Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:56:09.118Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Lending a hand: Competence through cooperation in Nepal's Deaf associations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2011

Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway
Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Oberlin College, King 320A, 10 North Professor Street, Oberlin, OH [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Since forming contacts with international Deaf associations promoting an ethnolinguistic model of Deafness, members of Nepal's Deaf associations define Deafness by competence in Nepali Sign Language rather than audiological status. By analyzing the ideological and interactional processes through which homesigners are incorporated into Nepali Deaf social life, this article explores the effects of local beliefs about the nature of language, personhood, and competence on this model of Deafness. Due to former linguistic isolation, many homesigners are constrained in their ability to acquire Nepali Sign Language and, in social contexts where ideological conceptions of language use highlight individual competencies, would not be included in a Deaf social category. However, Nepali conceptions of socially distributed personhood contribute to a focus on the dialogically emergent dimensions of semiosis. As a result, recognition as a competent signer in this context can depend less on individual cognitive ability than on social collaboration. (d/Deaf, sign language, competence, language ideologies)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , June 2011 , pp. 285 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Acharya, Kiran (1997). A history of the Deaf in Nepal. Kathmandu: National Association of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, ms. Translated by Hoffmann, Erika & Chemjong, Dambar, 2004.Google Scholar
Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta, & Domfors, Lars-Ake (2003). Pedagogical issues in Swedish Deaf education. In Monaghan, Leila, Schmaling, Constanze, Nakamura, Karen, & Turner, Graham (eds.), Many ways to be Deaf: International variation in Deaf communities, 67–88. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Bechter, Frank (2008). The Deaf convert culture and its lessons for Deaf theory. In Bauman, H-Dirkson L. (ed.), Open your eyes: Deaf studies talking, 60–82. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Billings, Sabrina (2009). Speaking beauties: Linguistic posturing, language inequality, and the construction of a Tanzanian beauty queen. Language in Society 38(5):581–606.Google Scholar
Brueggemann, Brenda Jo (2009). Deaf subjects: Between identities and places. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Cameron, Mary (1998). On the edge of auspicious: Gender and caste in Nepal. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Collins, James, & Blot, Richard (2003). Literacy and literacies: Texts, power, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curtiss, Susan (1977). Genie: A psycholinguistic study of a modern-day “wild child.” Boston: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Daniel, E. Valentine (1987). Fluid signs: Being a person the Tamil way. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
de Villiers, Jill; Bibeau, Lynne; Ramos, Elaine; & Gatty, Janice (1993). Gestural communication in oral deaf mother-child pairs: Language with a helping hand? Applied Psycholinguistics 14:319–47.Google Scholar
Devkota, Nirmal Kumar (2003). Country paper: Nepal. Paper presented at the Expert Group Meeting and Seminar on an International Convention to Protect and Promote the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities. June 2–4, 2003. Bangkok, Thailand.Google Scholar
Dorian, Nancy (1982). Defining the speech community to include its working margins. In Romain, Susan (ed.), Sociolinguistic variation in speech communities, 25–33. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John (1993). Meaning without intention: Lessons from divination. In Irvine, Judith & Hill, Jane (eds.), Responsibility and evidence in oral discourse, 48–71. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro (1994). From grammar to politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Emmorey, Karen (1991). Repetition priming with aspect and agreement morphology in American Sign Language. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 20:365–88.Google Scholar
Emmorey, Karen, & Corina, David (1990). Lexical recognition in sign language: Effects of phonetic structure and morphology. Perceptual and Motor Skills 71:1227–52.Google Scholar
Erting, Carol; Johnson, Robert; Smith, Dorothy; & Snider, Bruce (eds.) (1994). The Deaf way: Perspectives from the international conference on Deaf cultures. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Garrett, Paul (2005). What a language is good for: Language socialization, language shift, and the persistence of code-specific genres in St. Lucia. Language in Society 34(3):327–62.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1981). Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, Susan (1987). Underlying redundancy and its reduction in a language developed without a language model: Constraints imposed by conventional linguistic input. In Lust, B. (ed.), Studies in the acquisition of anaphora, vol. 2: Applying the constraints, 105–33. Boston, MA: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, Susan (2003). The resilience of language: What gesture creation in deaf children can tell us about how all children learn language. New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles (2004). A competent speaker who can't speak: The social life of aphasia. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 14(2):151–70.Google Scholar
Hakuta, Kenji; Bialystok, Ellen; & Wiley, Edward (2003). Critical evidence: A test of the critical-period hypothesis for second-language acquisition. Psychological Science 14(1):31–38.Google Scholar
Hill, Jane (2008). The everyday language of white racism. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Erika (2008). Standardization beyond form: Ideologies, institutions, and the semiotics of Nepali Sign Language. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan dissertation.Google Scholar
Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika (2008). Metasemiotic regimentation in the standardization of Nepali Sign Language. The Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 18(2):192–213.Google Scholar
Hymes, Dell (1972). On communicative competence. In Pride, J. B. & Holmes, Janet (eds.), Sociolinguistics: Selected readings, 269–93. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Johnson, Robert, & Erting, Carol (1989). Ethnicity and socialization in a classroom for Deaf children. In Lucas, Carol (ed.), The sociolinguistics of the Deaf community, 41–84. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, Robert, & Erting, Carol, & Newport, Elissa (1989). Critical period effects in second language learning: The influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as a second language. Cognitive Psychology 21(1):60–99.Google Scholar
