Based on fieldwork with the Deaf community of Utah Valley, informed by theories of linguistic anthropology, Bryan Eldredge's book provides a case study of the relationship between Deaf identity and the use of American Sign Language (ASL). Eldredge explores ‘the role of discourse’ in the construction and negotiations of Deaf identities and how language ideologies ‘affect the discourse that shapes identities’ (3).
Ch. 1 starts with the researcher's personal relationship to the Deaf community, a diverse community whose membership is based on various factors and perspectives. For example, hearing children born to Deaf parents with proficiency of ASL are considered Deaf. Eldredge's subjects are signing individuals whose identities as culturally Deaf persons are not certain.
Ch. 2 clarifies key concepts and terminologies, aiming to contextualize the analysis in the following chapters. In Deaf studies, the term Deaf is not limited to pathological conditions, but a ‘cultural’ concept about a distinct community, or a DEAF-WORLD, ‘based around language use, values, beliefs, and conceptions of what it means to be Deaf’ (24). Eldredge adopts a discourse-centred approach, talk is practice, which maintains that language use implies the speaker's membership in a community. A signing individual's appropriate use of discursive forms implies his or her ‘communicative competence’ within the DEAF-WORLD. Eldredge contends that misguided linguistic ideologies that affect language policies and education could limit Deaf children's early access to ASL, which in turn could hinder their development of a positive Deaf identity.
Chs. 3 and 4 employ Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotic framework, sign vehicles, to process signals of particular cases of personal identity. The sign vehicles include referential content of talk, linguistic form, discursive form, and nonlinguistic behaviours, which provide interpretive discursive forms that signal personal identity. When an individual's interpretive process of these discursive forms is smooth, it ‘leads to mutual acceptance of individuals as having a Deaf identity in common’ (46), which is called unification. Conversely, when the process hits barriers, it results in marginalisation. The two terms are neutral, merely highlighting the signing individual's similarities and differences respectively.
Ch. 5 examines ‘the role of discourse in the establishment and maintenance of positional identities’ (99), or hierarchical identities. It highlights an elite DEAF-WORLD identity, namely the ‘story-teller’, which designates an individual who shows ‘super competence’ in ASL, with skilled use of ‘clusters of formal features that together index the ASL storytelling style’ (99). This super style elevates the signing individual's position in the community.
Ch. 6 concludes that DEAF-WORLD is a self-selected membership, which means a signing individual must acquire communicative competence in ASL to achieve the culturally Deaf identity. Any reader with a general interest in linguistic anthropology or particular interest in language practices of a minority would find this book informative and insightful.
