Deaf-hearing marital relationships and conflict

This dissertation explored conflict within deaf-hearing marital relationships utilizing bimodal patterns of communication. Building on previous literature exploring deaf-hearing relationships and pulling from the fields of communication, deaf studies, psychology, and sign language studies, this dissertation theorized the impact of the intersection of bicultural, bimodal patterns of communication during conflict within romantic deaf-hearing marital dyads. This intersection encompasses influences of power, culture, and language modality (e.g. spoken or signed) on deaf-hearing relationships and their experiences of conflict. Due to the paucity of literature on the experiences of adult deaf-hearing romatic relationships and the comorbidity of conflicting findings in existing literature, this dissertation seeks to further understand the experiences of this unique population. Charmaz’s (2006) grounded theory methods (GTM) served as a foundation for this study. Dyadic and individual interviews was collected from 10 deaf-hearing dyads (n = 20). Using ELAN, recordings of interviews were coded and categorized based on emergent themes. The data was analyzed to determine the function of language modality use and communication patterns within deaf-hearing relationships and experiences of conflict. Findings shine a light on communicative strategies utilized by deaf-hearing relationships in relational and conflict contexts. Participants discussed ways culture and language modalities have impacted their relationship in the context of relationship initiation, children’s language acquisiton, and social engagement, among others. Language use strategies such as, relational code-switching, voices off, eye contact, and structured turn-taking are some of the communication patterns discussed by participants. In this context they hold significance in the creation of a third culture supporting visual communication. Deaf-hearing couples negoitate power in a beneficial way for the relationship through strategic langauge use. During escalated conflict, participants shared instances of diverging to their familiar first langague as a way to release emotional pressure, before again engaging in relatioanl code-switching for management and resolution. Limitations, including the imapct of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the potenial of future study and application of findings is discussed and this dissertation invites other scholars to explore the nature of relationships and communication within bilingual, bimodal contexts.