SENGHAS, Richard J (Sonoma State U) POLITICALLY-CORRECTED LANGUAGE: WOLF, WHORF, & ANTHROPOLITICAL LINGUISTICS IN POLICY DEBATES

WORKING DRAFT

Abstract

Linguistic anthropologists seem nearly invisible in public debates regarding language policy. Our insights apparently are not compelling to the general public. How can our theory and practice be turned more effectively to the public good? In "Envisioning Power," Eric Wolf demonstrates that ideology plays a crucial element in social organization. Yet his theory of ideology and power fails to elaborate the mechanisms by which certain ideas become more compelling than others. Benjamin Whorf’s theoretical contributions on the relation of habitual thought and behavior to language provide a complementary approach, one that addresses the very levels at which "common sense" is established or challenged. Combining these two approaches, with recognition that issues of force must also addressed, linguistic anthropologists can go beyond simply describing sociocultural processes involving language. We are positioned to propose strategies and tactics for improving both the content of policy documents addressing language and the necessary public policy debates regarding those very policies. I draw on a range of examples from linguistic anthropologists, including my own fieldwork examining changing attitudes towards Nicaraguan Sign Language, to suggest specific changes in approaches that will improve our discipline’s contributions to society.

 

Introduction

My own fieldwork has been conducted among a Deaf community in Nicaragua, a situation involving the emergence of a new language. During the 1990s, I have seen radical shifts in language policy that affect attitudes Managuans have towards individuals who are deaf, changing from the classification of such individuals as uneducable or mentally retarded, to recognition of them as intelligent, competent individuals who are seen as educable, now participating as voting members of society, and members seeking the arguable legal right to contractual obligations (for example, being able to hold titled property or be a party to a legal contract. I believe that the role of language experts, including psycholinguists, audiologists, and linguistic anthropologists such as myself have contributed positively to this change. As a result of disciplined analysis of both the language used by the Deaf Nicaraguans and the nature of the community of Deaf individuals, new knowledge about the sign language provided opportunities for intervention that have been exploited, allowing Deaf adults to become mentors in the classroom where beforehand they had been excluded. Yet the contributions of researchers must be seen as only part of a larger complex of processes; it took a combination of 1) recognition that the patterns of communication amongst the deaf were indeed linguistic, 2) recognition that both pedagogical & ideological concerns were at play within the special education system in Nicaragua, and, perhaps most importantly, 3) local motivations of groups and individuals that helped to change social practice, and these groups and individuals were leveraging existing social and political patterns to recast their lot within a larger system. As a result, the change of status of deaf individuals and their use of sign language, in categorical terms, shifts the alignments of all references, providing even further opportunities for structural changes.

This paper (in its current form) is not a traditional finished article. It is intended as a background statement providing some of my examples and experiences to help facilitate a conversation amongst anthropologists and policymakers dealing with language policy formation and implementation for a working panel session. It is intended to be developed into a more formal paper in the future; my primary goal here is to open avenues of fruitful discussion, rather than conclusively defend an analysis or interpretation, or a larger theoretical model. Thus, comments are explicitly invited, for both relevant specific ethnographic examples and for general theory, but especially for developing actual processes in policy formation and implementation.

 

Habitual Patterns as Openings

So, what makes policy implementation effective? I argue that we must find the already-receptive points, the openings where possible change is primed for acceptance. What would be an example of an already-receptive point, an opening? Let me draw upon Jane Hill’s (1985) example of the ideological use of lexical forms among a community in the Malinche volcano region of Mexico. Local individuals there attended to particular words consciously, using local Mexicano or Spanish lexical forms to mark speakers with locally-relevant social identification. Yet these speakers attended less consciously to grammatical aspects of their language, and thus inadvertently revealed their individual linguistic socialization histories, whether it be in the local community or extended stints in distant factories (Hill 1985), even when those histories might not support their intended claims to local authority or authenticity. Hill invokes Bakhtin’s notions of "active words", but applying them to the syntactic level rather than the lexical, as a theoretical underpinning for her analysis. Hill’s linguistic analysis indicates that, in the long run, some macro-economic (capitalist) processes are already clearly established within the Malinche community, and deeply, even though more obvious patterns might suggest that ‘tradition’ is resisting change. Habitual patterns in the ways that locals interacted economically and politically have, in the end, introduced more language change than the combined efforts of Malinche individuals could resist, despite conscious use of traditional Mexicano linguistic forms.

