Embodiment, linguistics, space: American Sign Language meets geography

ABSTRACT

The relational turn in geography has led to an understanding of space and place as actively produced agents in people’s everyday lives. Geographers have also long recognized the importance of language in understanding the social and relational nature of space. The study of American Sign Language (ASL) presents a unique opportunity to examine how language use and language creation influence the production of linguistic space. For users of ASL, space is incredibly significant. Because of the visual and spatial nature of ASL, the space surrounding a signer’s body is important not only for the signer to communicate, but also for others involved in the conversation to participate. Environments created during conversations in ASL reflect the cultural and linguistic perception of the American Deaf community. By taking a critical perspective on the production of space, it will be shown that those who use ASL, through the medium of bodily performance, create linguistic, and communication spaces that are dynamic and visual. The embodied language of ASL and the Deaf community is a perspective geographers have yet to address.

KEYWORDS:

• American Sign Language
• performativity
• relational space
• linguistic geographies
• Deaf culture

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the many people who have given guidance and support over the past six years to transition this paper from master’s thesis to manuscript namely Dave Kaplan, Barney Warf, Alyson Greiner, Mike Gulliver, Mary Beth Kitzel, and several anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Emily Fekete is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Geography in the Department of Geography at Oklahoma State University. She conducted research for this paper under the supervision of David Kaplan at Kent State University for her MA thesis.

Notes

1. The capitalization of Deaf and Hearing refers to the cultural groups that make up the Deaf world vs. the Hearing world as opposed to the medical terminology deaf and hearing that refers to physical abilities. Membership in the Deaf community is self-identifying, but largely refers to those who use ASL as their predominant or first language. This could include people who are born deaf and learn ASL from a young age, children who are born hearing to Deaf parents and use ASL as a first language (often referred to as CODAs – children of Deaf adults), people who become deaf later in life and seek out ASL and the Deaf community, or children born deaf that do not learn ASL until their teens or early twenties. There are many individuals who are deaf that do not choose to become a member of the Deaf community for a variety of reasons, some of which have to do with personal choices on the part of the individual or their parent(s), or a lack of knowledge of or desire to learn ASL. For the purposes of this paper, Deaf is used to refer to this cultural linguistic group that relies on ASL.

2. For more information on Gallaudet’s Deafspace project see http://www.gallaudet.edu/campus-design/deafspace.html.