1989 - Seeing Voices

Oliver Sacks

Seeing Voices

A Journey into the World of the Deaf

1989

Written by the author of ‘The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat’, this book begins with the history of deaf people in the 18
th
century, the often outrageous ways in which they have been treated in the past, and their continuing struggle for acceptance in a hearing world. And it examines the visual language of the deaf—Sign—which has only in the past decade been recognized fully as a language linguistically complete, rich, and as expressive as any spoken language. Oliver Sacks has also written ‘Migraine’, ‘Awakenings’ and ‘A Leg to Stand on’.

[Sign language] is, in the hands of its masters, a most beautiful and expressive language, for which, in their intercourse with each other and as a means of easily and quickly reaching the minds of the deaf, neither nature nor art has given them a satisfactory substitute.

It is impossible for those who do not understand it to comprehend its possibilities with the deaf, its powerful influence on the moral and social happiness of those deprived of hearing, and its wonderful power of carrying thought to intellects which would otherwise be in perpetual darkness. Nor can they appreciate the hold it has upon the deaf. So long as there are two deaf people upon the face of the earth and they get together, so long will signs be in use.

J. Schuyler Long Head teacher, Iowa School for the Deaf.

The Sign Language
(1910)

Strobe photograph of ASL signs ‘join’ and ‘inform
. (Reprinted by permission from
The Signs of Language
, E.S. Klima & U. Bellugi. Harvard University Press, 1979.).

T
hree years ago I knew nothing of the situation of the deaf, and never imagined that it could cast light on so many realms, above all, on the realm of language. I was astonished to learn about the history of deaf people, and the extraordinary (linguistic) challenges they face, astonished too to learn of a completely visual language, Sign, a language different in mode from my own language, Speech. It is all too easy to take language, one’s own language, for granted—one may need to encounter another language, or rather another
mode
of language, in order to be astonished, to be pushed into wonder, again. When I first read of the deaf and their singular mode of language, Sign, I was incited to embark on an exploration, a journey. This journey took me to deaf people and their families; to schools for the deaf, and to Gallaudet, the unique university of the deaf; it took me to Martha’s Vineyard, where there used to exist a hereditary deafness and where everybody (hearing no less than deaf) spoke Sign; it took me to towns like Fremont and Rochester, where there is a remarkable interface of deaf and hearing communities; it took me to the great researchers on Sign, and the conditions of the deaf—brilliant and dedicated researchers who communicated to me their excitement, their sense of unexplored regions and new frontiers.
1

1. Although the term ‘Sign’ is usually used to denote American Sign Language (ASL), I use it in this book to refer to all indigenous signed languages, past and present (e.g., American Sign Language, French Sign, Chinese Sign, Yiddish Sign, and Old Kentish Sign). But it excludes signed forms of spoken languages (e.g., Signed English), which are mere transliterations and lack the structure of genuine sign languages.

My journey has taken me to look at language, at the nature of talking and teaching, at child development, at the development and functioning of the nervous system, at the formation of communities, worlds, and cultures, in a way which was wholly new to me, and which has been an education and a delight. It has, above all, afforded a completely new perspective on age-old problems, a new and unexpected view onto language, biology, and culture…it has made the familiar strange, and the strange familiar.

My travels left me both enthralled and appalled. I was appalled as I discovered how many of the deaf never acquire the powers of good language—or thinking—and how poor a life might lie in store for them.

But almost at once I was to be made aware of another dimension, another world of considerations, not biological, but cultural. Many of the deaf people I met had not merely acquired good language, but language of an entirely different sort, a language that served not only the powers of thought (and indeed allowed thought and perception of a kind not wholly imaginable by the hearing), but served as the medium of a rich community and culture. Whilst I never forgot the ‘medical’ status of the deaf, I had now to see them in a new, ‘ethnic’ light, as a people, with a distinctive language, sensibility, and culture of their own.
2

2. Some in the deaf community mark this distinction by a convention whereby audiological deafness is spelled with a small ‘d,’ to distinguish it from Deafness with a big ‘d,’ as a linguistic and cultural entity.

It might be thought that the story and study of deaf people, and their language, is something of extremely limited interest. But this, I believe, is by no means the case. It is true that the congenitally deaf only constitute about 0.1 percent of the population, but the considerations that arise from them raise issues of the widest and deepest importance. The study of the deaf shows us that much of what is distinctively human in us—our capacities for language, for thought, for communication, and culture—do not develop automatically in us, are not just biological functions, but are, equally, social and historical in origin; that they are a
gift
—the most wonderful of gifts—from one generation to another. We see that Culture is as crucial as Nature.

