Unit 5
Text A The Deaf Body in Public Space
By Rachel Kolb
“It's rude to point,”my friend told me from across the elementary-school cafeteria table. I grasped her words as I read them off her lips. She stared at my index finger, which I held raised in midair, gesturing toward a mutual classmate.“My mom said so.”
I was 6 or 7 years old, but I remember stopping with a jolt. Something inside me froze, too, went suddenly cold.
“I'm signing,”I said out loud.“That's not rude.”
As the only deaf student in my elementary school, I had already stumbled across the challenges of straddling two languages and two modes of communication. My family was hearing, but they still empowered me by using both English and sign language at home.
A sign language interpreter accompanied me throughout the day at school, and my teachers created a welcoming environment for me to learn1, but finding a place to belong with kids my own age2 often felt more difficult. I tried to speak to them, and occasionally they reciprocated the effort by learning some basic signs. But usually I felt separate.
I went home that day and asked my mother about what my friend had said.“Don't worry,”my mother said,“she doesn't know the social rules are different with signing. You aren't being rude.”With that, matter-of-fact as always, she brought the conversation to an end. But I still felt a lingering self-consciousness, entirely novel and difficult to shake.
This was perhaps the first time I realized that other people could see me as obtrusive, as taking up too much space, when I was simply communicating just as I was.
When I reflect on this memory two decades later, I recognize how my childhood friend, whom at the time I had found to be so accusatory, had really gaped at me with a sort of wonder. My signing challenged the rules of social conduct she'd absorbed from adults, and to her I must have seemed ignorant or radically rebellious, or perhaps both. But pointing was a truly fundamental act for me; it was how I expressed what my grown-up scholarly self would call relationality—the idea of being in the world in relation to others. Through sign language, a properly poised finger allowed me to say you and me and he and she and they. If I did not point, how could I make a human connection?
Many years later, when I was in graduate school, another conversation with a friend made an impression on me. We were in a cafe having lunch; she was one of those rare friends who had started learning sign language solely to communicate with me. That day over lunch we forfeited spoken English, which we typically used to talk with each other, and practiced conversing with our hands and our facial expressions. I felt a touch of exhilaration; she was putting aside her conventional, ingrained hearingness and coming to meet me in my visual world.
But after a few minutes, my usually bold, un-self-conscious friend stopped. She chuckled and shrugged a little, and said,“I feel like everyone here is looking at us.”
I glanced around the small cafe, at all the hearing people sitting at their tables. Indeed, some had craned their necks to look at our movements, but this was behavior I'd long ago ceased to notice.“Yeah,”I signed back, bluntly.“That often happens.”
My friend smiled. A moment later, we started conversing again, and I think then she understood: This is what it can be like to occupy a signing body.
To use sign language, to embrace it in non-signing public spaces, one must sometimes push against ideas of having committed a gross indiscretion. These notions, I confess, haunted my relationship with my body for years after my childhood friend told me not to point. How obvious signing was, how indiscreet in the“conventional”sense: what I was pointing at, my lively facial expressions, my sense of physical restraint! I was already shy as a child, reluctant to put myself on display. So for a while I felt embarrassed, but then learned not to be. This happened out of necessity, out of self-acceptance and, frankly, joy in my own signing body, but for other nonnative signers it happens out of choice. As several other hearing friends have told me since, when they sign with me in public they feel rather conspicuous.“Should I do this?”they ask me.“Is it too much?”
Too much: To me these words succinctly articulate the taboos that can linger about bodily expressiveness. Hearing culture presents us with ideals of speaking with good elocution, restraint and self-control. Now, I admit, I see these ideals as visually impoverished, inaccessible and uninteresting: They produce spaces full of immobile talking heads3, disembodied sound and visual inattentiveness. Those qualities become the optical equivalent of speaking in a monotone. As much as I also enjoy spoken words, allowing my body to speak for itself feels, simply, more real. Even if that means signing is sometimes read as a visual spectacle.
My hearing friends, who have often never had to cope with being looked at, can struggle the most with this sense of spectacle. When they learn to sign with me—and there are still too few who really learn—they must overcome these cultural taboos4 about excessive movement, pointing and gesture. Over the years, I have kept a mental list of the comments they make at the beginning stages.
“I don't know what to do with my hands. It's like I've just discovered I have them.”
“Are you sure it's O. K. to point? At him?”
“I am trying to be more expressive. My face just feels like it can't.”
“That feels weird.”
“How do your eyes take in so much information, so fast?”
And finally:“I feel self-conscious. I feel like you are looking at me.”
Yes, I want to tell people who regale me with that last comment. Yes, I am looking at you, because what would the point be otherwise?
Over time, I hope that the direct gaze comes to feel as affirming to my hearing companions as it does to me. When I sign, when I use my body to communicate, it indeed elicits a different state of mind, one that invites and guides the physical gaze, but this need not feel discomforting or unwelcome. On the contrary: looking at me, at my body and everything it says, shows me that you are paying attention. We meet each other in the midst of this physical and linguistic self-expression, and our connection surpasses a disembodied voice and expands to include our entire beings. Right here, looking back at you, I feel like I have made contact.