I recall a particular incident in Nicaragua demonstrating local ideology of language, in this case a resistance to accept an emerging language as valid, despite changes that seemed inevitable to me. A Nicaraguan specialist in the pedagogy of deaf children described sign language in deficit terms, drawing attention to a linguistic element that would be most noticeable to a native Spanish speaker. Nicaraguan sign does not have direct analogs to the Spanish verbs ser or estar. When research colleagues of mine made a presentation about the structure of Nicaraguan Sign Language to special education teachers, highlighting structural differences between the syntax of Spanish and the sign language, this specialist seemed to miss much of their point. My colleagues were trying to clarify that the sign language was an effective first language for deaf children to learn, capable of allowing the children to think and communicate about abstractions. The sign language ought not to be considered as merely mime. However, the specialist latched onto the lack of ser and estar, and used this deficit not to demonstrate that the sign wasn’t language, but that it was a less complete language than Spanish. The problem was compounded by our use of the term indígena, which we had picked up from our interactions with Nicaraguan linguists who studied indigenous languages of Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, such as Sumu, Rama, and Miskitu. Our use, following those Nicaraguan linguists who often wrote for academic publications, used the term indígena to indicate languagesnative to a geographical area. The specialist had drawn on another connotation of the term, one akin to our problematic English term primitive. This specialist even went so far as to use our own usage to show that we agreed with her assessment that the sign language was obviously inferior to Spanish. Thus, our insensitivity to local context inadvertently worked against our efforts to demonstrate that the sign language indeed has complex linguistic structures. Alas, the lesson those teachers seemed to take from that session was that Nicaraguan Spanish lacked more sophisticated lexical items, reconfirming local assumptions that sign language was (merely) a concrete, primitive language, rather than one with sophisticated and regular patterns of spatial agreement and systematic morphology. So we learned to dodge that term, shifting to propria a Nicaragua, meaning of Nicaragua or specific to Nicaragua, which has proven much more successful. (Perhaps we should call this politically-corrected language, that is, ‘corrected’ by political reality.)

The incident just noted is not isolated. It is directly related to many others that reveal ideological systems surrounding language. Two specific ideological dimensions here involve the status of sign languages used by deaf people relative to those spoken languages used by hearing folk, and the relative value of majority languages with respect to those of linguistic minorities. For centuries, and in many countries, there have been tensions regarding what modality is appropriate for educating deaf students: should they be taught a spoken language as their first language using oral methods? Or should they first learn a sign language and then learn to read and write (and possibly speak) the locally-dominant (spoken) language as a second language. Susan Plann has explored these issues as far back as the middle of the 16th century in Spain (1997), and in Nicaragua they are still contested issues. It wasn’t until the early 1990s in Nicaragua, after unsuccessfully insisting on only oral pedagogy in the special education program for deaf children and finally recognizing that pure oralism has been ineffective, that the Ministry of Education shifted official policy, indicating that sign language would be officially recognized as a legitimate mode of instruction. In a sense, the scientific identification the signing of deaf Nicaraguans as being authentically linguistic came as a relief; it allowed an inevitable and creeping practice to be permitted. I’ll return to this point later on.

