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Deaf Studies Terms

Words and phrases used in Deaf Studies, the Deaf world.

Deafhood (N)

See Hear:

The word “Deafhood” was first developed by Paddy Ladd in 1993.

Understanding the concept of colonization is an integral part of the Deafhood philosophy. The term “Deafness”, and others like it, are seen as arising from the colonization process. Hence there was a need to develop a Deaf-centered term, “Deafhood”.

Deafhood includes:

    • The total sum of all positive meanings of the word “Deaf” — past, present and future
    • All the largest meanings of what Sign Language Peoples have been, are, and can become. Including:
      • all that Deaf people have created in this world
      • all that they created which has been lost to sight (because of colonialism)
      • all that they might create in future

According to Ladd, Deafhood requires deaf people to evaluate and liberate themselves from the oppression they have faced historically from the majority hearing society. To this process of self-liberation, Ladd writes:

"...I found myself and others coining a new label of 'Deafhood.' Deafhood is not, however, a 'static' medical condition like 'deafness.' Instead, it represents a process - the struggle by each deaf child, deaf family and Ddaf adult to explain to themselves and each other their own existence in the world. In sharing their lives with each other as a community, and enacting those explanations rather than writing books about them, deaf people are engaged in a daily praxis, a continuing internal and external dialogue." (Ladd, 2003:3)

Difability (N)

Disability and disabled are outdated terms, literally meaning individual inability and unable, which are both inaccurate and insulting. Difability is a portmanteau that more accurately and politely describes people with biological, cognitive difability like deafness, autism and cerebal palsy.  

Heritage (N)

 Valued objects and qualities such as historic buildings and cultural traditions that have been passed down from previous generations.

Cultural Heritage: historic buildings, monuments and collections of information on how people lived such as photos, paintings, stories, newspapers and books.

Natural Heritage: mountains, rivers, and any landscape.

 

Oral Education (N)

Oral education, or oralism, focused on teaching deaf children to communicate through speech and lipreading. Sign language was discouraged or actively forbidden. 

 

A Dutch historical video (date unknown) of teaching speech to young deaf children (click on the picture to see the video):

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oralism#:~:text=Oralism%20is%20the%20education%20of,States%20around%20the%20late%201860s.

Oral History (N)

The personal recollections of people who participated in historical events.

 

Ownership (N)

Ownership is very important for museums. Who owns the artefacts? Who tells the stories?

A very simplified, very short summary of what's involved:

In the past, explorers travelled to new worlds (new for them), by boat, on foot, or carried by horses, camels, elephants or humans.

The explorers saw many wonderful things there and took some of them home to show them to the people in their own country, in museums and zoos. 'Things' included objects, art, animals, even people. 'Taking' included: receiving as gifts, buying, or stealing.

The stories that the museums told about these 'things' were told from the perspective of the explorers. Dates and locations may have been correct, but many of the stories were not. Slowly, museums changed and added more information. They started to consult the previous 'owners', the people who had made these objects, used them, knew their histories.

Then, two things happened. The previous owners wanted their objects back, to put them on display in their own museums for their own people. And they wanted to tell their own stories, from their perspective. Not as consultants, but as the rightful owners and experts.
Developments that are still ongoing, that have many more sides and and no 'one size fits all' solution.

The same things have been happening, are happening, with respect to the Deaf community. In the past, their history was told by hearing people, from the hearing perspective. Then, Deaf people became involved as consultants. Now some Deaf people want their objects, stories, histories returned to the Deaf community, because Deaf people are the rightful owners and experts.

Again, there is no 'one size fits all' solution.
In theory, on paper, the best solution of course is for Deaf and hearing experts to work together, to teach each other, to learn from each other,  to acknowledge and benefit from each others expertise. In the real world, unfortunately, things may be more complicated.

Further reading: https://www.museumnext.com/article/what-does-it-mean-to-decolonize-a-museum/

Sign Languages (N)

Sign languages, plural, because every country has its own sign language, and some countries have more than one, for example Belgium with Flemish (VGT) and French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB) , and Spain with Spanish (LSE) and Catalan Sign Language (LSC).

Sign languages are natural languages each with its own lexicon and grammar. Sign languages have in common that they use the hands, face and body as 'articulators'. 

Sign language is NOT :

    • universal. There are between 138 and 300 different sign languages being used around the world.
    • a word-by-word translation of a spoken language. In education, teachers sometimes speak and sign at the same time to teach children the spoken language in a visual way. To transmit the exact surface structure of a spoken sentence (instead of its meaning) - for example to sign articles, function words and affixes and suffixes - artificial and usually cumbersome signs have been invented. This is not sign language, but an artificial, and for sign language users unnatural code, usually called 'signed English', 'signed French', etc. 
    •  a letter-by-letter spelling of words with the hands. Letter-by-letter spelling is called fingerspelling and is used for instance for names.

Social Model of Disability

"Where the pathology paradigm asks questions such as “what is wrong with the individual?”, the social model of disability asks questions such as “what are the barriers to accessibility and inclusion?”

