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Images of Difference: Deaf and Hearing in the United States
Author(s) -
Fjord Laura Lakshmi
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
anthropology and humanism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.153
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1548-1409
pISSN - 1559-9167
DOI - 10.1525/ahu.1996.21.1.55
Subject(s) - egalitarianism , audiology , standardization , hearing loss , center (category theory) , deaf culture , american sign language , psychology , linguistics , sign language , political science , medicine , law , chemistry , philosophy , politics , crystallography
Deaf people and hearing people in the United States pose unusually difficult referencing problems for each other despite the fact that most deaf people are born into hearing families. Because the deaf and the hearing do not readily or easily share a language, communication issues are at the center of a larger social debate about whether the deaf are a separate culture, and whether they have a medical disability. This article looks at threads of history that have shaped this cultural debate, including the American egalitarianism that has led to the creation and standardization of separate categories of people such as the Deaf.