Thus, we cannot ignore the power (and inertia) of ideology. Only so much change can occur at each step. We must recall that in the daily use of language within established frames of reference (languaculture, as Michael Agar would have it (Agar 1994)), and even among linguists, signifiers have differing signifieds. What we’ve just seen is that the habitual use of language invokes whole frames, and often results in perpetuating sets of relations that directly affect social structure. However, as descriptive linguists, I and my colleagues have not tried to change how non-academics should change their use of indígena. We realize instead that to make our intended scientific points (i.e. to change common interpretations of perceptions so that they might, in turn, change common sense), we have to seek out existing patterns of use in Nicaraguan terms and phrases to find those already laden with both the denotations and connotations that we need.

These findings are by no means earthshaking, and of course they echo long-standing insights raised at least as long ago as Boas, and further developed by Whorf, Sapir, and many others since (e.g. Lucy, Hoijer). Yet we seem, time and again, to lose sight of this simple point, often continuing to develop relatively short-term projects that are implemented, assessed, and abandoned within a span of just a few years (or months!), refusing to acknowledge the amount of time it takes to change habits. How many of us are successful at substantially changing our diets, or our patterns of activity and exercise, or our patterns of interactions with our siblings and parents, especially at our first attempts? Why should language be any different?

Ironically, the inertia of habitual patterns of thought and behavior provide us with openings for change. We habitually acknowledge certain social patterns that channel the deployment of resources. Certain roles, rituals, and other framing devices allow us to incrementally introduce new forms into existing patterns, making it easier for actors to habituate themselves to the new forms and patterns. Teachers often exploit such habituation, associating new ideas with established habits. Mnemonic devices, counting songs, and even semi-ritualized patterns of school schedules reinforce learning.

But many habitual patterns require a macro-level perspective to understand. Habitual patterns frequently involve social structures. An established pattern in Nicaragua, like so many places elsewhere, requires that teachers are properly trained and certified, especially for government-supported schools. In the hiring process, teachers are often assessed according to their credentials, rather than their actual or potential performance. An unintended (I hope) consequence is that good potential teachers without official credentials are often excluded from teaching positions. Those in hiring positions (principals and superintendents) are rarely the ones able to directly assess and certify a teacher. That authority has been held by colleges & universities, and more recently, standardized testing companies. Arguably, such division of authority is sensible. Initial pedagogical training is complex and time consuming, and requires very different skills and resources than does the managing of a school or, perhaps, providing ongoing professional development of that school’s faculty.

Yet such a division of authority, if left unmonitored, allows for the pedagogical training of teachers to become disconnected from the needs of the schools, and allows for unintended structural gaps that can become hard to close. For example, in Nicaragua, deaf adults have been excluded from teaching or helping in classrooms for deaf children because such roles were seen as the exclusive domain of traditionally credentialed teachers. However, because teachers fluent in signing were not available to deaf students in Nicaraguan schools, these students could not effectively access the curricular content of the programs, preventing the deaf students from earning high school diplomas and entering university. Of course, without the option of attending university, deaf adults had no hope of ever earning the necessary credentials to be hired as teachers. (See Senghas 1997, in press.)

 

Ideologies and Power

I’ve touched on ideologies of language and how such ideologies connect the daily use of sign language (such as during classroom instruction) to larger structural issues of teacher credentialing. Let’s take the scale up a few more steps toward the macro levels. Doing so will demonstrate that in this Nicaraguan case, we cannot properly understand the local phenomenon of sign language emergence and change without accounting for global scale issues, including policies of international intervention and funding.

Eric Wolf, in his attempt to understand the history of power relations over the past 500 years, demonstrates the interconnectedness of trade systems worldwide, and that macro and micro level social processes must be understood as complexly intertwined. In Envisioning Power, he goes further, attempting to understand how ideologies that result in "extreme expressions" (Wolf 1999) become possible, especially those that are officially sponsored by political systems. I know of few social scientists who would argue explicitly that local and global processes areentirely independent of each other, yet implicitly we minimize the implications of many such connections, abstracting processes from their encompassing social matrix without revisiting system-level analyses after we better understand those abstracted processes. I believe much of this isolating tendency is perpetuated here in the US because our society habitually reinforces the development of thought patterns that highlight individuality over macro-level social structure.

