Friday, June 9, 2023

Susan Schaller, A Man Without Words ***

The titular Man Without Words is a deaf Mexican immigrant who reached adulthood without learning a language. The author meets him in a community college classroom where she is working as an ASL interpreter. She becomes intrigued by the question of how he understands the world and how she might bridge the yawning gap between them. She struggles, with no educational training, to find an effective way to communicate abstract concepts such as color and time.

I agree that these are fascinating questions, but was frustrated by Schaller's approach to them. Although she said she wanted to understand his worldview, she regularly implies that his languagelessness meant he couldn't have a worldview ("what would it be like to have to invent and project meaning onto the world without any information or clues, without any feedback?"). She imagines his mind as a blank slate despite the fact that he had survived as an agricultural worked for 10 years. Whenever she asserted that Ildefonso completely lacked a concept, say time, I thought, "He couldn't get along without some concept of time that is surely different from yours in interesting ways." Similarly, she believes that his lack of language means he can't communicate with people despite clear evidence to the contrary. I didn't feel like I could trust her interpretation of their interactions, and regretted that she didn't really try to plumb his point of view.

Imagining Ildefonso as a blank slate helps support Schaller's savior syndrome. "Compared to Ildefonso, I was a god"! In the latter chapters, she considers herself the sole advocate for languageless people and deaf children. Her author biography states that she is "currently revolutionizing education by using ASL storytelling."

No comments:

Post a Comment