Language and Deafness: Teaching a Foreign Language to the Deaf from a Bakhtinian Perspective
Antonio Henrique Coutelo de Moraes and Wanilda Maria Alves Cavalcanti, Brazil
Antonio Henrique Coutelo de Moraes holds a Master’s degree in Language Science. He is an Assistant Professor at Universidade Católica de Pernambuco, Brazil. E-mail: coutelodemoraes@gmail.com
Wanilda Maria Alves Cavalcanti is a Professor of the Doctorate in Language Science Course at Universidade Católica de Pernambuco, Brazil. E-mail: wanildamaria@yahoo.com
Menu
Introduction
Dialogic Theory of Language
Teaching a foreign language
Final remarks
References
This article arises from and was prompted by discussions during the Doctorate of the Post-Graduate Program in Language Sciences which the author followed at the Catholic University of Pernambuco. It seeks to build a bridge between dialogical theory and the object of this paper.
The communicative teaching of a foreign language (FL) to the deaf has been an object of discussion in recent years despite many researchers being skeptical about this possibility. They believe that academic staff are not ready for this kind of research. Indeed, there are still many issues to be resolved as to the acquisition of a second language, Portuguese in the case of a Brazilian who is deaf, but one cannot simply remain transfixed by the evolution question, mulling over when it would be an appropriate moment to move forward.
It is in this sense that the work undertaken by Vygotsky (1929/1993) has made significant contributions such that people with special needs can be regarded in a different way. He defined human beings as complex and multifaceted.
In the Fundamental Problems of Defectology, Vytgosky states that individuals develop in different ways and that one needs to understand their singularities, both at an organic and at a psychological level, and that what should not be done is to ranking people from the most normal to the least normal. Therefore, we understand that a deaf person should simply be seen as someone who has a difference.
The difference that is common to all people with hearing loss can adversely affect their acquiring and learning any language except sign language which is their natural language - in Brazil, this is called Libras. However, these people, who are members of Brazilian society at large and form a special group that use sign language seek to break down communication blockades by keeping social bilingualism - and why not social multilingualism as well?
In this context, being familiar with different language concepts and different approaches to language teaching seems a sine qua non to the success of a study that deals with teaching a foreign language to the deaf, since there are still very few papers have been published on this topic. Therefore, this paper sets out to try to weave together some reflections on the contributions of the Dialogic Theory of Language by drawing on Bakhtin (1993; 2003; 2006), Voloshinov (1976a; 1976b) and Ivanova (2011) so as to reach a better understanding of the process of how deaf people may acquire a foreign language (FL).
The formulation of the dialogical theory of language dates back to the early 20th century. As from around 1920, the then recently created Soviet Union began to control more and more tightly intellectual activities and output in areas under its influence. Therefore, the observation can be made that authors ranged over a great variety of "interests" and, consequently, interpretations of their work varied widely. Bakhtin, for example, who started off as a philosopher, began setting out his ideas indirectly in works of literature which, at first, were less controlled than philosophy (FARACO, 2009).
The difficulties that arose from this attempt to control the intellectual production of the Russian people grew throughout the 1920s due to Stalin’s rise to absolute power which took until the late 1920s, and to his policy of having a unified language all over the country regardless of the cultural and ethnic origins of its peoples. At that time, breaking the prevailing linguistic standard imposed by the government was regarded as one of the greatest of insults, the consequence of which was harsh repression. However, none of this prevented studies on the dialogue from continuing in several research centers in Russia such as Moscow, Saratov, Tver ' and Ekaterinburg as pointed out by Ivanova (2011).
In this context, interest in the living language - unlike what had been happening – in the language in use and in creativity in (and of) language led to the emergence of new investigative interests for Linguistics. Dialogue then started to be a central theme.
Unlike Saussure, Bakhtin takes language as action on the world and on the language itself. So his interest was not language as a system, but language as to how it is used and in verbal interaction. In this regard, Faraco (2009) points out it is verbal manifestations that are at the center of Bakhtin´s studies, manifestations of heteroglossia, namely, of language permeated by different social voices.