So, Wolf shows that by drawing upon and modifying existing ideological structures, especially already activated symbolic forms well-known to the communities involved, powerful individuals and groups have been able to leverage their influence to increase their power (1999). His cases range from the Kwakiutl of the Northwest Coast, to the Aztec’s of Mesoamerica, to the National Socialists (a.k.a. the Nazis) as led by Hitler. Yet in two of Wolf’s most significant works, Europe and the People without History and Envisioning Power, I didn’t find full enough explanation of the quotidian nature of ideological symbols, aspects that would explain why such symbols would prove so compelling. Habitual patterns are powerful, often remaining "invisible" to consciousness. But they are, in fact, quite observable. Habitual patterns can also be coordinated, creating new associations, despite Maurice Bloch’s contention that rituals ossify social order, rather than allow for creativity, and such new coordinations are capable of forging new ideological relationships between symbols within an existing ideological system. In this way the insights of Whorf complement nicely the structural insights of Wolf.

Let us now return to the Nicaraguan case and discuss the historical and international patterns as they relate to deaf pedagogy. Nicaraguan civil and educational institutions draw heavily upon the history of Spain. Much of the patterns go back as far as the 16th century (see Plann 1997), including issues surrounding the legal personhood of individuals considered mudo. It is important to note current and historical distinctions between mudo (mute) or sordomudo deaf-mute), and sordo (deaf). The latter term might be used to refer to someone who has lost hearing, especially after having acquired language. That person’s legal personhood is usually not in question. However, in historical Spain and even now in Nicaragua, the status as mudo or sordomudo, which implies an individual without linguistic competence, and full adult legal personhood for these individuals is usually an exception to the rule, and conferred usually only after juridical intervention based upon proof of the ability to read and write, at the least, and often only when "lip-reading" and the capability of speech are demonstrated. Despite constitutional changes in Nicaragua that have given deaf Nicaraguans the right to vote, they still do not normally have the right as parties to contracts, nor recognition as legal persons with respect to the Civil Code, which governs property rights. So, the situation of deaf individuals in Nicaragua has been strongly affected by long histories involving Spanish colonialism, a very macro-level process reaching down to constrain current, very localized interactions. Thus, even after a political revolution that explicitly attempted to challenge and revise established patterns of social relations, the Nicaraguan Civil Code still reflects many long-held patterns of social organization. These established patterns prevented openings for reception of sign language as a medium of instruction, even though oral methods had not, as one official in the Ministry of Education admitted, been effective.

However, the "scientific" recognition of Nicaraguan Sign Language as "true" language (sometimes referred to as "a full-blown language," despite its early stage and fairly rapid state of change) has not been the only ideological hurdle. The history of Nicaraguan language policy also includes episodes of contention along lines of majority/minority languages, frequently framed in terms of the human rights of indigenous peoples of the Caribbean Coast, particularly in the face of colonial domination. In this case we see both historical Spanish dominance, and later, dominance by governments centered in Granada, Leon, and Managua, all in western Nicaragua. Even the Sandinista government, though explicitly intent on changing patterns of dominance, fell into a familiar patterns with regard to minority languages of the Caribbean. Ironically (and hypocritically, from the perspective of many costeños), for several years the Sandinistas failed to recognize rights to self-determination, both political and cultural, of the costeños, and there were periods of marked strife over the legitimacy of minority language use in state-supported schools in the eastern regions. However, once a paradigm for bilingual/bicultural pedagogy was formally adopted for Caribbean communities, a precedent was established, which would provide a new opening for the Deaf community of Nicaragua as they appealed for acceptance of their language.

