"Waiting on the World to Change" by Deaf Professional Arts Network, via Youtube
Bourdieu, Pierre. Language & Symbolic Power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard 1991.
The social struggles involved in a two-part Youtube compilation of “Deaf People Hears Sound for the First Time Compilation” are not readily apparent, but some of the silences speak louder than words. Bourdieu’s ideas of linguistic markets, linguistic and symbolic capital, habitus, and domination are useful tools for dismantling the façade of the “unproblematic” message in this video compilation of deaf people with newly implanted cochlear implants that allow them to hear. Silencing other interpretations of language modes as legitimate resources serves to maintain a system of linguistic domination.
The description on the video compilations themselves include an excerpt copied from Wikipedia that defines deafness, talks about its causes, and then prevention and measures to reverse deafness. The final sentence at the end of this section mentions that treatments such as cochlear implants have caused controversy in the deaf community. It does not elaborate on this point or address why such treatments are controversial. It is not even available unless the viewer clicks on the “more information” tab. The videos themselves rely more on emotional content to attract viewers, and in some cases interpret what the viewer is seeing in an explicitly positive way, even when the results and reaction of implant receivers may be ambiguous, such as the words “Tears of Happiness” appearing onscreen when a toddler runs to his mother and buries his head against her after hearing noise for the first time in Part 2.
This particular Youtube compilation series appears in the context of popular videos such as “MIRACLE!! Deaf Boy Hears Father’s Voice For the First Time!!!” which had 4,223,337 views at the time of this paper and “Moment DEAF Girl Hears Mom’s Voice for the First Time” which had 1,322,670 views. Such numbers show how many people are following this positive interpretation of cochlear implants. As a general trend, comments on these videos talk about the uplifting nature of their content. In “Deaf People Hears Sound for the First Time Compilation” Parts 1 & 2, several of these situations occur back to back and show the moment that cochlear implants are turned on. The typical participants are a deaf individual (sometimes a small child), an audiologist, and at least one family member.
In order to analyze these moments, it is important to establish how Bourdieu sees the connection between language, power, and symbolic domination. He first posits that “relations of communication par excellence - linguistic exchanges - are also relations of symbolic power in which the power relations between speakers or their respective groups are actualized” (Bourdieu 37). In other words, linguistic exchanges are enactments of power.
Another important concept is the linguistic habitus, which consists of socially constructed dispostions (37). In relation to hearing and Deaf cultures, the majority of hearing people uncritically accept the fact that auditory communication is superior to signed languages because it is how they, themselves, communicate. Deaf individuals may or may not feel this way, depending on the environment in which they were raised.
In a TEDx talk entitled “Navigating Deafness in a Hearing World” by Rachel Kolb, she talks about her own experiences and says, “Society has a tendency to focus on disability rather than ability.” She gives the statistics that “Nine out of every ten children who are born deaf are born to parents who can hear. Of those families, only 10% ever learn to communicate effectively with their deaf child.” The families’ habituses legitimize a view that the deaf children need to adapt to auditory modes of communication over the family members’ needs to adapt to a visual mode.
It is Bourdieu’s contestation that social domination takes place through linguistic practices. In order for linguistic domination to occur, “the linguistic market has to be unified and the different dialects [...] have to be measured practically against the legitimate language or usage” (45). Different manners of communication from the “norm” are measured as problematic or deficient. In these video compilations, auditory communication is the “norm,” and signed language is not even acknowledged as an option. The older participants in the videos have obviously participated in speech therapy at least. It is unknown if signed languages were made available to them.
Bourdieu continues his claim with the statement, “In the struggle to impose the legitimate vision [...] agents possess power in proportion to their symbolic capital, i.e. in the proportion to the recognition they receive from a group” (106). A predominantly hearing audience is willing to accept the benefits of a “disabled” child becoming “abled.” They perceive gains unproblematically without recognition that signed language could be a legitimate option or possess the potential for accessing resources.
Several Deaf YouTube personalities such as Ayiu John Wuol in “My Organization for Deaf Revolution is Finished” and Gaël Aguilera in “Cochlear Implant VS Sign Language” (or the more aggressive “Fuck Doctors”) protest the use of Cochlear Implants, especially in babies. These videos have only 24,000-34,000 views, and the responders are mostly Deaf themselves or have family and friends who are Deaf and therefore have a vested interest in resisting a dominant auditory model of linguistic exchange.