(..)

The social model seeks to uncover and change how institutions and cultural norms disable individuals due to lack of understanding, acceptance, and accommodation."

socialmodel

Text and illustration by Jillian Enright: The Social Model of Disability, 2021

Words to use and avoid

Source: Inclusive language: words to use and avoid when writing about disability, 15 March 2021

Consider these guidelines when communicating with or about disabled people: 

    • The word ‘disabled’ is a description not a group of people. Use ‘disabled people’ not ‘the disabled’ as the collective term.
    • However, many deaf people whose first language is BSL consider themselves part of ‘the deaf community’ – they may describe themselves as ‘Deaf’, with a capital D, to emphasise their deaf identity.

(..)

Words to use and avoid

Avoid passive, victim words. Use language that respects disabled people as active individuals with control over their own lives.

AvoidUse
(the) handicapped, (the) disabled disabled (people)
afflicted by, suffers from, victim of has [name of condition or impairment]
confined to a wheelchair, wheelchair-bound wheelchair user
mentally handicapped, mentally defective, retarded, subnormal with a learning disability (singular) with learning disabilities (plural)
cripple, invalid disabled person
spastic person with cerebral palsy
able-bodied non-disabled
mental patient, insane, mad person with a mental health condition
deaf and dumb; deaf mute deaf, user of British Sign Language (BSL), person with a hearing impairment
the blind people with visual impairments; blind people; blind and partially sighted people
an epileptic, diabetic, depressive, and so on person with epilepsy, diabetes, depression or someone who has epilepsy, diabetes, depression
dwarf; midget someone with restricted growth or short stature
fits, spells, attacks seizures
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/inclusive-communication/inclusive-language-words-to-use-and-avoid-when-writing-about-disability

Quotes:

  • "Access to and participation in culture is a basic human right. Everyone has a right to representation and agency in museums, and communities should have the power to decide how they engage."
    Source: A manifesto for museum learning and engagement
  • "It was only during the past decade that recognition of the importance of preserving Deaf history has emerged. In the main, Deaf heritage, culture and folklore has been passed down from generation to generation via the medium of sign language and fingerspelling. (..) It is also vital that the history of Deaf people is made available to future generations, especially Deaf schoolchildren as part of their history lessons."
    A. Murray Holmes,  in: Cruel Legacy, an introduction of Deaf people in history, by A.F. Dimmock, 1993
  • "The Deaf community is international. What binds Deaf people, despite their different national sign languages, is their shared visual communication, history, cultural activities, and the need for a Deaf “space” where people come together."

    from: The Cultural Model of Deafness
  • "Opening ourselves to the Deaf community, listening to and respecting them as co-creators and experts telling the stories they want told, makes our practice richer, and has ongoing positive effects for the community.
    These embryonic relationships hopefully encourage Deaf people to feel welcome in our space — it’s their space too.
    For both side, communities and museum professionals, while genuinely, openly and truly committing to working together can be time-consuming, it repays any investment many-fold."
    Corinne Ball: ‘Expressing ourselves’: creating a Deaf exhibition", 2020
  • "Histories have for too long emphasized the controversies over communication methods and the accomplishments of hearing people in the education of deaf students, with inadequate attention paid to those deaf individuals who created communication bridges and distinguished themselves as change agents in their respective field of endeavour."
    from: Harry G. Lang, Bonny Meath-Lang: Deaf Persons in the Arts and Sciences, 1995
  • "The UN Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community”. This is based on the principle that citizens are not just consumers of cultural capital created by others; we have agency and the right to contribute through culture to the wider good of society."
    Source: A manifesto for museum learning and engagement
  • "An important matter for any minority group is that written documents in public archives are often drawn up by the majority group and do not always reflect a minority as it sees itself. Thus, preserving sign language narration is of the utmost importance and a challenge to those working in the field of Deaf history."
    In: TIINA NAUKKARINEN, Finnish Museum of the Deaf: Presenting the Life of Carl Oscar Malm (1826–1863)
  • "And yet, even within a large and, in many ways, traditional organization such as this (Trøndelag Folk Museum, Norway), the museum's encounter with Deaf culture contributed to profound changes and a process, still underway, which challenges our own understanding of what a museum is today, our role in society and our obligations towards more diverse audiences than those we had previously engaged or even recognized."
    Hanna Mellemsether, in:  Re-presenting Disability: Activism and Agency in the Museum, 2013
  • “One story makes you weak. But as soon as we have one-hundred stories, you will be strong.”
    Chris Cleave in "Little Bee", 2008
  • "Beyond works of art and objects, museums collect shared heritage, memories and living cultures as well as what we call intangible collectables."
    Source: We are Museums
  • "What has become clear is that museums don’t just function as custodians of the past anymore; instead, they have embraced their responsibility towards the communities of the present: a responsibility to represent them, to speak to them, and to be open to dialogue with them."
    Tim Deakin, August 2021
  • "This (Deaf) Museum is not intended as a casual show, to be seen once and forgotten. Its pretensions are nobler; it has a humanitarian aim. By its solid and tangible evidences, making history memorable and attractive by illustration, it serves a double purpose: to dispel ignorance and prejudice regarding the deaf, and to raise the victims of this prejudice and ignorance to their true level in society."
    The British Deaf Monthly, Vol. VI (p.265) 1897. In: Deaf Museums and Archival Centres, 2006
  • "Nina Simon has described true inclusion in a museum context as occurring when museums value the diversity in their audience, value those individuals’ potential and contributions, when they actively link those diverse people across differences, and when the organisation reaches out with generosity and curiosity at the core.
    On a practical level this sort of museum practice would see widespread inclusion of people with disabilities in the planning of museum exhibitions, on museum boards and steering committees, and working in curatorial roles."
    In: Corinne Ball: Expressing Ourselves, 2020
  • "Museums can increase our sense of wellbeing, help us feel proud of where we have come from, and inspire, challenge and stimulate us."
    Source: Museums Change Lives
  • "For many members of the Deaf community their shared history is both personal and social. Deaf people will have gone to the same school, in many cases boarding schools where most of their younger lives will have been spent together, and then met again at their Deaf clubs, Deaf social events, reunions and other more personal events.
    One of the first things a Deaf person will often ask on meeting, before asking your name, is what school or Deaf club you go to. Making this connection is an important part of any greeting, as it will then help an individual to understand what shared history or people in common you may have."
    from: The Cultural Model of Deafness
  • “Stories of disability are largely absent from museum displays. Where they appear, they often reflect deeply entrenched, negative attitudes towards physical and mental difference. Research reveals that museums don’t simply reflect attitudes; they are active in shaping conversations about difference.
    Projects created with disabled people show that museums hold enormous potential to shape more progressive, accurate and respectful ways of understanding human diversity. Why wouldn’t we take up this opportunity? ”
    Richard Sandell, co-director, Research Centre for Museums and Galleries, University of Leicester
  • "Until the fall semester of 1986, the history department at Gallaudet University had never before offered a course in the history of deaf people.
    In the 122 years, to that point, since the founding of the university, which was specifically intended for the education of deaf peoples, no one had ever taught a course about this very group of people.
    In all of those years the history department had offered courses on a wide range of topics but never deaf history. "
    ENNIS, WILLIAM T., et al. “A Conversation: Looking Back on 25 Years of A Place of Their Own.” Sign Language Studies, vol. 17, no. 1, 2016, pp. 26–41. 