This raises another global-level phenomenon that is relevant to this case, the rise of an international movement of identity and autonomy of Deaf communities. Closely associated with the use of sign language, Deaf identity is often presented as a quasi-ethnic one, complete with unique sign languages, and often discussed in terms of shared histories and traditions (see Erting, et al. 1994; Lane, Hoffmeister, & Bahan 1996). This movement crosses national borders, as demonstrated by the World Federation of the Deaf, and facilitates the local organization of associations of and for deaf people. Frequently national, often regional, these associations communicate with each other, providing mutual support in terms both ideological and material. In the case of Nicaragua, SDR, the Swedish Deaf Association has provided considerable support, from funds to purchase the site of the national headquarters, to underwriting salaried positions within the Nicaraguan National Deaf Association (ANSNIC) and workshops for Nicaraguan special education teachers, to support for the production of a dictionary of Nicaraguan Sign Language (ANSNIC 1997). The organization and activities of ANSNIC would be familiar to many of us who have visited Deaf associations in other parts of the world, from their sign language classes for family members, to their seasonal fiestas with skits and speeches. ANSNIC would proudly mention these activities to visitors as achievements of their community, which have brought them recognition within international Deaf circles. Such international connections and knowledge of how Deaf people were treated in other countries often served to establish their expertise in issues surrounding deafness, and would also demonstrate their legitimacy as representatives of their own community.

Of course, yet another global-level phenomenon that has also affected this Nicaraguan community has been the presence of fieldworkers coming from the US, Sweden, and the UK, necessarily bringing with them patterns of interactions becoming familiar to those of us studying Deaf communities and their languages. And as we swap stories about our fieldwork, we frequently notice patterns across the accounts. We see similar roles and incidents, played out in local ways. (Folklorists could probably codify our motifs.) We also see patterns in our formal accounts, patterns that highlight Deaf identity, linguistic ideology around sign language use and recognition, and other social and linguistic phenomena that are more than our own projections. The effects of such fieldworkers studying sign languages are analogous to those, for example, that are associated with researchers who might be studying patterns of language use and ideology in our own schools or other social institutions. Issues over Ebonics in the Oakland, CA, school district come to mind, or the effectiveness of second language acquisition in the California system. Researchers attending to these issues by their necessary presence bring with them effects that must be considered when language policies debates occur. When linguistic researchers are afoot, many non-researchers start asking meta-linguistic questions.

I’ve just briefly explored here a few connections between habitual daily practices and macro-level phenomena as they implicate linguistic processes and ideology about language. I invite participants in this panels discussion to compare the various contributions of panelists and look for patterns. My hope is that our ethnographic and linguistic studies will bring to conscious attention patterns worth noting, and allow us to be more effective in our policy making and implementation.

 

So, Where Do We Go from Here?

The motivation for this session on anthropolitical linguistics is to enhance exchange among linguistic anthropologists and those who form and implement language policies. I take the risk of offering a few suggestions, directed to both researchers and policymakers, intending these suggestions to be improved during our session’s discussion. These are presented as merely starting points, first approximations. Both audiences, ethnographers and policymakers, are invited to improve on both sets of suggestions.

Suggestions to Ethnographic Researchers

By keeping in mind both the power of and limitations due to habitual patterns of language use, thought, and behavior, we researchers will improve the kinds of ethnographic research we conduct, and the usefulness of that research to policy makers. Furthermore, by recognizing connections between habitual patterns of language, thought, and behavior, on the one hand, and social structures and institutions, on the other, we are more likely to accurately describe which aspects of social processes are subject to systemic influence, a level at which policy seeks to operate.

