LANGUAGE EQUITY FOR DEAF AND HARD OF HEARING GEOSCIENTISTS

What do the following have in common: conference presentations, webinars, faculty meetings, lectures, discussions at poster sessions, round tables and research group meetings? These are all critical venues for communicating science, collaborating and advancing our science. These venues also typically use spoken language, occasionally with real-time captions. Geoscientists whose identities include being deaf or hard of hearing (DHH+) do not have equal access to traditional research collaborations. As a DHH+ geoscientist who has worked with both hearing and signing deaf collaborators, I see this power-imbalance every day. The burden is on us to anticipate our communication needs and request or provide accommodations so that we can participate. However, most language accommodations do not provide true inclusion because they still center spoken language. The fatigue of keeping up with conversations, even with accommodations, limits our participation. When some collaborators use signed languages and others use spoken language, conversations need to navigate additional power-imbalances. The dominant language of most interpreters is spoken language so they will generally be more efficient at voicing signed language than signing voiced languages. Furthermore, interpreters have variable expertise in geoscience knowledge. These issues add to language inequities for signed languages users.

What could research collaborations look like if we disrupted the audism of spoken language science communication? Open captions benefit DHH+ (and others) and provides a record of the discussion. Conversation pauses help interpreter accuracy and benefit everyone. If each speaker states/signs their name before their comment everyone knows who is speaking and does not talk over one another. Idea generation does not require oral discussion. Real time group brainstorming within shared documents allows for collaboration and quiet reflection that yields deeper insights that are recorded. Periodic summative comments also help all participants. The sum effect of these and other disruptions to audistic assumptions, is to slow down communication. Like slow science, slow communication goes against the productivity-focused culture of academia but allows for greater inclusion and language equity.