Speaking Machines, the Trial of Articulation, and Deaf Education in Modern France

Abstract

If cochlear implants continue to meet with much resistance from parts of the Deaf community and beyond, this reflects constructions of speech that have been at the core of conceptions of humankind for over three centuries. Starting in the 1750s, Julien Offray de La Mettrie advocated for deaf people's potential for speech. This was also the time of the creation of schools for deaf children, which led to a surge of debate about teaching sign language versus speech. The reception of the speaking machine of Canon Mical, a now forgotten inventor, offered another context in which to question the source of the expressive power of language. By retracing debates about the mechanical nature of articulated speech, the potential limits of communication, and what really constitutes its expressive power, we can better understand how the experience of current technology develops out of conflicts first introduced at the birth of modernity.