf and LBTIQ communities and the dynamicity of identity associated
with one community (Crenshaw, 1989). Although intersectionality is not the
main theme in Ch. 11, it appears in Black Deafs’ being isolated from the white
Deaf community and accessing signing later. This theme is also prominent in
Chs. 7, 8, and 9 in the discussions of being Deaf and Jewish during the Nazi
regime. Moreover, these three chapters overtly discuss (dis)ability,
especially from the perspective of the hearing world (Thomas, 2002), which is
a covert theme in all chapters. Sterilization under the Nazi regime was tied
to hearing people’s perspective on disability. This perspective is the
underlying reason for oral education, one that tries to fit Deaf people into
the mainstream community rather than shaping the community for their needs. 

While most chapters present Deaf elders’ experiences from sociological,
historical, and cultural perspectives, two chapters present them from a
linguistic perspective. The chapter by Fisher et al. discusses the
Philadelphia variety of ASL from both sociolinguistic and diachronic
perspectives. The discussion also brings in the linguistic identity of Deaf
elders and how they perceive their signing related to other signers in the
area. The chapter by Stomp et al. analyzes the sign TIME-PASS as two lexical
items, one a discourse marker and the other a perfective marker. The authors
might consider analyzing these related functions as a single sign where
different functions are derived from the combination of nonmanual markers and
the manipulation of internal movement. Changes in the prosody of the sign
based on its function could be tied to the overt phonological realization of
different durations based on Wilbur’s (2010) Event Visibility Hypothesis.
Furthermore, it would be interesting to discuss how TIME-PASS as a perfective
marker is similar to or different from another perfective sign, ALREADY (Meir,
1999).

In sum, this volume successfully achieves its aim by documenting various
tangible aspects of Deaf lives as a valuable resource for both in-field and
out-of-field researchers. Researchers working on and with Deaf communities can
benefit from the well-discussed findings on identity, intersectionality,
history, or caregiving. New researchers to the Deaf communities can also
benefit from the diverse representations of Deaf lives. More than being the
first extensive volume on Deaf elders’ lives, the book also has open-source
subtitled videos of interviews that could be investigated for future research.
     

REFERENCES:

Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1989. Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex. A
Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and
Antiracist Politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum 1 (Article 8). 139-167.

Friedner, Michele. 2010. Biopower, Biosociality, and Community Formation: How
Biopower is Constitutive of the Deaf Community. Sign Language Studies .10(3),
336-345. 

Meir, Irit. 1999. A Perfect Marker in ISL. Sign Languages and Linguistics,
2(1), 43-62.

Thomas, Carol. 2002. Disability Theory: Key Ideas, Issues, and Thinkers. In
Colin Barners, Mike Oliver & Len Barton (Eds.) Disability Studies Today.
Cambridge: Polity, 38-57.

Wilbur, Ronnie B. 2010. The semantic-phonology interface. In Brentari, Diane
(Ed.) Sign Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 357-382.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Serpil Karabüklü is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Linguistics Department at
Purdue University. Her dissertation project is on the modal signs and
nonmanual markers, and her primary research areas are aspect and modality in
sign languages.





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