In one the recent additions in the anthropology journal AnthroGlobe, Grace Keyes examines “how hearing loss impacts an individual’s enculturation”. Enculturation, she explains, is in anthropology textbooks defined as “process by which people acquire their culture (the social norms, symbols, customs, cultural knowledge, meanings, etc.)”.
So what happens when a person cannot hear? Researchers, however, have largely neglected to take into account how biological factors such as hearing may affect enculturation, she writes:
It is generally assumed that language is a major vehicle of enculturation and that most people experience the process in much the same way if they belong to the same culture or society. The role of hearing in language acquisition and enculturation is taken for granted. Thus, works that examine the role of hearing in the enculturation process are non-existent in the anthropological literature. In fact, there exits very little literature on enculturation itself in anthropology.
>> read the whole paper “Incomplete Enculturation: The Role of Hearing” by Grace Keyes
SEE ALSO:
New Ethnography: The Deaf People – A Forgotten Cultural Minority