[Air-l] Query on the use of email by deaf persons

[Ken Friedman]

Dear Colleagues,

A debate on another list in which I participate occasional a post 
suggesting that there is something to be learned from the way that 
deaf email users communicate. The post stated that the deaf may use 
email in a way that has something to teach the hearing.

I queried the writer on this, but I have had no reply.

Is there someone on AIR-L who knows anything about how the deaf use 
email? Do they have some special habits or usage patterns that are 
instructive to the rest of us?

If anyone here has some knowledge of this, I would welcome a post. If 
the deaf use of email is, in some way, different than the use of 
email by the hearing, I would appreciate a description of how the 
deaf use email.

The deaf may well have some special culture of email use that enables 
effective social communication.

Since the note argued that this involves the way the deaf use email, 
it means they are limited to exactly the same tools and skill sets 
available to the rest of us. This is what made the concept promising.

At the same time, there would seem to be a limit on likely 
explanations. The explanations must either be technical or cultural.

If the explanation has something to do with the culture of the deaf, 
there are several likely explanations.

The deaf use of email may in some way relate to the development and 
use of sign among deaf.

If this is the case, the applications to people from other cultural 
groups will be limited.

The deaf use of email may in some way be related to usage patterns 
within small groups of people who already know each other in 
face-to-face meetings.

If this is the case, it parallels the use of text email by hearing 
that already know each other through face-to-face meetings. Research 
in computer mediated communication shows that usage patterns and 
understanding among those who already have a feeling for each other 
is vastly different than between and among those who know each other 
only through email.

Another possibility in the deaf use of email may involve some 
cultural phenomenon or social pattern that involves written 
communication by the deaf without depending on sign or face-to-face 
meetings. If this is the case, we may well have something to learn.

If the issues are technical, the possibilities are not necessarily significant.

An example of a technical solution would be the use of emoticons or 
shared symbols. These are, in essence, substitutes for words.

What is to be learned from this involves learning to be clearer and 
more careful in using words.

The problem with solutions such as emoticons is that they are 
symbols, just as words are. Emoticons do nothing more than can be 
done with words. They are simply compact substitutes for verbal 
phrases.

Just as a computer program involves two levels of communication -- a 
what and a how -- so, written text can do the same. This requires 
careful writing, and it requires that one attend to every aspect of 
the written communication. Good writing often communicates on the 
level of feeling and intended emotion as well as on the level of 
content.

This is common in writing known for its artistry -- Shakespeare, 
Ibsen, LeGuin, Hemingway, are all examples. You also see this in 
elegant scholarly writing by scholars who attend to the how of what 
they write as well as to the what.

There is also the question of how much is relevant to scholarly and 
scientific communication.

Much human communication is transmitted in non-verbal signals. Email 
is limited to words. This is also the case for scholarly and 
scientific communication.

The goal of scholarly and scientific communication is to render 
information explicit to the greatest degree possible. This is how 
people are able to gather all the aspects and attributes of an item 
of information even at a distance, with enough clarity that they are 
able to transform it into their own knowledge.

In this, I imagine that the deaf are very much like the rest of us.

While I am no expert on the deaf, I have long been aware of the 
special nuances and subtleties of communication that are available in 
sign and the parallel series of gesture and physical tone that seem 
to accompany the use of sign. I first studied deaf communication in 
my doctoral work back in the 1970s. I have remained interested in 
some of these issues, at least from a distance.

It would make good sense to me that the deaf culture may have 
produced a more sophisticated use of email than is common among the 
hearing.

There is no way to know if this is so without a description. I am 
aware of the deaf culture and the subtleties of sign because people 
took the time to document, explain, and clarify it.

If anyone who has this information could post it to the list, it 
would be a real contribution.

Thank you.

Ken



-- 

Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Technology and Knowledge Management
Norwegian School of Management

Visiting Professor
Advanced Research Institute
School of Art and Design
Staffordshire University