Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education Advance Access originally published online on April 29, 2007
The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 2007 12(4):552-565; doi:10.1093/deafed/enm010
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Representations of Sound in American Deaf Literature
Teachers College, Columbia University
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Abstract |
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Sound plays a prominent role in narrative description of characters and environs in mainstream American literature. A review of American Deaf literature shows that the representations of sound held for deaf writers are in extensional and oppositional terms. American deaf writers, in their descriptions of entities, characters, functions, and settings, have created different representations of sound. In American Deaf literature, the representations of sound are filled with altered-acoustic and extra-acoustic images of sounds. The representations reflect psychophysiological experiences that presume the existence of an acoustic world by American deaf and hard-of-hearing writers, independent of the age when their hearing was lost, and changes in American Deaf culture.
Correspondence should be sent to Russell S. Rosen, Program in the Teaching of American Sign Language as a Foreign Language, Teachers College, Columbia University, 525 West, 120 Street, Box 223, New York 10027, NY (e-mail: rsr14{at}columbia.edu).
Received October 9, 2006; revised March 1, 2007; accepted March 6, 2007