Still on language, Voloshinov (1976a) places it as a product of social life. This is a product that is neither fixed nor petrified but one which is found in an eternal ‘coming-into-beingness’ and the development of which accompanies, as the author says, the social evolution of life.
Therefore, the standpoint of Bakhtin and Voloshinov values language, of a social nature, which is related, directly, to the utterance, i.e. to the moment that language is used which also involves historical time and the social space of interaction. This moment of inter-subjectivity establishes the interaction and is indispensable to the event of speech.
In the book Marxism and Philosophy of Language, Bakhtin/Voloshinov (2006) state that the most immediate social situation and the broadest social environment completely determine and, so to speak, from within themselves, the structure of enunciation. They complement this by saying that whatever the enunciation considered it is certain that it, in its entirety, is socially directed.
We understand that the authors consider language as a social practice, the material reality of which is in the language, which is made up by the phenomenon of verbal interaction, performed by utterance or utterances. Verbal interaction is thus the fundamental reality of language (BAKHTIN/VOLOSHINOV, 2006). Another noteworthy observation relates to the concepts developed in the present article: they are interdependent and ratify some of Voloshinov’s ideas.
According to Ivanova (2011), it also needs to be said that many Russian and Western authors believe that the name Voloshinov is just a pseudonym of Bakhtin’s, that is, one of his masks. Most of Voloshinov’s other work related by the same problemlatic to this book is likewise attributed to Bakhtin.
However, the writing style of the two authors enables them to be differentiated. Nevertheless, the fact is that there are strong similarities between the works of these authors. For both Bakhtin (2006) and Voloshinov (1976a), language is used in the form of concrete and unique utterances, oral or written, produced by participants in a human activity.
From this perspective, the utterance is the true unit of speech and its meaning depends on the immediate context. As to discourse, it can be stated that it is linked to life and cannot be dissociated from it without losing signification (BAKHTIN, 2006; VOLOSHINOV, 1976a, 1976b). Thus, discourse only exists in the form of concrete utterances of speakers.
The term "dialogue" is used a great deal by Bakhtin and Voloshinov, since both of them are very interested in this compositional form. According to Cunha (2011), Bakhtin discusses dialogism in various works and under different perspectives (philosophical, anthropological, discursive). However, as Cunha (2011) suggests, the two notions that are the most widely used in language sciences are the interdiscursive dialogism, of the figures of other discourse in the current discourse, of the already-said; and the interlocutive dialogism, of directing to the other, to whomever the utterer is addressing.
Bakhtin has dialogical relations as his object and sets out the classification of a double-voiced discourse. As pointed out by Cunha (2011), Bakhtin analyzes the forms of the speech of the other in the discourse of the author, and the hybrid constructions, the grammatical (syntactic) and compositional constructions of which point to a speaker, but they contains two utterances and two semantic and axiological perspectives.
Cunha (ibid.) then adds that Voloshinov (1995) ponders on the different schemata of transmitting speech - direct, indirect and indirect free - and its variants. Voloshinov (1995) believes that the syntactic forms move closer to the concrete forms of the utterance and enable the language to be understood and how it came into being. In addition, the study of the forms of transmission of another's speech reflects basic and constant tendencies of the active reception of another's speech, which is essential for the study of the dialogue.
It should be noted that such relations between the discourses may point both to consonances and to dissonances, since the dialogical process is designed as a battleground between social voices; that is, socio-evaluative positions and evaluations which are set against other evaluations are found in this process. And no signification is supplied but rather it is produced in the dialogic processes with the other.
In the interaction through dialogue, sender and receiver should be recognized as full since they cannot be considered recipients if there is no utterance and reception of utterances. This Bakhtinian conception places the speaker as a social being with communication skills and social values.
In this segment, Bakhtin (2006) grounds himself on the principles of dialogue with the other – a social subject who is socially, historically and ideologically located -, in the heterogeneity of language – the presence of the other -, and in discursivity - discourse genres - resulting from the first two principles. Bakhtin argues for a conception of language based on the principle of verbal interaction, and, in this case, a strong relationship is perceived between interaction, speech genre and style.
