OF LITERACY, BRAILLE, AND THE ODDITIES OF SEMANTICS by Kenneth Jernigan Is it proper to refer to a blind person who cannot read Braille as illiterate? How much do we owe to the blind of the next generation, and how can we balance that obligation with the needs of the blind of today? I recently found myself pondering these and a variety of related questions. Here is how it happened: December 31, 1989 Dear Dr. Jernigan: I write you to shed some light on a recent controversy I have had with my fellow Federationists. First of all, I must give you some background. I have been in a local chapter of the Federation for over a year and have attended a national convention, which was an enlightening experience. Recently I was lobbying in the state capital for blind rights and further funding. One item on the agenda (an item which I wholeheartedly supported) was the request that Braille training be provided as an option for all children who are identified as legally blind in the school system. These children would learn Braille with other traditional reading and writing methods. I would have been one of those children back in the fifties who would have benefited from such a program. Now, at middle age, after dealing with retinitis pigmentosa for a number of years, I have seen the advantage of learning Braille and am currently pursuing the study of it. My dissatisfaction arose when my fellow Federationists referred to the adult community, in the process of losing their vision, as "illiterate." This term is not appropriate for blind adults since it is synonymous with ignorance, lacking education, and violating speaking and writing patterns. Instead, I prefer to see myself as print handicapped or unable to access print. We have recently seen Dustin Hoffman win the Academy Award for his portrayal of an autistic savant. Twenty years ago, when I was a freshman and sophomore in college studying many psychologies, the term was "idiot savant." When we look to the deaf community, their strides are highlighted by the avoidance of the term "deaf and dumb." Fifteen years ago, I was an employee of our local board of education working with "emotionally disturbed" children. Once again, the terminology has been changed to include "learning disabled" or the "Office of Special Education." I make these illustrations to question the role of semantics in our view of ourselves and society's view of us. Let us make an assumption that the word illiterate is correct. Is a blind person skilled in Braille who experiences diabetic onset with a loss of feeling in the fingers then considered "illiterate?" My suggestion is as follows: Avoid emotional pleas to educators and congressmen at the expense of peers and fellow Federationists. We should be aware of linguistics and the part they play. Governmental agencies, libraries, and groups dealing with the blind look to the blind for cues in language and descriptive literature as to how we wish to be portrayed. I thank you for your time, and I look forward to any comments you have regarding this matter. Very truly yours, Baltimore, Maryland January 11, 1990 Dear ----: I have your thoughtful letter, and I thank you for it. The dictionary in my office says: "illiterate" 1. ignorant; uneducated; especially, not knowing how to read or write." Certainly a blind person who cannot read may be both well-educated and possessed of learning, but by definition one who cannot read cannot read. Therefore, according to the dictionary, such a person is at least one-third illiterate--in fact, more than one-third since the dictionary uses the word "especially." Illiteracy, it tells us, means "especially not knowing how to read or write." This brings us to the question of what it means to be able to read. Again, I turn to the dictionary in my office. It says: "read 1. a) to get the meaning of (something written, printed, embossed, etc.) by using the eyes, or for Braille, the finger tips, to interpret its characters or signs." That is what the dictionary says, and the definition seems quite clear. You are right in saying that the term "illiterate" carries negative connotations. You are also right in saying that we should find a way to make Braille available to blind children. You say that we should not use the term "illiterate" for a blind person who does not know Braille but that we should call such a person "print handicapped" or say that he or she "cannot access print." How are we to distinguish between a blind child who reads Braille fluently and one who cannot read at all? Both are "print handicapped," and neither can "access print." There is, of course, an exception. What about the blind person who puts a print page on a Kurzweil Machine and thus "accesses print?" If we go to legislators and tell them that Braille must be made available to the "print handicapped" or those who cannot "access print," I fear that some of them (being truly illiterate) will not know what we are talking about. We must find a way to get their attention and help them cut through the jargon of some of the educators, so that blind children will have the opportunity to learn to read. In matters dealing with blindness, legislators (like the general public) tend unquestioningly to take the word of