Finally, Bourdieu defines symbolic power as “that invisible power which can be exercised only with the complicity of those who do not want to know that they are subject to it or even that they themselves exercise it” and furthermore, “a power which the person submitting to grants to the person who exercises it, a credit with which he credits him” (164,192). In the video compilation, each of the individuals receiving implants accept that the power of auditory language is more valuable than that of a visual mode, and family members would not want to see themselves as exercising dominance over a loved one, but as giving them beneficial opportunities. A final point from Bourdieu that is important for this particular artifact is the following quote:
Only the process of continuous creation, which occurs through the unceasing struggles between the different authorities who compete within the field of specialized production for the monopolistic power to impose the legitimate mode of expression can ensure the permanence of the legitimate language and of its value, that is, of the recognition accorded to it. (Bourdieu 58)
In connection to this point, the Deaf Professional Arts Network video “Waiting on the World to Change,” present the conflicting views, “The Deaf believe there is nothing wrong” accompanied by a picture of individuals signing and, “The hearing believe something needs to be fixed” with a picture highlighting the ear. This connects to two different epistemologies identified by Peter Paul and Donald Moores which view deafness as either a cultural or a medical issue.
Similarly, with a VLOG titled “What is it like to be DEAF?” a De'Angelo Brown, CEO of Def Familia Entertainment addresses hearing parents of deaf babies with some closing advice. He says, “y’all don’t have to be Deaf to learn sign language ‘cuz they’ll grow up with the richness of both worlds [...] if you think teaching them sign language is not important you got that wrong.” Until the linguistic capital of signed language is valued on the dominant linguistic market, this view will not be accepted by the majority of “the hearing,” and the deaf who are not empowered will continue to be dominated. This is why there are no similarly popular video compilations documenting the first time parents are able to “sign” to their deaf children.
With this frame in mind, it is important to notice how audiologists and hearing family members interpret and define the moment of first “hearing” through a cochlear implant. It is indisputable that each of the deaf individuals have strong emotional reactions, which are due to many factors, not least of these being social implications and also the sensory shock of new electrical impulses being injected into the brain that they must process.
Audiologists for the most part maintain interest in discussing the functionality of the implants, and family members are determined to interpret reactions positively. The audiologists seem to recognize the emotional nature of the experience, but do not always engage in it. They instead engage in the “normativity” of hearing. They talk with the patients about volume, if they can hear from both ears if they’ve received two implants, pitch adjustments, the time for the brain to adjust, etc. One doctor even leaves the room as soon as the patient gets emotional and returns in order to continue with the technical side of the conversation on hearing and the implants after she has had her cathartic first moments.
Some clues from the participants show that the experience might not be as positive at first as the families are hoping to interpret it. One patient says she cried “because it was overwhelming and I had no idea what the sounds were.” Another obviously distressed patient tells the audiologist, “sound very high” while running her hands through her hair in a way that threatens to dislodge the implant and is scolded accordingly. A third patient responds to a typical question about how things sound with “Oh my God! [laughs] Everything sounds, um, [pause] maybe normal?” Without anything to compare the new sensation to, some patients are simply at a loss for words.
An important thing to keep in mind is that these individuals do see value in auditory communication and are complicit in the fact that accessing it is valuable. For the young children, positive reactions may be a reaction to other contextual factors such as parents making a funny face and toys. In at least one of the videos from Aguilera, he shows some alternative videos in which children are seemingly terrified by noise in the first instance they encounter it and are further disturbed by their own crying. This is not the view that’s being perpetuated and re-constructed, however, with the symbolic capitol in these videos. The capital that is more valuable for a “hearing” market is that auditory communication is the most valuable for social (and also material) resources.
Works Cited.
Aguilera, Gaël. “Cochlear Implant VS Sign Language.” 15 Feb 2014. Web. 5 Feb 2015.
Aguilera, Gaël. “Fuck Doctors! (C.I).” 27 Jan 2014. Web. 5 Feb 2015.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Language & Symbolic Power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard 1991. Print.
Compilation+. “Deaf People Hears Sound for the First Time Compilation.” YouTube. 11 Dec 2014. Web. 5 Feb 2015.
D-PAN. “Waiting on the World to Change.” Deaf Professional Arts Network. d-pan.com. n.d.Web. 5 Feb 2015.
Kolb, Rachel. “Navigating Deafness in a Hearing World.” TEDx. Youtube.com. 20 Jun 2013. Web. 5 Feb 2015.
Lamdeffamilia. “What is it Like to be DEAF?” YouTube. 20 Feb 2013. Web. 5 Feb 2015.
Paul, Peter V. and Donald F. Moores. Deaf Epistemologies: Multiple Perspectives on the Acquisition of Knowledge. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2012. Print.
Wuol, Ayiu John. “My Organization for Deaf Revolution is Finished!!!” YouTube. 23 Feb 2014. Web. 5 Feb 2015.
#semiotics #multimodal #empire #race #multilingual
No comments:
Post a Comment