The existence of a visual language, Sign, and of the striking enhancements of perception and visual intelligence that go with its acquisition, shows us that the brain is rich in potentials we would scarcely have guessed of, shows us the almost unlimited plasticity and resource of the nervous system, the human organism, when it is faced with the new and must adapt. If this subject shows us the vulnerabilities, the ways in which (often unwittingly) we may harm ourselves, it shows us, equally, our unknown and unexpected strengths, the infinite resources for survival and transcendence which Nature and Culture, together, have given us. Thus, although I hope that deaf people, and their families, teachers, and friends, may find this book of special interest, I hope that the general reader may turn to it, too, for an unexpected perspective on the human condition.

This book is in three parts. The first was written in 1985 and 1986, and started as a review of a book on the history of the deaf, Harlan Lane’s
When the Mind Hears
. This had expanded to an essay by the time it was published (in the
New York Review of Books
, March 27, 1986), and has since been further enlarged and revised. I have, however, left certain formulations and locutions, with which I no longer fully agree, in place, because I felt I should preserve the original, whatever its defects, as reflecting the way I first thought about the subject. Part III was stimulated by the revolt of the students at Gallaudet in March 1988, and was published in the
New York Review of Books
on June 2, 1988. This too has been considerably revised and enlarged for the present book. Part II was written last, in the fall of 1988, but is, in some ways, the heart of the book—at least the most systematic, but also the most personal, view of the whole subject. I should add that I have never found it possible to tell a story, or pursue a line of thought, without taking innumerable side trips or excursions along the way, and finding my journey the richer for this.
3

3. The many (and sometimes lengthy) footnotes should be regarded as mental or imaginative excursions, to be taken, or avoided, as the reader—traveler chooses.

I am, I should emphasize, an outsider in this field—I am not deaf, I do not sign, I am not an interpreter or teacher, I am not an expert on child development, and I am neither a historian nor a linguist. This is, as will be apparent, a charged (at times embattled) area, where passionate opinions have contended for centuries. I am an outsider, with no special knowledge or expertise, but also, I think, with no prejudices, no ax to grind, no animus in the matter.

I could not have made my journey, let alone written about it, without the aid and inspiration of innumerable others: first and foremost deaf people—patients, subjects, collaborators, friends—the only people who can give one an inside perspective; and those most directly concerned with them, their families, interpreters, and teachers. In particular I must acknowledge here the great help of Sarah Elizabeth and Sam Lewis, and their daughter Charlotte; Deborah Tannen of Georgetown University; and the staffs at the California School for the Deaf at Fremont, the Lexington School for the Deaf, and many other schools and institutions for the deaf, most especially Gallaudet University—including David de Lorenzo, Carol Erting, Michael Karchmer, Scott Liddell, Jane Norman, John Van Cleve, Bruce White, and James Woodward, among many others.

I owe a central debt to those researchers who have made it their lifelong concern to understand and study the deaf and their language—in particular, Ursula Bellugi, Susan Schaller, Hilde Schlesinger, and William Stokoe, who have shared their thoughts and observations fully and generously with me, and stimulated my own. Jerome Bruner, who has thought so profoundly about the mental and language development of children, has been an invaluable friend and guide throughout. My friend and colleague Elkhonon Goldberg has suggested new ways of considering the neurological foundations of language and thought, and the special forms this may take in the deaf. I have had the special pleasure, this year, of meeting Harlan Lane and Nora Ellen Groce, whose books so inspired me in 1986, at the start of my journey, and Carol Padden, whose book so influenced me in 1988—their perspectives on the deaf have enlarged my own thought. Several colleagues, including Ursula Bellugi, Jerome Bruner, Robert Johnson, Harlan Lane, Helen Neville, Isabelle Rapin, Israel Rosenfield, Hilde Schlesinger, and William Stokoe, have read the manuscript of this book at various stages and offered comments, criticism, and support, for which I am particularly grateful. To all these and many others, I owe illumination and insights (though my opinions—and mistakes—are wholly my own).

In March of 1986, Stan Holwitz of the University of California Press instantly responded to my first essay, and urged and encouraged me to expand it into a book; he has given patient support and stimulus during the three years it has taken to realize his suggestion. Paula Cizmar read successive drafts of the book, and offered me many valuable suggestions. Shirley Warren has guided the manuscript through production, dealing patiently with ever more footnotes and last–minute changes.

I am much indebted to my niece, Elizabeth Sacks Chase, who suggested the title—it derives from Pyramus’s words to Thisbe: ‘I see a voice…’

Since completing this book, I have started to do what, perhaps, I should have done at the start—I have begun to learn Sign. I owe special thanks to my teacher, Janice Rimier, of the New York Society for the Deaf, and to my tutors, Amy and Mark Trugman, for struggling valiantly with a difficult, late beginner—and convincing me that it is never too late to begin.