Jannelle Legg

Jannelle Legg obtained a Masters in Deaf History and a Masters in Deaf Cultural Studies from Gallaudet University in Spring 2011. Coda literature was the subject of her Deaf Cultural Studies Master’s thesis entitled “Both and Neither: Coda Lit and the Hearing Line”. She is currently employed as a Lecturer at Utah Valley University.

Sound and (Not) Belonging- the Role of Sound and Silence in Shaping Coda Experience.

The experience of Codas (children of deaf adults) is not one that is commonly examined in Deaf Studies. This paper aims to examine the intersection between emerging work in this field, particularly Hilde Haualand’s “Sound and Belonging” and Coda narrative texts. The presenter takes the position that much like hearingness and deafness, silence and sound are mutually dependent and culturally constructed concepts that are often understood to represent the differences between deaf and hearing people. However, when explored, sound and silence are found to be unstable and ambiguous concepts. The meanings attached to these constructs oscillates between positive and negative reflecting a culturally-specific and complicated value-laden system. Given the cultural significance of these constructs, Haualand posits that it is possible for individuals from different cultural groups to ‘hear differently’.
In the production and reproduction of sound and silence, Coda texts reveal two key pieces of information. First, they reflect a powerful negotiation between competing cultural frames. Coda texts demonstrate that these individuals frequently serve as mediators of sound and silence- interpreting their production and understanding across cultural boundaries. Furthermore, the meanings that Codas attach to sounds that are traditionally denigrated indicates that Codas are capable of creating their own frameworks to understand the meanings of sound and silence in relation to deafness and hearingness. These frameworks serve both to destablize the concept of static constructions and develop new and unique cultural understandings of these concepts.