Deafhood: Arguments We Live By

Argument is for most people a language war, a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary poetic rhetoric. Moreover, Deaf people's argument is typically viewed as characteristic of American Sign Language (ASL) alone, a matter of concept rather than thought or action.

The concept that governs our argument is just the matter of ASL, the language and culture of the Deaf. It also governs our everyday conversation. Our concept of Deafhood, for example, structures what we perceive, how we get around in the Deaf community, and how we the Deaf relate to each other. Our conceptual system plays a central role in arguing our reality as Deaf people, Deaf community, Deaf world. If we are right in suggesting that our argument is largely conceptual, then the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very much the matter of ASL.

We have seen that ASL pervades our normal conceptual system. Because so many of the concepts that are important to Deafhood are either abstract or not clearly delineated in our Deaf experience, we need to argue that we need to conceptualize our experience and the way we use ASL. We do often find that arguments allow us to understand one domain of Deaf experience in terms of another. Our understanding of Deafhood takes place in terms of entire domains of Deaf experience and not in terms of isolated concepts. The fact that we have been led to hypothesize an argument like DEAFHOOD IS A JOURNEY.

This argument raises a fundamental question: What constitutes a "basic domain of Deaf experience"? I dare to argue that Deaf experience has to come from ASL. That's my language war story.

:-)