Magdalena Dunaj

The paper aims to answer how deaf/Deaf practice inferred the sound. The author analyses the Reddit discussion on deaf experiences with sound. Using Steven Feld’s concept of acoustemology, which is one’s sonic way of knowing and being in the world, the author discusses the meaning of sound in the deaf/Deaf epistemological experience. The sound is a pharmacon. For the deaf/Deaf, the sound brings both positive and negative, expected and unexpected. Ernesto Laclau’s term of emancipation is used to explain how d/Deaf sound practices entail this ambiguity. The author describes four sound emancipatory strategies: expect unexpected, sound management, fabrication of sound, and semiosis. The deafness condition breaks down the perfect ideas of sound and silence, placing us in the sound continuum. Sound is perceivable, but the significance it brings is sometimes debatable. Sound emancipatory strategies enable d/Deaf people to tell their own story of experiencing sound, take control over the sound and show their expertise on it, free their hearing process, and break speech hegemony.

The article presents an analysis of interviews with and for deaf people posted on the website of the project “Deaf Poland Can”. The topic of the analysis are epistemic practices of deaf people, i.e. both the content of deaf people’s knowledge and the ways of gaining this knowledge. Epistemic practices of deaf people have a twofold reference to sensuality. On the one hand, it is noticeable at the level of discourse, which shows the possibilities of a deaf person and his/her specific bodily experience. On the other hand, it is visible at the sign-language level, where elements such as motion and visuality give the descriptions a particular kind of precision.