Yet social structures and institutions must be thought in more complete terms, and I have begun to suspect a gap in the ethnographic literature. While public roles and activities of politically powerful persons sometimes figure even prominently in ethnographies, we don’t as often see the ‘private’ side of this category, especially in accounts of life in the US. In anthropology’s attempt to understand the "people without history," we have covered the minor daily details of all sorts of groups and societies. However, the habitual daily life of the power-elite, and the mechanisms by which this segment of the population frames their interactions, or gains, maintains, and expands their resources, still remains under-documented. Structural reasons might easily explain why this segment’s daily life would remain under-documented, but I believe that we should not leave this ideological stone unturned. Were the habitual patterns and ideological processes of such folk better understood by anthropologists (and policymakers!), we might find more openings for change, or anticipate better the likelihood of obstruction from that segment.

We must continue to document both small-scale and radical change in social processes, especially as we see how language ties in with other social processes, such as political, economic, and kinship systems. We must document the types and contexts of policy changes, noting both successes and failures, and by what measures —and by whom— these results are evaluated. The same results are often seen as both successes and failures, depending upon perspectives and motivations. For example, the development of an identifiable community among deaf individuals in the US has been seen as successful self-empowerment of a minority population (Lane, et al. 1996) and as a failure to incorporate deaf individuals into a larger social community (see especially the history of deaf pedagogy in the US as presented by Baynton 1996).

Perhaps most importantly, we must use our linguistic tools in ways that highlight the most counter-intuitive aspects of linguistic processes, as did Hill among the Mexicano (1985). One of the counter-intuitive observations offered here is the notion of politically-corrected language. It seems counter-intuitive that a new language, and one apparently developed by children and young adults, would be a more effective first language for deaf Nicaraguans than would an established, majority language. Yet I and my fellow researchers have used the theoretical understandings of both historical linguistics and individual language development to recognize and clarify the emergence of Nicaraguan Sign Language. The effectiveness of Nicaraguan Sign Language for teaching deaf children was made obvious to me the day I saw a Deaf Nicaraguan man successfully explain to members of his deaf community history of the Panama Canal. He even explained to them that sickle cell anemia interrupted the malarial cycle and that this connection was discovered when excavators of African descent didn’t die from malaria as they worked on the Panama Canal.

 

Suggestions to Policymakers

While language researchers may study the patterns of policy debate and implementation, many of us here are not policymakers. Perhaps the non-linguistic aspects of political processes, especially the most counter-intuitive aspects, need to be presented to us in ways that could allow us to better serve the policy debate process. The cynical element in me also would like to know about when talk about policy is ‘merely’ that, while maneuvers that effect policies are invisibly executed outside of debate processes. Furthermore, linguistic ethnographers always risk overplaying to some extent the role of language, simply due to the fact of our professional interest in examining language use. We need to be more informed as to the policymakers’ perspective.

So, perhaps ethnographers might be invited along to see how the game is lived and played, even through the most mundane parts of the lives of policymakers. If policymakers could include ethnographers through all stages of these processes, we might all learn some interesting patterns. Yet ethnographers need not have a primarily parasitic effect; we can be useful to those we observe in very practical ways. Ethnographers are participant-observers, not objective outside observers. Our participation could –should, according many anthropologists– include fulfilling functional roles in the processes we observe, and such participation actually makes us better observers, rather than the feared biased-observer that haunts so-called rational science. By participating as quasi-insiders, good ethnographers develop the habits, intuitions, and points of reference needed for successful sociocultural interpretation.

Perhaps these final suggestions are already understood, at least at an implicit level, but they bear being made explicit. Habitual patterns in language use, thought, and other behavior are integrated and reinforcing patterns, and are therefore hard to change. This is why they affect ideological moves so significantly. Long-term commitment and assessment is necessary for any language policies that are intended to make enduring, sustainable changes, and resources must be allocated accordingly. We must also attend to whatever affects there might be that are due to the transitions themselves, but become minor or moot once the transitions are complete. How will efforts to effect change maintain their impetus during the midway phases of transition, when political pressures demand dramatic and immediate results, yet before significant change has been firmly established?

