Comments on Random Thoughts and Musings by moi: To voice or not to voice? That is the question.

dianrez: are you joking? You're suggesting that ...

2006-11-07T07:41:00.000-08:00

dianrez: are you joking? You're suggesting that an oral deaf who is not fluent in ASL should apologize to a deaf ASL-using audience for speaking English. I don't think any apology is needed here. No one should ever have to apologize for their communication choice. Maybe I'm just an idealist.

Stephen: did you read my post above? Dr. Bruegge...

2006-11-07T07:37:00.000-08:00

Stephen: did you read my post above? Dr. Brueggemann is NOT the chair of an ASL department. An oral deaf who chooses to speak instead of sign in botched ASL or sim-com is NOT showing disrespect or audism to a deaf audience. I agree with the first anonymous above that she is making sure that only complete, grammatically correct languages (i.e., English and ASL) are being used. Good point!

I believe if a Deaf person who chairs an ASL depar...

2006-10-30T08:21:00.000-08:00

I believe if a Deaf person who chairs an ASL department use ASL in front of the D/deaf graduates shows respect and if not then it is AUDISM in my opnion.

Stephen J. Hardy, II

Impressive analysis, step by step thinking. We nee...

2006-10-28T20:10:00.000-07:00

Impressive analysis, step by step thinking. We need more of this type of writing in this highly charged Gallaudet controversy.
As for Dr. Brueggemann's choice of communication style, it may be true that she signs like an oralist and preferred to use her best style of communication. However, in doing so, she took a stand that can be interpreted in unfavorable ways. A better way to use her preferred method would be to begin with a disarming admission that she is not fluent, that she grew up oral, and that she apologized for using an interpreter while giving credit to those she addresses as signing deaf people. This disclaimer would go a long way toward warming up the climate.
Not perfectly, you can be sure. There will still be those who are virulently anti-oral and feel they have no place in the Gallaudet community.
The other alternative she could have selected is to drop the oral thing and go all-signing. Even though she might have used signing in English word order, that, too, would have gone a long way toward assuring her credibility and supporting her roles with the Gallaudet community. I have seen very few deaf people who would criticize a person's signing ability if it was honest and sincere, and only if the signing was so bad as to impede understanding.
We really do welcome oralists, among all the different types of deaf people. Just as long as they don't go "hearing" on us.

Hello: I did a little browsing on Dr. Brueggemann...

2006-10-14T21:18:00.000-07:00

Hello: I did a little browsing on Dr. Brueggemann just now, and thought you'd like to know what I learned.

1. She does not teach ASL, and she is not the chair of the ASL program at Ohio State University. She is an associate professor in the English Department, College of Humanities.

2. Some sample courses that she teaches: disability studies, undergraduate writing, and rhetoric and composition.

Some books she has written include: Author of Lend Me Your Ear: Rhetorical Constructions of Deafness and of personal essays and articles on pedagogy, qualitative research, literacy, rhetoric, deaf and disability studies. Co-editor and contributor Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities. Editor and contributor Literacy and Deaf People: Cultural and Contextual Persepctives.

if you'd like to read more, here are the links:

http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/brueggemann1/samplecourses.htm

http://english.osu.edu/people/person.cfm?ID=231&CFID=267724&CFTOKEN=26755191&jsessionid=4e306553f13b147a67e4TR

Since I last ready your blog, I've had occasion to see glimpses of Dr. Brueggemann signing on video clips. Whew -- I don't think anyone would mistake her for a native user of ASL. Not fluent at all. She signs like an oral deaf person. I'm guessing that my original supposition was correct -- she can probably communicate OK in one on one or small groupsituations, but not well enough for a formal stage event like commencement. I doubt many of the graduating students would have been able to understand her, and may even show outright scorn. So, I think it was very appropriate for her to use an interpreter instead. What do you think?

Knowing that Dr. Brueggeman is NOT a chair of an ASL department surely changes things for me.

(Hi -- sorry if I'm posting this twice, wasn't sur...

2006-10-07T14:19:00.000-07:00

(Hi -- sorry if I'm posting this twice, wasn't sure if it went through the first time.)

I agree with most of your facts. A few I don't: "people who go to GU for graduate school are working toward degrees in deaf-related field..." It's true that the biggest graduate departments are deaf-related, but many are not. Are hearing grad students required to pass an ASL proficiency test before they're allowed to graduate?

