Joseph Hill

Joseph Hill

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, NATIONAL TECHNICAL INSTITUTE FOR THE DEAF

For those who may not know you or be familiar with your work, in your own words how would you describe yourself?

I am an assistant professor at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf which is one of the schools at Rochester Institute of Technology. I am known for my work on the southern dialect of American Sign Language (ASL) called “Black ASL,” which is part of the legacy of racial segregation in the South. I am a co-author along with Drs. Carolyn McCaskill, Ceil Lucas, and Robert Bayley, on the book, “The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL: Its History and Structure,” published by Gallaudet University Press. The book includes the historical coverage of different segregated schools for black deaf children in the South, the description and analysis of distinct linguistic features of Black ASL, and the social and geographical factors that have defined and maintained Black ASL as we know today.

I am also known for my work on language attitudes in the deaf communities in America and social justice in the sign language interpreting field. This work is partially inspired by my involvement in Black ASL. Initially, I got involved in the Black ASL project because I was curious and I wanted to see what made that dialect different, but over time, I saw that in the interviews with black deaf seniors, when they were in school, they were subjected to segregation that kept them isolated from white deaf children and black deaf children did not have as much educational resources and support as white deaf children did.

So the language input they had was qualitatively different than did white deaf students at the other schools. When desegregation happened, black deaf students who were in the integrated setting typically pushed aside their own language and adopted the variety that was typical at the white deaf schools. So that interrupted the cultural transmission of Black ASL to the next generations of black deaf students which affected the core vocabulary developed by black deaf children before desegregation. But even so, there are elements of Black ASL that still exist today due to the social and geographical factors that are based on race. It is not a surprise since racism still exist in the American society on all levels.

What do certain words represent in society?

I am not sure what this question is asking for, but based on the other questions, I am going to assume it is related to race, gender, and class. Racism exists in the deaf communities as it does in the American society in general. Every generation of deaf and hard of hearing people have been privileged or oppressed by racism and other forms of oppression in some ways depending on their social identities and the communities they are part of. Just as we have the n-word in English, there is a few equivalent signs in ASL that have the same derogatory meaning against black people. The signs, in general, are not acceptable when used in the open, but in private, they are still in use. There are sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, and more in the American Deaf community. Just as there is social justice activism in the society, we also have it in the American Deaf community and they have signs like “intersectionality,” “social justice,” “equality,” “privilege,” and more. The deaf communities are the microcosm of the American society so they are subjected to the same social forces and movements.

How does language reinforce power disparities?

In language, there are codes that are related to power and oppression and it can maintain our worldviews in a way that allow us to reproduce social inequalities. When I say maintain, I mean when our worldviews are not challenged, we are not aware of disparities and injustice that have occurred and are still happening in our lives. So it is important for us to be introspective and engage in a dialogue that may challenge our worldviews. When we face the challenge, we have to allow ourselves to be open to the process of change in order to move toward the better part of our humanity. So not only we have to be aware of the power of words, we have to be aware of the personal and societal narratives that come with the words.

How do you/others challenge the boundaries of language?

I am not what you mean by the boundaries of language. Language is like a river; it is always changing and whatever happens to it, language will adapt to the culture at a given time. Actually, language is more like water; it is defined by geography, so people perceive rivers, creeks, lakes, and ponds differently just by the physical environments. It is the same with languages with the social and geographical boundaries and the social narratives so the boundaries and narratives influence people’s perception of which language varieties are acceptable and which ones are not. I think one thing about signed languages is that not everyone believes that they are languages in their own rights. Most people believe that languages have to be spoken and anything else have to be based on those languages like writing, texting, Morse code, and signing. But signed languages are different in term of structure, modality, vocabulary, history, and socio-cultural effects. Language is actually in the brain and it comes out in a different mode that can be spoken, written, and signed. Any difference in words and phrases in a language in whatever mode is based on socio-cultural, political, economic, and geographical differences.

What are your personal experiences of racial, gender or class profiling through language?

I know there are studies that show that people’s social identities can be identified based on speech and that can be used against them. For example, there are cases of housing discrimination and employment discrimination against black people just by the sound of their voices and their speech. Even though racial discrimination is illegal, it is hard to prove racial discrimination if it is just based on the speech sounds. It is same with gay speech and accented speech from other languages (depending on which languages).