As to genre, it is rare to hear it said that Voloshinov mentions it before Bakhtin does. In the text on the structure of the utterance shortly after exemplifying some communicative situations, Voloshinov (1976a) states that the utterance, considered as a unit of communication and a semantic whole, is formed and completed exactly in a given verbal interaction and engendered by a certain ratio of social communication. Thus, each of the types of social that we cite organizes, builds and completes, in a specific way, the grammatical and stylistic form of the utterance as well as the structure from which it stands out. We shall call this structure ‘genre’ (VOLOSHINOV, 1976a).
The verbal interaction mentioned concerns utterance situations that consist of two or more socially organized subjects. In this context, comprehension is also part of the verbal interaction process and is to utterance just as a replica is to the other in dialogue.
Understanding another's utterance means to be oriented in relation to it, to find its proper place in the corresponding context. For every word of the utterance that we are in the process of understanding, we make a series of our words correspond to it, thereby forming a replica. The more numerous and substantial they are, the deeper and more real our understanding will be (BAKHTHIN/ VOLOSHINOV, 2006).
As can be seen, Bakhtin (2006) shows the need for an active understanding that already contains a "response germ". We cannot therefore be passive interlocutors in the process of interaction when faced with an utterance.
As indicated before, the interaction with the other through language was emphasized in Mikhail Bakhtin’s argument. As a philosopher of language, he conducted his studies by conceiving language as being a socio-ideological and dialogical phenomenon.
It is therefore appropriate to emphasize here that "one can understand the word 'dialogue' in a broad sense, i.e. not only people communicating aloud and face-to-face but all verbal communication of any kind whatsoever" (BAKHTIN/ VOLOSHINOV, 2006, p. 125). It should also be noted that for Bakhtin (ibid.), the interlocutors are active in this process, since the utterances always prompt a responsive attitude from the participants in the communication, regardless of their geographical location.
It is from this perspective, then, that this paper reflects on learning foreign languages, as suggested by Salgado (2006), Schulz et al (2012), Zozzoli (2012) and Santos & Ifa (2014). Researchers in the field of English (ibid.), although they focus on different issues, agree that the concept of "dialogue" transcends the so-called "alternance of voices" and heads towards a notion of confrontation of voices that are located in a socially and historically determined time.
With regard to this and imbued with the concept Bakhtinian concept, Schulz et al (2012) state that All verbal communication between individuals, whether or not in a loud voice, occurs through language and a place of human interaction. There is no language without the presence of the other to whom speech relates and responds. In the process of interaction, the individual does not only pass on information to someone else, but acts on the interlocutor.
According to Bakhti /Voloshinov (2006), it is wrong to ignore the social nature of the utterance and to try to deduce it from the inside world of the speaker, as an expression of that inner world. For him (ibid.), the structure of the utterance and mental activity to express it are social in nature. The stylistic development of the utterance is sociological and the very verbal chain is social.
In order to illustrate this point in the context of foreign language teaching, take the example of interaction situations in which the teacher leads his/her students to question, negotiate or decline offers from their interlocutors. The interaction that occurs between the students in a context constructed by the teacher, even though it is artificial, is a social act in which language functions can be observed.
It is precisely on the basis of this social form of acting that the students’ communicative competence will be built. In the conception of socio-interaction as oriented by Bakhtin, the subject is active in the process of acquiring a language, namely, the learner is placed as an agent of his/her learning of an FL which is English, in this study.
Thus, as Salgado (2006), Schulz et al (2012), Zozzoli (2012) and Santos & Ifa (2014) suggest, both communication in class room as well as group work should prompt interaction and collaboration. With regard to the active learner, Schulz et al (2012) also state that the tasks and activities are based on the discovery, on the development and on the acquisition of content anchored on the four basic skills, namely reading, speaking, writing and listening.
And they add that, for the development of the activities and/or tasks, the tools and documents are usually authentic. These documents, such as interviews, newspapers, or advertisements, comics, songs, video clips, stories, etc. are more motivating and are potential promoters of autonomy, as well as being closer to the use of language (SCHULZ et al, 2012).
