Communicative Participation And Its Participation

Communicative Participation Communicative participation can be defined as â€Å"how individuals participate in a range of discourse activities in contextually situated ways that, in turn, reflect on the manner of their involvement in culture† (Kovarsky, 2003). Communicative participation varies dramatically based on whom the individual is that is attempting communication, and what the purpose of the communication is. There are an extraordinary amount of contexts that can affect the communicative participation as well. Communicative participation is such a broad term that covers so much, that it is divided into many layers. These layers are overlapping and construct the whole of communicative participation. The five layers that work to†¦show more content†¦The first is the example from an article written by Laura Polich, that examines deafness in Nicaragua. In Nicaragua, deafness is considered a disease that affects more than just your ability to hear. â€Å"This reli gious worldview has influenced how deaf children, who are so communicatively shut out of an oral world, were (and are) seen by society: most likely the result of God s wrath brought on by some sin† (Polich, 2005, p. 225-226). Being deaf in Nicaragua does not only affect one s ability to hear but also their ability to participate in society. Deaf individuals in Nicaragua are outcasts, their disability is thought to be because someone in their family committed a strong enough sin that God wanted to place deafness on them. For this reasoning, deaf children used to be hidden from society, it is less common now, however it does still occur. This all results from the fact that deaf individuals in Nicaragua can not communicate very much orally. Lacking the ability to speak is considered a serious detriment, because very few people in Nicaragua had embraced sign language up until recently. In this respect, the community of Nicaragua had almost no way to communicate with those around t hem and were extremely culturally dis-valued. Because of this lack of communication, in Polich s survey (1998) (as cited in Polish, 2005) 40% of people responded to the question â€Å"with which [hearing] person living in your