With signing, it is similar. There are certain ways of signing that are acceptable in the mainstream ASL community, but when it comes to people of color’s way of signing, there is generally a question of how acceptable their signing is. If it matches perfectly, they are treated as part of the ASL community. If it is different, then their signing is open to criticism. It is the case that signers of color are subjected to double standards when it comes to signing, especially on the public front. I have seen a video of a black deaf woman who is an ASL teacher and she decided to contribute her thoughts about the controversy of de-initialization of ASL signs, meaning changing the handshapes of the signs so they appear to have no relationship with English. For example, removing the F handshape from the FAMILY sign and use the 5 handshape instead to depict a group of people. I thought the black deaf teacher made a few good points in her video. But instead, she got criticism from some people who commented about her choice of signs and questioned her teaching credentials and linguistic knowledge. It was disappointing, but it was not surprising.

How are you trying to challenge the normalities of the use of certain words?

I am still trying to find a better way to do it. Right now, I am doing it through social media by sharing resources and contributing my thoughts related to social issues. I find that doing workshop presentations are the most effective way to challenge the normalities of maintaining words and concepts that contain offensive meanings and contribute to social divisions. I have been publishing different materials, but they are largely for academic audiences. I need to translate them to accessible materials that are appropriate for the public. That takes time and I need to find right people to do that with so I can make that possible. But right now, it is social media and workshops.

Are you involved in any spaces that reimagine different ways of using language?

Right now, I am not actively involved in anything like that. I have seen people doing that kind of thing like I mentioned above about the controversy of de-initializing ASL signs. I am not involved in that at all because it comes with the complicated package of including and excluding people based on how well they know ASL and how well connected they are in the deaf community. There is a lot to unpack in term of racial, gender, generational, educational, and economic privileges. I have important projects that I need to tend to so I am not going to touch that.

How does an individual’s actions play in enforcing the biases of language?

I believe that I have mentioned that in one of the questions above. We all have biases and we all have certain beliefs about language. It seems like in this society, language is equated with speech and with speech, there are certain dialects that are deemed appropriated over the others based on social prestige. If we had accepted that there were different language varieties and no one were better than other, this wouldn’t be an issue. But there are some varieties that carry prestige based on socio-economic and political privilege of the certain communities and the amount of influence over the society. So the language is coded in a way is reinforced by people’s customs and behaviors so it is not detectable to themselves, but it is noticeable to other people who are part of the stigmatized or marginalized community.

How has technology interpreted biases in language? (e.g. through speech recognition, social media, artificial intelligence etc.)

I don’t think technology has a way to interpret biases in language. It is a tool for us, like how language is a tool for human beings. It is us that have biases and through the use of tools, our biases appear. So it is the practice that we need to look at with a critical eye, not the tool. I think it is difficult to look at different practices because it comes with so many different viewpoints and experiences that it is overwhelming for some people. And for some people, the practices are normal to their eyes so for us to bring up an issue, we could be accused of being divisive. It is something that we have to push through and to be consistent with our activism. With the change in practice, we can use the tools appropriately.

How is language used to desensitise inequality/human right issues?

Language is an ideological tool that can be used to shape people’s perception and behaviour and to maintain or change community practices. It can also be used to distort people’s perception and understanding of an event. All it takes is to have certain elements in a story that makes it appear as truth. If it lends itself to someone’s belief system, it will be accepted as truth. So in the case of human right issues, one has to appeal to people’s sensibilities and belief about their own community that is more deserving than others and the story will have a life of its own as a community narrative. In the case of racism, one has to appeal to the sense of white superiority and the belief in the institution that has everyone’s interest (that usually mean themselves) that makes it easy to disregard human right issues.

What role does media and political communication play in contributing to hateful rhetoric?

I believe the basis of all this is the economy, the kind of economy we have that encourages domination and oppression. Media and politics are part of the institution that privilege certain communities of people over others. With the system in the place that perpetuates and normalize the social divisions, we don’t have to look very far to see how normal the hateful rhetoric we see playing out in media and political communication every day. The systems are interconnected so it is difficult to pinpoint one thing. We have to address as many things as possible so we can show how everything is connected. What I do know is that the hateful rhetoric pays because it keeps people engaged on the media. We have to be resistant to that and find other avenues that won’t contribute our dollars to the oppressive institutions.