  • the past can hurt

    From: Walt Disney, The Lion King

  • “If you do not know where you come from, then you don't know where you are, and if you don't know where you are, then you don't know where you're going. And if you don't know where you're going, you're probably going wrong.”
    Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight
  • "Museums can increase our sense of wellbeing, help us feel proud of where we have come from, and inspire, challenge and stimulate us."
    Source: https://www.museumsassociation.org/campaigns/museums-change-lives/
  • "As recently as the 1970s, deaf history did not exist. There were available sketches of various hearing men, primarily teachers, who were credited with bringing knowledge and enlightenment to generations of deaf children, but deaf adults were absent."

    In: Preface to: "Deaf History Unvailed, Interpretations from the New Scholarship". John Vickrey van Cleve, editor
    Publisher: Gallaudet University Press, 1993
  • "Deaf people have always had a sense of their history as it was being passed down in stories told by generations of students walking in the hallways of their residential schools and by others who congregated in their clubs, ran associations, attended religious services, and played in sporting events.
    With these activities, the deaf community exhibited hallmarks of agency — an effort to maintain their social, cultural, and political autonomy amid intense pressure to conform as hearing, speaking people."
    BRIAN H. GREENWALD AND JOSEPH J. MURRAY, in: Sign Language Studies, Volume 17, Number 1, Fall 2016
  • "The most significant function of museums is as centres for cultural democracy, where children and adults learn through practical experience that we all have cultural rights. Having the opportunity to create, and to give to others, may be one of our greatest sources of fulfilment. Culture is everywhere and is created by everyone."
    Source: A manifesto for museum learning and engagement
  • "Inclusion is moving from “we tolerate your presence” to “we WANT you here with us”.
    Jillian Enright in The Social Model of Disability, 2021
  • "After all, we are all of us explorers, and we all have much to bring to each other from our own
    journeyings."
    Ladd, P. (2003). Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood.

  • "The Finnish Museum of the Deaf) was founded by deaf people, and, thus, its task has been to strengthen their identity and historical communality.

    Most of our materials have a connection to the key experiences that generations of deaf people have shared. These are important in understanding the past and keeping the collective memory alive."
    In: TIINA NAUKKARINEN, Finnish Museum of the Deaf: Presenting the Life of Carl Oscar Malm (1826–1863)
  • "Deaf mute, deaf and dumb, hearing impaired – the choices are many and not without consequences. Words have many meanings, they convey attitudes and prejudices and may hurt, even when used in a well-intended context."
    Hanna Mellemsether, in:  Re-presenting Disability: Activism and Agency in the Museum, 2013