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UCLA
Anthropology Discourse Lab |
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Cre Engelke (UCLA Anthropology)
"The Dys-Embodied Voice: Disability and the Conspicuous Voice" |
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Abstract: Anthropological studies of voice have regularly taken as given the individual’s capacity to produce infinite utterances in nearly unlimited variation, often relying on this potential to make claims about human agency and the adeptness with which sound can be said to ‘embody’ socially recognized phenomena. In this paper I interrogate the notion of the ‘embodied voice’ by looking at data from dysarthric speakers who use tablet-like computers to produce their voices. As with any technology, these devices extend bodily abilities to act, thereby altering users’ relationship with and perception of their environments. Examples of this can be seen in the ways that individuals use their devices in everyday settings, exploiting affordances to carry out novel courses of action, including those unanticipated in the device’s design (e.g. singing or delivering a temporally sensitive punch line). However, technology also offers a potential site of breakdown. Issues like slow utterance production and the lack of dynamic prosody control can impede or disrupt users’ participation in various social settings, making the ‘voice’ conspicuous within users’ projects. In such instances, the voice (qua embodied action) becomes the basis of an “I can’t,” rather than the usual “I can” (Merleau-Ponty 1962). Furthermore, AAC users sometimes reject thesynthetic voice as too different from their own imagined or remembered 'phonosonics' (Harkness 2011), implicating another aspect of the fundamental “mine-ness” of voice. This paper concludes by reflecting on ways that voice, as a product of the body, situates us and contributes to our perception of the world. |