Abstract
ABSTRACT In this article, we posit and explore the concept of ‘the translated deaf self’, tentatively defined as: ‘the socio-cultural impact for deaf sign language users of multiple, regular, lifelong experiences of being encountered by others and inter-subjectively known in a translated form, i.e. through sign language interpreters’. Regarding translation as both linguistic and non-linguistic, we explore the translated deaf self in terms of ontological (in)security in the context of phonocentrism, demonstrating how the recursive dynamics of structure-agency, within and through which the self is constituted, are impacted by the contingency of being interpreted. We show how such impacts on self, identity and agency are not equivalent to the hearing non-signing actors who also participate in relational encounters through sign language interpreters. The extent to which the shared experience of the translated deaf self may or may not be considered constitutive of (deaf) culture is examined with reference to strategies of linguistic resistances and personal empowerment evident in our data but not universally available or necessarily considered desirable from a collective perspective. Finally, we reflect on how to breakdown the exclusive and excluding nature of considerations such as these by breaking free of the written/signed signifier.
Highlights
Struggles for the recognition of cultural identity associated with minority language use are common to many peoples worldwide, with origins lying in complex socio-political histories usually associated with person and place
The World Federation of the Deaf (2018, 10–11) argues that an intersectional stance should be taken with regards to deaf signers as part of a language minority and a disability minority: deaf people differ from other linguistic minorities in one important way – while many users of minority languages are able to learn and function in majority languages, deaf people are usually unable to fully access the spoken languages of their surrounding environment because of their auditory-oral transmission
Deaf people’s experiences of working with sign language interpreters are of ontological and epistemological import; it is a perpetuating aspect of lived experience over which there may be little choice and it is one means through which deaf people become known and their knowledge experienced by others
Summary
Deaf people’s experiences of working with sign language interpreters are of ontological and epistemological import; it is a perpetuating aspect of lived experience over which there may be little choice and it is one means through which deaf people become known and their knowledge experienced by others These two strands of thought, the significance of sign language interpreting practice in the context of contested cultural identity recognition and the common deaf experience of being known in translation by the cultural-linguistic majority other, led us in 2015 to a research project that sought to explore what we termed the ‘translated deaf self’. With a brief description of the research methods in the study
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