Joshi, Raghav Bir (1991). Nepal: A paradise for the deaf? Sign Language Studies 20:161–68.Google Scholar
Kegl, Judith (2002). Language emergence in a language-ready brain: Acquisition issues. In Morgan, Gary & Woll, Bencie (eds.), Language acquisition in signed languages, 207–54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kegl, Judith; Senghas, Ann; & Coppola, Marie (1999). Creation through contact: Sign language emergence and sign language change in Nicaragua. In DeGraff, Micheal (ed.), Comparative grammatical change: The intersection of language acquisition, creole genesis, and diachronic syntax, 179–237. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kroskrity, Paul (2004). Language ideologies. In Duranti, Alessandro (ed.), A companion to linguistic anthropology, 496–517. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
LeMaster, Barbara, & Monaghan, Leila (2004). Variation in sign languages. In Duranti, Alessandro (ed.), A companion to linguistic anthropology, 141–66. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lenneberg, Eric (1967). Biological foundations of language. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Little, Paul; Bridges, Alison; Guragain, Rajendra; Friedman, Del; Prasad, Rakesh; & Weir, Neil (1993). Hearing impairment and ear pathology in Nepal. The Journal of Laryngology & Otology 107:395–400.Google Scholar
Maharjan, M; Bhandari, S; Singh, I; & Mishra, SC (2006). Prevalence of otitis media in school going children in Eastern Nepal. Kathmandu University Medical Journal 4(16):479–82.Google Scholar
Marriott, McKim (1976). Hindu transactions: Diversity without dualism. In Kapferer, Bruce (ed.), Transaction and meaning, 109–42. Philadelphia, PA: Institute for the Study of Human Issues.Google Scholar
Mayberry, Rachel, & Eichen, Ellen (1991). The long-lasting advantage of learning sign language in childhood: Another look at the critical period for language acquisition. Journal of Memory and Language 30:486–512.Google Scholar
Mayberry, Rachel, & Fischer, Susan (1989). Looking through phonological shape to lexical meaning: The bottleneck of non-native sign language processing. Memory and Cognition 17(6):740–54.Google Scholar
Mehan, Hugh (1980). The competent student. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 11(3):131–52.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Ross, & Karchmer, Michael (2004). Chasing the mythical ten percent: Parental hearing status of deaf and hard of hearing students in the United States. Sign Language Studies 4(2):138–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monaghan, Leila (2003). A world's eye view: Deaf cultures in global perspective. In Monaghan, Leila, Schmaling, Constanze, Nakamura, Karen, & Turner, Graham (eds.), Many ways to be Deaf: International variation in Deaf communities, 1–24. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Monaghan, Leila; Schmaling, Constanze; Nakamura, Karen, & Turner, Graham (2003). Many ways to be Deaf: International variation in Deaf communities. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Morford, Jill (1996). Insights to language from the study of gesture: A review of research on the gestural communication of non-signing deaf people. Language & Communication 16(2):165–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morford, Jill; Singleton, Jenny; & Goldin-Meadow, Susan (1995). The genesis of language: How much time is needed to create arbitrary symbols in a sign system? In Emmorey, Karen & Reilly, Judy (eds.), Language, gesture, and space, 313–32. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Narayan, Kiran (2002). Placing lives through stories: Second generation South Asian Americans. In Mines, Diane & Lamb, Sarah (eds.), Everyday life in South Asia, 425–39. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Neville, Helen (1995). Developmental specificity in neurocognitive development in humans. In Gazzaniga, Michael (ed.), The cognitive neurosciences, 219–431. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Newport, Elissa (1990). Maturational constraints on language learning. Cognitive Science 14:11–28.Google Scholar
Newport, Elissa; Bavelier, Daphne; & Neville, Helen (2001). Critical thinking about critical periods: Perspectives on a critical period for language acquisition. In Dupoux, Emmanual (ed.), Language, brain and cognitive development, 481–502. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor, & Schieffelin, Bambi (1984). Language acquisition and socialization: Three developmental stories. In Shweder, Richard & LeVine, Robert (eds.), Culture theory: Mind, self, and emotion, 276–322. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Parmentier, Richard (1994). Peirce divested for non-intimates. In Signs in society: Studies in semiotic anthropology, 3–22. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Parrish, Steven (2002). God-chariots in a garden of castes: Hierarchy and festival in a Hindu city. In Mines, Diane & Lamb, Sarah (eds.), Everyday life in South Asia, 174–89. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Prasad, Laxmi Narayan (2003). Status of people with disability (people with different ability) in Nepal. Kathmandu: Modern Printing Press.Google Scholar
Rosaldo, Michelle (1982). The things we do with words: Ilongot speech acts and speech act theory in philosophy. Language in Society 11(2):203–37.Google Scholar
Senghas, Anne, & Coppola, Marie (2001). Children creating language: How Nicaraguan Sign Language acquired a spatial grammar. Psychological Science 12(4):323–28.Google Scholar
Senghas, Richard (2003). New ways to be Deaf in Nicaragua: Changes in language, personhood, and community. In Monaghan, Leila, Schmaling, Constanze, Nakamura, Karen, & Turner, Graham (eds.), Many ways to be Deaf: International variation in Deaf communities, 260–82. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Sharma, S. (2003) The origin and development of Nepali Sign Language. Kathmandu: Tribhuvan University M.A. thesis.Google Scholar
Shrestha, R; Baral, K; & Neil, W (2001). Community ear care delivery by community ear assistants and volunteers: A pilot study. Journal of Laryngology & Otology 115:869–73.Google Scholar
Taylor, Irene (1997). Buddhas in disguise: Deaf people in Nepal. San Diego, CA: Dawnsign Press.Google Scholar
Tsitsipis, Lucas (1989). Skewed performance and full performance in language obsolescence. In Dorian, Nancy (ed.) Investigating obsolescence: Studies in language contraction and death, 139–48. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, James (1972). Implications for sociolinguistic research among the deaf. Sign Language Studies 1:1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar