“Strangers can’t tell”: Negotiating Identity in Small Stories by Parents of Deaf Children

Abstract: Online discussion groups serve as an important source of information for parents of deaf children seeking advice about cochlear implantation. Within such groups, advice is often given in the form of short narratives. While previous studies in the fields of public health and sociology have examined online advice-giving, little research has been done using a linguistic or discourse analysis approach. In this study, we analyzed a corpus of 50 very short stories in the form of comments made in response to requests for advice regarding pediatric cochlear implants. The stories were examined in terms of structure, positioning and lexicon, particularly with regards to identity construction. Five basic moves were identified and found to correspond to Labov’s (1972) framework for narrative analysis. Parents positioned themselves and the recipients of their stories as part of the hearing world, and described a process of transformation through which their deaf children were able to become hearing, or assimilate into the hearing world. Many of the storytellers emphasized mainstream accomplishments and their children’s ability to function as “normal” hearing individuals. At the same time, the stories did not demonstrate an explicit rejection of sign language or Deaf culture.