Deaf immigrants in the northeast United States: intelligibility & the interpersonal
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Abstract
How does being an immigrant shape the experience of being deaf in the United States and vice versa?Drawing from approximately 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the northeast United States, this research examines the lived experiences of deaf immigrants with a particular attention to their communicative encounters and languaging practices. This article focuses on the collaborative nature of deaf immigrants’ languaging to argue that understanding in communicative encounters is co-produced and that intelligibility is achieved relationally. Through ethnographic examples, I emphasize the importance of interpersonal relationships to establishing understanding in deaf immigrant communicative interactions and argue that, in encounters with the United States immigration regime, the social and interpersonal dimensions of communication are at least as significant (if not more so) than the linguistic dimensions to achieving such understanding.
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