the Maori in New Zealand, or the Aborigines in Australia.Īudism, however, is an even more sinister ideology: first coined in 1975 by Dr Tom Humphries of the University of California in San Diego, it describes the belief that deaf people are somehow inferior to hearing people, and that deafhood – or, in this case, we should say ‘deafness’ – is a flaw, a terrible disability that needs to be eliminated. In that respect, sign language is dismissively regarded as a mere obstacle to listening skills and acquisition of speech-treated, in effect, in the same manner as the languages of other people who were oppressed and colonised, e.g.
Oralism is a philosophy that first emerged in the late 19th century, and which suggests that reduced use of sign language would be more beneficial to SLPs, as it would allow them to integrate better to the hearing world. To do that, we need to examine two terms: Oralism and Audism. of Sign Language Peoples (SLPs) secondly, it attempts to remove the limitations imposed on SLPs through their colonisation from hearing people.Ĭ In order to understand what Deafhood represents, it’s first important to understand what is meant by colonisation. First explored through his doctoral dissertation in 1998, and later elaborated on in his 2003 book, ‘Understanding Deaf Culture – In Search of Deafhood‘, the idea behind Deafhood is twofold: first, it seeks to collect everything that is already known about the life, culture, politics, etc.
A At this point, you might be wondering: what does ‘deafhood’ mean? Is it a synonym for ‘deafness’? Is it a slightly more politically correct term to express the very same concept you’ve grown accustomed to- A person who lacks the power of hearing, or a person whose hearing is impaired? What’s wrong with terms like ‘hard of hearing’ or ‘deafness’? Have they not represented the deaf community just fine for the past few centuries? Who came up with the term ‘Deafhood’ anyway, and why?ī The term ‘Deafhood’ was first coined in 1993 by Dr Paddy Ladd, a deaf scholar in the Deaf Studies Department at the University of Bristol in England.
0 kommentar(er)