Notes:
1. Create a welcoming environment for sb. to do：为某人创造了一个舒适的环境做……
2. belong with kids my own age：属于自己年龄段的孩子
3. talking heads：[电视俚语]（电视上讲话者的）头部特写，接受电视采访者；出现在电视（或电影）屏幕上发表谈话的人；（电视在播放电影等时头像出现在屏幕上的）旁叙人；[俚语]说话空洞和做作的人
4. cultural taboos：文化禁忌
New words:
续表
续表
续表
Useful expressions:
elementary-school 小学
grasp one's words 理解某人的话
read…off… 读出；从……读取
stare at 凝视，盯住
index finger 食指
in midair 在半空中；不确定
stop with a jolt 停止震动
stumbled across the challenges 遇到挑战，遇到难事
straddle two languages 同时对付两种语言，在两种语言间转换
empower sb. 让……更有能力，力量
modes of communication 交流方式，交流模式
sign language 手语
matter-of-fact 实事求是的，讲求实际的，不带感情的，平淡的
bring…to the end 结束……
a lingering self-consciousness 挥之不去的自我意识
reflect on the memory 回想起以前的事情
gape at 目瞪口呆地凝视
absorb the rules of social conduct 学习社会行为规范
radically rebellious 彻底反叛
in relation to 关于，涉及；与……相比较
a touch of exhilaration 一丝喜悦
put aside 撇开；把……放在一边，暂不考虑；储存……备用
ingrained hearingness 根深蒂固地依赖听力的世界
un-self-conscious 不装腔作势的，自然的
glance around 四处环顾
crane one's neck 伸长脖子
cease to do 停止做……
push against ideas 放弃这种想法，不去想
commit a gross indiscretion 犯严重过失
in the conventional sense 从传统意义上来说
sense of physical restraint 身体克制感／约束感
be reluctant to do 不心甘情愿做……
put oneself on display 出头露面
out of self-acceptance 出于自我接纳，因为自我接受
bodily expressiveness 身体表达能力
a visual spectacle 视觉的角度
excessive movement 过多的肢体运动
over time 随着时间的过去，久而久之
elicits a different state of mind 开启了一种不同的心态
in the midst of 在……当中，在……中间；在某一进程之中；正当……的时候
a disembodied voice 空洞的声音
Questions for comprehension:
1. As the only deaf student in the elementary school, what difficulty did the author encounter?
2. Why did the author usually felt separate in the childhood?
3. What does the author's conversation in a café indicate?
4. How does hearing world differ from signing world?
5. What is considered as cultural taboos in signing? Is this a proper rule of social conduct?
6. What are the comments made by the normal people when they learn sign language at the beginning stages?
Discussions:
1. What challenges do you think the deaf and dumb people would meet in their daily life?
2. Why do the deaf people have their lingering self-consciousness? In what case, do the normal people also have this keen self-consciousness?
3. As a social worker, what can help build relationships with deaf people or other disables as soon as possible?
4. As a social worker, how can you train yourself to be more empathic (感同身受的)?
E-C Translations:
My hearing friends, who have often never had to cope with being looked at, can struggle the most with this sense of spectacle. When they learn to sign with me—and there are still too few who really learn—they must overcome these cultural taboos about excessive movement, pointing and gesture. Over the years, I have kept a mental list of the comments they make at the beginning stages.
C-E Translations:
1. 作为小学里唯一的聋哑学生，我已经经历了同时处理两种语言和两种交流方式的挑战。
2. 我试着和他们说话，偶尔他们也会通过学习一些基本的手势来回报这些努力。
3. 相反：看着我，看着我的身体，看着这一动作本身已经是在表达了，告诉我你在关注。
4. 对我来说，这些话就是准确地传达了隐含的关于身体表达的忌讳。
5. 听力文化展现给我们的是有好的口才、得当的和自我控制的理想状态。
Using the appropriate phrases to fill in the blanks:
A. cease to
B. glanced around
C. over time
D. reluctant to
E. a lingering self-consciousness
F. put aside
G. modes of communication
H. absorb the rules of social conduct
I. empower
J. a touch of exhilaration
1. Verbal language and sign language are two distinctive_______________, which might pose problems for the deaf.
2. People's______________is hard to shake, especially in public speaking.
3. Love from family can______________individuals to taken on challenges in life.
4. In a society, parents would pay attention to helping children to_____________so that they can integrate into the group more easily.
5. In the first morning after a long holiday, many people are really____________get up for work.
6. A social worker is supposed to______________.
7. I felt______________, she finically stated to get my point.
8. In such constantly-changing society, no one should_______________learn and improve in order to survive and thrive.
9. I______________the small cafe, at all the hearing people sitting at their tables
10. People's opinion of a specific topic might change_____________.