Nemoto is a communicator who introduces a wide range of books in Japanese Sign Language (JSL) through some social media. It was the second time I met him when he came over to the interview for our website.
The first time we met was about three weeks before – we met at a small pizza restaurant. Nemoto’s video introducing my book led us to meet in person. The pizza restaurant at that night was playing up-tempo background music. I was looking at the visual images reproduced from my book through his sign language. The music and the voices in the restaurant interrupted my thoughts from time to time. Still, I had a strong feeling that he was most likely to be a person of philosophy. When I asked him for an interview, he kindly accepted to come to the editorial office in Inage Ward of Chiba City. It was a chilly day at the end of the year. We walked from the Inage Station talking about our families.
Sign language often makes me wonder why it enables us to talk so naturally about the people we usually spend time with and how they behave. After working for many years with people in the field of philosophy I know almost nothing about their parents. Nemoto and I have met only twice, but we have already shared a lot about our families, even about the way our mothers talk. It may be because sign language is solidly tied to our physical bodies. I was talking to him, putting my hands in and out of my coat pockets. As we arrived at the editorial office, we sat down on wooden couches at the corner of the room. We took a break with coffee, facing each other diagonally. The incandescent light of the room and the blue winter light coming in through the north window were illuminating us.
Nemoto is originally from Fukushima Prefecture. He was born of deaf parents, graduated from a school for the deaf, and left his hometown to go to the university. He is now working as a teacher at a special needs school in Chiba. He has always been a book lover and has kept reading books in his spare time. His reading style is a unique one: he first skims through a book, thinks about the scenes that come to his mind for a while, waits for a visual image to be structured, reads the book again if he is not satisfied, and finishes reading when the whole visual image is complete and understood.
The stay-home periods due to the covid-19 outbreak made Nemoto decide to introduce his favorite books in JSL. When he was thinking about what he could do, he found a bookshelf at a shared bookstore in his neighborhood, where people could place books in their own space. He decided to call the small bookshelf, made of a wooden apple tray, “Negi Bookstore” and displayed a selection of books related to sign language. He thought that simply putting the books on the shelf would not have impact on people, so he decided to use Twitter and Facebook to introduce and recommend books. When he posted the first sign language video on Twitter, it widely spread quickly.
When I asked him who have influenced his style of expressions in JSL, Nemoto laughed and replied, “All the people I’ve met.” When he was a child, his parents’ friends frequently visited his house. Among them were not only deaf friends but also hearing friends from a sign language circle. Their ages were diverse, from young to elderly. He naturally absorbed different kinds of sign language expressions. The sign language close to Japanese used by hearing teachers at school is called “manually coded Japanese,” but he did not know that name then. He was just aware that it was different from the sign language his deaf family was using at home. As he started to work at school, he came to think that when engaging in philosophical discussion, the sign language his family was using was more flexible. In the case of the Japanese, he now feels, the story development is somewhat predetermined from the beginning. In the case of JSL his family was using, on the other hand, he feels that he can create his thoughts more freely on a blank campus.
Recently, Nemoto has had more opportunities to interact remotely with his friends. He is thinking that it might be a good idea to record the conversations. To him, the dialogues in JSL with his friends seem to have a philosophical discussion style – a style that takes a multifaceted view of the object and tries to reach the essence. Currently the wave of declining birthrate is hitting the deaf community as well as the overall society. Looking ahead to the future, when sign language will be in danger of extinction, he is discussing with his friends how deaf people should live in society.
Nemoto also has some topics that he would like to explore more at his individual level. For example, the sentence “hana ga utsukushii” (which can be translated as “the flower is beautiful” or “the flowers are beautiful”) evokes various scenes in his mind. Is the person seeing a flower blooming by the side of the road while walking alone? Is the person seeing many flowers swaying in wind with close people? He wants to analyze the mindscape in JSL.
In the case of people who hear sounds, some may associate the sentence “hana ga utsukushii” with a specific scene. In contrast, others may understand it as a text that expresses the subject-predicate relationship. This fact reminds me of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), who defined “écriture” (written language) as something independent of a specific scene appearing in front of someone’s eyes.
On the other hand, Nemoto believes that the same sentence “hana ga utsukushii” expressed deeply in JSL can vividly bring out a scene perceived as beautiful together with the perspective of the person. What can be recorded by the sentence “hana ga utsukushii” is at most the singularity or the plurality of the flower(s). It cannot record where the flower is blooming (or where the flowers are blooming). Nor can it record with whom or in what situation the person is feeling the beauty of the flower(s). Nemoto is trying to approach such a perspective of beauty with JSL.
For example, in sign language, even if you don’t know the name of a flower called “hydrangea,” you can still tell the other person about it by describing the scene. It is raining, there are snails around the flower, the flower with many small petals is quietly blooming on the side of a shady road, etc. In spoken language, where the names of things are essential, people often omit detailed descriptions of the space where the things exist. In sign language, however, the spatial arrangement is emphasized, and people often omit the detailed description of individual things, according to Nemoto.
In verbalizing scenery and experiences, speech and sign language differ in the elements considered necessary and in the parts that tend to be omitted. As a speaker of the Japanese spoken language, I often get frustrated when the names of people and things get stuck on the tip of my tongue. Sign language attracts me most by its communicative power.
However, Nemoto says, we must carefully consider how a hearing person can participate in such a philosophical dialogue in JSL. For if an interpreter intervenes in the perceptions shared through JSL, the dialogue in the sign language will end up being replaced by text- and speech-centered philosophy. Nemoto and his friends have just begun their philosophical exploration, which is why their place for dialogue is important.
After the interview, I repeatedly checked the video for editing. I noticed that Nemoto’s “around me” in JSL, describing people close to him, was expressed by the movement in a counterclockwise direction following his body. The translation of it into English would be similar in nuance to “close” or “relatives.” Nemoto’s “around me” seems to reflect the presence of his family and friends, with whom he can communicate his mind. I would like you to watch the video again and try to find the phrase. It should be the starting point of philosophy.
Interview on December 29, 2021.
Texts and subtitles: Saori Tanaka
Editor/writer. While working in public relations at a university, she writes and edits works on philosophy, science, and technology. She has a master degree in philosophy and a PhD degree in information science. She is the editor of Tetsugaku (Enjoyable Philosophy Magazine). She used to use home signs (gestural communications) as a child with her hard-of-hearing brother and began to learn JSL when she was a university student. Her recent books include “The New Anatomy of Time: Starting within the Space of Sign Language and Childbirth” and “Take a Walk to See Philosophers” both in Japanese.
English translation from Japanese : Saori Tanaka and Shogo Shimizu
この投稿文は次の言語で読めます: Japanese