"tailor their addresses to the graduating students," yes, if you mean CONTENT. Delivery mode, no.

I disagree with some of your conclusions. Especially: Since Dr. Brueggemann knows how to sign, and this is a group of mostly signers, she should have signed her speech."

"She is chair of an ASL department, therefore she should be an expert in her field." Who's to say she isn't? Has she not published scholarly articles about ASL? Do you have to have native proficiency in ASL to be chair of a department? It's nice when it happens, but it does not happen often in the real world. My guess is that's simply because there is a shortage of native ASL users with ALL of the appropriate qualifications. After all, the formal study of ASL is still a growing field and there may not be a critical mass of professors who can also chair an ASL department at a university.

I dispute your conclusions about Dr. Brueggemann's beliefs, disregard, intentions, manipulation, pandering, callousness, etc. Have you considered the fact that by perceiving these things in Dr. Brueggemann, you are projecting your own deficit thinking? Whatever her reasons for choosing to voice instead of sign, they must be bad reasons that disrespect ASL and culturally deaf people, following your logic.

I disagree when you say none of that matters, yet all of it makes Dr. Brueggemann look bad. She didn't look bad to me. I assume hers are the reasons of a highly-educated, conscientious, caring deaf professional woman who is intelligent enough to consider all the options and choose the best one to fit the situation and her abilities, whatever they are.

You don't feel she made the best communication choice. You would have made a different choice. Because you are displeased (yet others were not) does not mean her decision was wrong. She did not meet your expectations and therefore she's a screwup? Please. May I respectfully suggest that it is YOU who needs to further explore the emotional reasoning that underlies your conclusions.

While i am usually in favor for freedom of choice,...

2006-10-07T14:05:00.000-07:00

While i am usually in favor for freedom of choice, the situation, indeed, called for sign language. I'm persuaded by your cogent argument, and the analogy with a professor of foreign language at that foreign university should speak their language is rather damning. :)

This professor failed to ask herself the most important thing before addressing the audience: what will have the most pleasant effect? This failure only raised the audience's resistance, spreading disenchantment, and resulting in near-political suicide.

The only time i voice is to the hearing people (my parents, the rest of the world), and the only time i sign is to the hearing impaired/deaf. Sometimes i even do both, but not very well! Why bother imposing yourself, if you can adjust to the audience?

I think Bruggeman could have signed her graduation...

2006-10-07T03:10:00.000-07:00

I think Bruggeman could have signed her graduation speech, too. I've seen her sign conversationally, and she signs at least as well as Jane K. Fernandes. Maybe Bruggeman is aware that this is far from fluent ASL and prefers to use her native language - English - and leave the "proper" ASL to the interpreters? As in, maybe she'd rather provide complete spoken English as well as complete signed ASL, instead of some mish-mosh of the two. Such mish-moshes (e.g., simcom, JKF's signing that requires us to fill in lots of gaps, etc.) are never grammatically-correct ASL. And, unless one has access to the spoken English, are never gramatically-correct visual representations of English.

I agree that it was a very politically-charged choice, and it may have been wise for Bruggeman to choose to sign her speech instead of speaking it. However, her reasoning may have stemmed from wanting to respect ASL enough to let more skilled signers provide the ASL interpretation.

This often happens, for example, at interpreter conferences. People are often asked to address the audience in thier native langauge, and let the interpreters provide the access to other langauge(s). This is to prevent simcom and other non-languages that are produced when people try to use two languages at once, or when their native language too strongly influences their production of utterances in their non-native language.The point of leaving other language(s) up to the interpreters is to provide access to full, complete, grammatically-correct languages.

Also, I've seen Bruggeman address other audiences in spoken English -- once at a mostly-hearing disability studies conference, and twice to a mixed deaf/hearing audience at Gallaudet: CLC 2004 and the "Narrating Deaf Lives" conference. When others sign, she watches them sign (and presumably understands at least some of the signed message), but at the same time, listens to a voice interperter who sits next to her. So, maybe she is just predominantly an English user. (Not sure why she's the coordinator of an ASL program, but FYI, Fernandes was an ASL/interpreting coordinator right after she started learning to sign, so apparently it's not native/Deaf signers who make these sort of coordinator hiring decisions!)

Anyway, just my two cents.

-Gally grad (linguistics MA)