the so-called experts--not the blind, who live with the problem, but the professional educators, who theorize about it. Still, we must get their attention and make them understand, and it must be done in a manner that is not only true but also graphic and effective. Everybody (legislators, the general public--everybody) knows that to be illiterate is bad, and everybody knows (it is accepted without a second thought) that those who cannot read are illiterate. Therefore, a rather cryptic and powerful way of making our point is to say that a blind child who is denied the right to learn Braille is forced to be functionally illiterate--which, incidentally, is often the case and which in certain subtle ways is, at least to some extent, true of all of those who are so deprived. At least, so the dictionary tells us. Actually we are dealing on the one hand with semantics and on the other with the very real down-to-earth question of what we can do to see that blind children have the opportunity to learn Braille. As I have already said, there are certainly negative connotations to the term "illiterate," and nobody wants to cast aspersions on blind adults who, for whatever reason, did not learn to read Braille. So we have to speak with care and sensitivity, but we must also speak with whatever acerbity is required to see that blind children have the chance to be and do all that they can--and this means the chance to learn Braille. For the blind person there is simply no substitute. In the heat of battle, when we are trying to get something which is urgently needed for our children, we may sometimes forget to be temperate in our language. We should be careful about this. In our attempt to help the next generation we must try to avoid doing things which will hurt the present generation. But after saying all of this, I come back to the central point. Today's blind and visually impaired children simply must not be deprived of the right to learn to read Braille. This is key to their future, and we are the ones who have to get the job done. The children cannot do it for themselves, and their parents do not always have the background, the information, or the clout to do it. In a sense what I have said does not directly deal with some of the central points in your letter. I do not believe that an adult who has learned to read and has thereby become "literate" is generally regarded as illiterate if he or she loses the physical capacity to continue to be able to read. This may not precisely square with the dictionary definition, but I think that definition does not contemplate such a situation. Moreover, there is the added question of whether one is reading a book when one gets the information from a tape recorder, a live reader, a speech synthesizer, or (as I have already said) a Kurzweil Reading Machine. The dictionary would imply that one is not, but the matrix for the dictionary definition was formed in pre-technology days, fashioned by people who had probably not thought about the questions we are discussing. I had always believed that the definition of reading was "getting the thought from the printed page." By this definition listening to a book on a tape would qualify, even if one generation removed. A sighted person reads a print book (or a blind person reads a Braille book) into a recorder, and a listener later activates that recorder, thus (one generation removed) getting the thought from the printed (or, I suppose, the Brailled) page. Still, when I stand before an audience of 2,000 people and read the text of a speech, we do not say that the audience read my speech. We say that I read it and that they listened to it. But later if they hear it on a cassette (especially if it is included in a publication--like, say, the Braille Monitor), we may say that they read it. Does that mean that they are "literate" if they have access to a recorder, "illiterate" if they lose that access, and "literate" if they get it back? Probably not. One could be driven to the madhouse at the extremity of such speculations. Ah, the labyrinthine complexities of semantics and human speech! The trouble is that the matter does not end with semantics but translates into opportunity or crushing deprivation. Certainly the National Federation of the Blind is cognizant of and sensitive to the nuances of language in setting the tone of public behavior toward the blind. All one need do to verify this fact is read President Maurer's banquet speech of 1989 or mine of 1983. In trying to get opportunities for our children we must not say or do things which will damage the present generation of adult blind persons, but I reiterate that (regardless of semantics, hair-splitting distinctions, definitions, or high-flown professional theory) we absolutely must see that blind children have the chance to learn to read and that the climate of opinion in the schools (including the nuances of language) encourages and nourishes that chance. At the bottom line this means that blind and visually impaired children (all of them) must have the opportunity to learn Braille. Otherwise, their horizons will be narrowed and their prospects limited. Sincerely, Kenneth Jernigan Executive Director National Federation of the Blind