After reading this week’s material, my main takeaway is: that so-called “language problems” are not inherent in language itself, but are socially produced. Deficit thinking about the body-mind creates the illusion of deficits, and narrow notions of “language proficienty" are created by a small group of people in power. This raises the central question: Who gets to police language, and why?
Both the discussion of black language and the framework of crip linguistics show how power shapes what is considered “proficient” language and fluency. For example, Baker-Bell points out how corporations such as MTV, Mountain Dew, and Trader Joe’s profit from Black language appropriation while schools simultaneously stigmatize it (p. 13). Similarly, Henner and Robinson emphasize that disability in language is inextricably linked to normative expectations (p. 1). Deficient perceptions of the body-mind create the illusion of “disordered” language (p. 1). In both readings, it is not the language itself that is deficient, but the social norms - rooted in racism, classism and ableism- that characterize it as such. Both readings state that language policing is less about communication and more about maintaining unequal power relations and discriminating against marginalized communities.
This is also a problem in Deaf Education. Henner and Robinson point out that deaf children's parents often do not know sign language at home, so it is the task of schools to teach it (p.7). However, these sign language skills are also characterized by biased notions of “language proficiency”. They suggest that sign language proficiency is defined by elites/a small group of people who have a certain type of sign language speaker in mind as the ideal model (p. 12). This obviously leads to inequities, such as students outperforming their own teachers in sign language, while reproducing unjust systems related to whiteness and ableism. Again, the problem is not with the language of deaf children, but with who sets the norm and how narrow that definition is.
At the end of the “Crip Linguistic” article, the authors introduce the idea of calibration, which I find new and interesting and I believe offers an alternative answer to the question. Rather than requiring a rigid fluency of sign language, educators and pedagogical approaches should be more flexible and be able to “facilitate learning across all possible variations… [with] an expansive semiotic repertoire” (p. 11). As the reading points out, “teachers should be fluent, but any assessment of fluency must be analyzed for biases” (p. 12). This view relates with my experiences, since as a student learning English, I too was pressured to conform to rigid definitions of “English proficiency." In tests (such as the TOEFL exam), I was measured against inflexible standards instead of recognizing my effort and creativity in English communication. The idea of calibration offers me a new perspective on fluency as responsiveness rather than conformity, which opens up a more just way forward for marginalized students.