Macherey

For Thursday, Dr. Cummings had the class read Pierre Macherey’s “A Theory of Literary Production.” I think it is interesting how previous posts commented on how they use silence in their lives and a few said that they use silence when they are arguing with someone or witnessing others using the silence treatment. I agree that this is an effective way of using silence because then words that could hurt someone are not used. I use this same tactic when I am in an argument with someone but I want to focus on people who live their lives in silence, people who are deaf.

People who are not deaf say that there is still communication even though there is silence through nonverbal cues. However, people who are deaf have to adapt to that silence and communicate differently through the use of sign language. My question is do deaf people communicate differently when they are not using sign language. I would think that the answer to this question is yes because they are so used to hearing what we call silence. I feel like some people who do not use constant sign language would develop misunderstandings when the person who is deaf is not trying to communicate. What we feel like is the norm when there is silence can be a completely different to someone who “hears” silence all the time. I also hear all the time that when there is a silence in a conversation that it is “awkward.” Another question I have is does a deaf person get these feelings of awkwardness when there is no communication through words? I am interested to see if these questions are answered in class.

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