Please stop shaming k/codas who don’t sign / don’t sign well.

Codas occupy a very dynamic space with many different narratives and context-heavy intersections.

Language acquisition is a natural process. There are many factors that can interrupt language development. However, an overwhelming cornerstone in the framework to discuss this is that Kids of Deaf Adults are not adults, adults are adults. Kids don’t pass language and culture onto themselves, adults pass language and culture to kids. The power structure and directionality involved is a very important point. Adults are responsible for transferring this knowledge — Deaf adults also occupy their own narratives and context-rich intersections.

Ultimately, a mix of past and present societal factors play the largest influencing-role in determining outcome. {— this is all to say, if you see a k/coda who doesn’t sign well think about the context in which kodas exist. It’s never a child’s fault. Shaming a c/koda for lack of fluency does nothing to construct a better tomorrow, also it’s extremely misguided and hurtful.

Learning what simcom is and what simcom is not is important. Language modeling to your child that simcomming is always an appropriate choice, (esp. if you yourself do not use simcom as a main communication method/preference) is not a winning strategy. (Also, if you don’t normally vocalize, or subvocalize while signing, then don’t start voicing when you sign to your child.)

We talk about language deprivation and I think simcomming deprives Kids of Deaf Adults from acquiring full access to language, full access to a means to communicate, fluently, in a REAL LANGUAGE, their emotions and thoughts at home with their parents.

If you’re frustrated with a lack of communication between your adult self and your own adult hearing siblings and hearing parents, that’s something that should be discussed between adults — ideally, any solution would also be adult-oriented with an adult-led approach.

It’s odd that the onus of being inclusive at family gatherings is overwhelmingly shouldered by young codas. I understand that there’s a lot of context to be understood here as well — however, it would be nice if some parents could shield their children by having adult-to-adult conversations about communication barriers.

Sometimes reality dictates that codas just have to do (historically) coda things, such as: interpreting, simcomm for (simulated) “inclusiveness", brokering between communities and systems, etc — so between now and seeing actual change, here’s something parents of kodas can start doing immediately. ——} Have conversations with your child about these topics.

Reframe responsibilities at family gatherings or at the very least pre-game with a family dialogue (choice -vs- punishment). In my personal experience this kind of pre event logistics-thinking has been very successful.

The difference between sacrifice and punishment is not the amount of discomfort, but the amount of choice. Choice allows for a dignified option that feels more bearable, even if it’s just as uncomfortable a result.

[Deaf parents naturally want to raise kids who are bilingual — that’s great. The problem is that oftentimes it’s forgotten that codas are not just multi-/bicultural and multi-/bilingual but also bimodal. This is a very interesting combination that creates its own set of emergent scenarios. One such scenario is the expectation that k/codas should be capable of dually producing utterances in two languages at the same time, while staying*faithful* to two separate linguistic entities. This is not (sustainably) possible.]

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   2matSeattle Reply

   9 years ago

   ReplyTo:   ewitty