Extinction, genealogy, and institutionalization: Challenging normative values in popular endangered language discourse

ABSTRACT

News accounts of the recent discovery of Hawai’i Sign Language tell of the identification of a new language—one nearing extinction—and, ultimately, the happy ending of language preservation. By applying postcolonial and disability studies scholarship to the news coverage, we reframe marginalized languages through an alternative logic. We examine the narratives of extinction, genealogy, and institutionalization that underlie both colonial and ableist discourses in the articles. We argue that popular conceptions of endangered language and language purity obscure how normative values are applied to language communities and institutionalization, often at the expense of those very communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Sign language
• Hawai’i
• deaf culture
• colonialism
• language preservation

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the following people for reading and reviewing earlier drafts of this article: Leah Ceccarelli, Jane Johnson, Ralina Joseph, Christine Harold, Habiba Ibrahim, Sonnet Retman, and Jessica Robles. Their comments were key to developing our argument. Any errors are our own.

ORCiD

Elizabeth S. Parks http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7571-9448

Notes

1. Although a capital D “Deaf” is used in the United States and some other countries to indicate a deaf cultural way of being that embraces signed language that is distinct from an audiological lower-case d “deaf” label, it is not a convention common to all parts of the world or languages. In order to be most inclusive of the variety of deaf identities that individuals and communities might embrace, we use a lower-case d “deaf” in conjunction with other terms that indicate a collective community or distinct cultural identity throughout this article.

2. We excluded Pinterest articles, discussion forums, sites that only provided a direct link to another source, and any broken links not able to be accessed at the time of writing.

3. U.S. Public Law 103-150 (107 Stat. 1510).

4. Captain Cook's first recorded encounter with Hawaiians took place in 1778.

5. For example, both the Deaf President Now movement at Gallaudet University in 1988 and the Unity for Gallaudet movement in 2006 demonstrate how activist movements at deaf institutions can lead to institutional changes (Bar-Tzur, 2006; Gallaudet University, 2014).