Part of: Queer Transgression and
Resistance
Authors: Erin Moriarty, Octavian Robinson
Abstract:
This paper examines the politics of contact between hegemonic languages, such as English, and relatively minoritized languages, such as American Sign Language (ASL), with a specific focus on how gender and sexuality are indexed. ASL’s multimodality affords infinite possibilities for queering binary understandings of gender, particularly through phenomena like mouthing and pointing. Mouthing, or the silent articulation of spoken/written words alongside the simultaneous production of a sign (Jaraisy & Stamp, 2024), has historically been marginalized in linguistic research. Similarly, pointing, an indexical feature of ASL, offers unique affordances for encoding meaning through non-arbitrary gestures, extending the possibilities available in spoken languages (McBurney, 2002). These elements, when analyzed through a gender-critical, queer, and trans lens, challenge conventional categorizations of linguistic normativity.
Historically, perspectives on Deaf language, such as those advanced by Helmer R. Myklebust (1960, republished in 2022), have framed certain ASL structures as “language errors.” Myklebust used the term “deafisms” to describe patterns of usage that deviate from spoken language norms. This pathologization reflects linguistic ableism, which constructs ASL as deficient rather than recognizing its expansive possibilities for world-making. Through a Crip Linguistics lens, we interrogate the assumptions underpinning such pathologization, highlighting how so-called “errors” are instead productive sites of linguistic innovation and self-determination.
A central concern of this paper is what happens when heteronormative expectations are applied to Deaf languaging practices. We specifically focus on the mouthing of pronouns in ASL. Pronoun use in ASL offers a compelling site for analyzing how gender is indexed and how modalities can reinforce or disrupt expectations of gender normativity. Given that ASL’s visual-gestural modality allows for fluid and expansive gender expressions, its pronoun system provides unique insight into how trans and nonbinary identities are signified, misread, or erased within hegemonic linguistic frameworks.
