Who Signs? Language Ideologies about Deaf and Hearing Child Signers in One Family in Mexico

Little is known about local, vernacular language ideologies about sign language development in deaf and hearing children in diverse communicative ecologies from the perspectives of caregivers. In this article, I argue for the interpretative value of repeated long-term linguistic ethnography for inve...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sign language studies 2020-07, Vol.20 (4), p.664-690
Main Author: HOU, LYNN
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Caregivers
Children
Children & youth
Communication
Deafness
Ethnography
Ethnolinguistics
Families & family life
Ideology
Language acquisition
Language ideologies
Linguistics
Manual Communication
Native Language
Research design
Sign language
Special Issue on Sign Language Poetry
Verbal communication
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Description
Summary:Little is known about local, vernacular language ideologies about sign language development in deaf and hearing children in diverse communicative ecologies from the perspectives of caregivers. In this article, I argue for the interpretative value of repeated long-term linguistic ethnography for investigating language ideologies as they relate to language practices in different communicative situations. I present a case study of a family with a deaf caregiver, Regina, and two children, Angelica and Martha, who have invented their own communication system known as “making hands” in rural Oaxaca, Mexico. Using the linguistic ethnography approach, I analyze how the caregiver holds different language ideologies toward children’s signing competence based on their age and audiological status, and how they shift over time. I also make explicit my positionality as a researcher for its role in shaping the research process of investigating language ideologies.
ISSN:0302-1475
1533-6263
1533-6263
DOI:10.1353/sls.2020.0023