 

Concluding Comments

Many unintended consequences prove fortuitous. (I’m sure that’s even how language started to begin with [cf. Deacon’s Symbolic Species (1997), especially Part III]). Change is inevitable, provides opportunities, and those policies intending to stop or prevent language change should be seen as only holding actions, at best. Successful policies involving language will account for the inevitable change of languages. Language policies can and do improve the lot of many individuals; they are worth pursuing. Classifying and treating deaf people in Nicaragua as retarded or perpetually-dependent, a well-established past pattern, was not only ineffective, but I believe contributed to language delay and even ultimately limited the language acquisition of many deaf people there. The Nicaraguan Ministry of Education’s policy shift simultaneously diminished stigma and opened opportunities for deaf students, opportunities which continue to open even further. Likewise, policies that we might implement here in the US, if well formed, may substantially increase opportunities for our society’s members. If we identify already existing opportunities, openings primed for the introduction of desired change, we are more likely to successfully implement policies. We must understand that we must leverage existing practices and patterns, using politically-corrected language rather than trying to politically-correct language in vain hopes of creating unlikely openings for change. With all the opportunities already available, we should use common sense in changing common sense.

 

References

 

Agar, Michael. 1994. Language Shock: Stokoe, William C., Dorothy C. Casterline, & Carl G. Croneberg. 1976. A Dictionary of ASL on Linguistic Principles. Linstok Press.

ANSNIC (Asociación Nacional de Sordos de Nicaragua). 1997. Diccionario del Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua. Managua: ANSNIC.

Baynton, Douglas C. 1996. Forbidden Signs: American Culture and the Campaign against Sign Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Deacon, Terrence W. 1998. The Symbolic Species. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Erting, Carol J., Robert C. Johnson, Dorothy L. Smith, & Bruce D. Snider (eds.). 1994. The Deaf Way: Perspectives from the International Conference on Deaf Culture. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.

Hill, Jane. 1985. "The Consciousness of Grammar and the Grammar of Consciousness." American Ethnologist.

Hoijer, Harry. [1954] 1995. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. Originally published in Language in Culture. Harry Hoijer (ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Reprinted in: Language, Culture, & Society: A Book of Readings. Second Edition. Ben G. Blount (ed.). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. 64-84.

Lane, Harlan, Robert Hoffmeister, & Ben Bahan. 1996. A Journey into the Deaf-World. San Diego, CA: DawnSignPress.

Lucy, John A.. [1985] 1995. Whorf’s View of Linguistic Mediation of Thought. Originally in Semiotic Mediation. Elizabeth Mertz & Richard Parmentier (eds.). 143-160. Reprinted in: Language, Culture, & Society: A Book of Readings. Second Edition. Ben G. Blount (ed.). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. 64-84.

————.1992. Grammatical Categories and Cognition: A Case Study of the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Plann, Susan. 1997. A Silent Minority: Deaf Education in Spain, 1550-1835. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Senghas, Richard J., & Judy Kegl. 1994. Social Considerations in the Emergence of Idioma de Signos Nicaragüense (Nicaraguan Sign Language). Signpost, v. 7, no. 1: 40-45.

Senghas, Richard J. 1997. An ‘Unspeakable, Unwriteable’ Language: Deaf Identity, Language & Personhood among the First Cohorts of Nicaraguan Signers. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Rochester, New York. (Available through UMI, Ann Arbor, MI, UMI number: 9808912.)

Smith, Hazel. 1993. Nicaragua: Self-determination and Survival. London: Pluto Press.

Whorf, Benjamin Lee. [1941] 1995. The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language. Originally from Language, Culture, and Personality, Essays in Memory of Sapir. Leslie Spier, A. Irving Hallowell, and Stanley S. Newman (eds.). 75-93. Published by the Sapir Memorial Publication Fund. Reprinted in: Language, Culture, & Society: A Book of Readings. Second Edition. Ben G. Blount (ed.). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. 64-84.

————.1999. Envisioning Power: Ideologies of Dominance and Crisis. Berkeley: University of California Press.