Communicating across cultures (deaf-hearing) and language learning

Autor/a: HUMPHRIES, Tom
Año: 1977
Editorial: Cincinnati: Union Institute and University, 1977
Tipo de código: Copyright
Soporte: Digital

Temas

Comunidad y cultura sorda

Detalles

As I write on personal change, I think of the long way that I have come in the past five or six years and I want this PDE to reflect the change and growth that has happened to me. I want it to be an advocacy of the things I now believe in as well as a documentation of my experience as a person and as a teacher. I was asked recently to explain how I got from there to here. There being my life as an audist (a term I will explain later in this PDE) and here being my life as an "advocate," a "radical," a "militant" and an "activist" (labels I have used or been given at one time or another). I could not pinpoint the moment when it all started. Neither could I satisfactorily describe the process. But I want to try.

So I would like for my own clarification, if for nothing else, for this PDE to discuss the process as well as show some of the results of the process. To do this, this PDE will have to dwell on aspects of my personal as well as my professional life. The two are hardly separable anyway. I want this PDE to be a personal statement of my growth in the past few years. I want to share my views on life, deafness, deaf people, cultures, communication, sensitivity, audism (and other -isms), language learning, the English Language Program where I work, deaf advocacy, teaching, human rights, and power. If the PDE suffers in the eyes of some people from mixing the personal (emotional) with the professional, I can only say that I am not capable of writing a coolly professional treatment of learning and cross-cultural communication. This is because my job has been an intensely personal and emotional experience involving long hours of self-examination and self-research. This PDE must be a continuation of this emotional involvement with my work.

I want this PDE to be for teachers but also for all people, hearing and deaf. I want it to contribute to the awareness that we all so badly need. I want it to be readable and useful. I do not want it to be unbiased, balanced and backed by reams of research. There''s enough of that around. I want to attack ideas and ideals that I hate and praise those that I love. If something I write is wrong, then it''s wrong. But if it''s right, then it''s right. I''ll learn something from the process either way. I am no "authority" on any of the things I want to write about. I know only what has worked and not worked for me, only what has made me feel good and what has not.

I want to compare and contrast my style and my ideas with Bette''s. I want my perceptions side by side with hers so that I can see how different two people, one deaf and one hearing can be and yet share basic human concerns and feelings. I want you to be able to look at issues from two perspectives and see where there is conflict and finally where they converge.

So basically I see the PDE having three functions: to share my feelings on personal change, to discuss some important issues concerning me as a person, and to offer some insights into a cross-cultural approach to language learning.