Friday, September 16, 2005

The Voices

While clicking around the excellent The Voices Recordings map at the BBC site, I lucked onto the dot over Edinburgh. Each dot on the map leads to a page of sound files of people conversing in that place--so you hear Scots women in Ayrshire talking about shoes, or a family of Kentish fishermen talking about the weather, that kind of thing. They're usually talking about language, whether it's quirks of local vocabulary or accents or the power of certain epithets. Anyway, the Edinburgh dot brings you to a page with five sound files of three actors with cerebral palsy, discussing disability terminology and disability culture. James McSharry, Robyn Hunt, and Malawi Logan are the wonderfully candid, articulate, and frank participants--if you get a chance, have a listen. On childhood taunts, for example, McSharry says, "Somewhere along the line, that language creates a stereotype that it's ok to throw a stone at me."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I Spotted the blog from penny about the voices project on the web, it was actually me that made the comments for the bbc uk voices..it might interest you to know that it was part of a wider discussion in which i tried to make the listener understand why language in relation to Disabilty is essential as it not only creates the conditions which legitimises stone throwing, but in extremes our removal...its nice to see it was picked up by your bloggers keep it up! i'll put you in my favourites. jim mcsharry