From this perspective, the teacher will only correct the inappropriate use of the language when that impedes communication, and will seek to encourage learners to seek alternative solutions to given situations and problems. For Schulz et al (2012), according to this assumption, learning the foreign language is interlinked to interacting socially. Therefore, it is understood that students should feel the need to communicate with each other to perform their activities and thus to build their knowledge of and about English.
When teaching foreign languages, therefore, it is essential to familiarize the learner with the forms of the language contextualized and built into concrete situations. In this way, the shape (a structure of the target language) should not be taught as always being identical, but as flexible and variable.
As we can assume from reading Bakhtin (2003 and 2006), the difficulty of learning a foreign language is in the initial contact that the learner has with the abstract system, that is, with the signality.
In the case of our object of study, according to Lodi et al (2014), Brazilians who are deaf participate in social practices of language in two languages: Libras, which is an unwritten language, and Portuguese, when it comes to oral and written materiality. It is important to emphasize that Brazilian public policies lay down that Portuguese is used for reading and writing, since they are not oralized.
These researchers (ibid.) make other reflections: this linguistic-discursive particularity invariably puts the literacies developed in social practices in LIBRAS in relationship to those related to written Portuguese. Therefore, the literacy practices which they develop should not be identified or reduced to competence in writing. Its development implies, therefore, that deaf people take part in and are involved with the discourses of literacy in both languages; which means to be able to speak about them and to reflect, metalinguistically, on what is uttered and on the meanings which circulate in these texts.
From the foregoing, this study therefore believes that, as Lodi et al (2014) argue, deaf people should have the guarantee of immersion in the interdiscursive chain of the verbal interactions in LIBRAS, namely, of discursive practices imbued with meanings and worldviews of the subjects involved, and therefore of a dialogical and ideological character.
Thus, in order that the deaf can learn a foreign language, it is essential they take part in different and diverse spaces where LIBRAS is used for the interaction through utterances in this language that will constitute genres of discourse, as conceived by Voloshinov (1976a) and Bakhtin (2006). This discursive experience, according to Lodi (2014), could be brought into dialogue with writing in Portuguese, and they further add that it can also be brought into dialogue with writing in English, as a foreign language, for example.
This relationship between cultures of the first (L1), second (L2) and foreign languages (FL) imply heterogeneous linguistic and ideological forces. Thus when we think about the deaf using English, it is important to keep in mind that what is established in this process is an ideological confrontation, a field of battles and contradictions, for which the main pathway of construction is dialogue. Therefore, so that deaf people can learn an FL successfully, this paper believes it is necessary that such learning is experienced in its living form. So that the deaf can reach a good level of proficiency in English, this language should be brought into dialogue with L1 and L2, so that the socio-cultural, historical and ideological processes are re-signified in the processes of active understanding.
The Dialogic Theory of Language, which began at the start of the 20th century and whose main names are Bakhtin and Voloshinov, bears with it an interest in living language in use; in users’ creativity in language and in the creativity of language itself.
One of the central themes of this theory is dialogue and this can guide the teaching of an FL, with a view to involving students in the learning process. Therefore, it is important to foster a climate in which learners are intent on listening so as to know of someone’s wishes and on speaking directly and in response to the other.
In the case of English teaching to the deaf, it is important that they experience utterances in sign language, which constitute discourse genres, as Voloshinov and Bakhtin understand them, as a basis for understanding or recognition, by using dialogue in Portuguese to deal with utterances in English. Thus, as stated earlier, we believe in the importance of a deaf person experimenting with the FL in its living form, which should be put into dialogue with L1 and L2 in order to facilitate the resignification of socio-cultural, historical and ideological processes.
We believe there is a pathway that connects postulates of the theory presented by Bakhtin and Voloshinov to language learning by the deaf, a fact that, to date, given the paucity of studies focusing on the study of second language and/or foreign language acquisition by deaf people, does not seems to have been thought through. Therefore, even though the conclusion of this article is obvious, it is incomplete. It is important to remember that this paper is a first reflection on this state of affairs and has been undertaken in order to understand the teaching of English as a foreign language to Brazilians who are deaf from a Bakhtinian angle.
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