hearing pedagogy

challenge

The challenge: how to expand linguistic representation to include such markers while enabling communication across the deaf/hearing divide. The challenge for a hearing ethnographer attempting an ethnosemantic study lies in understanding not just the "meaning" of the signs and symbols of ASL, but their import as well, the emotional and relational meaning in nickname signs and the qualitative differences between a short, quick, unembellished sign and a painstakingly enacted, richly nuanced sign becomes imperative. There seems little help offered the ethnographer venturing into such silent spaces. This ethnographer can only hope he has caught some of the bluntest denotations of words, but without further illuminating the nonverbal (and hence linguistically invisible) aspects of ASL, the connotations of ASL remain mysterious.

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