Language is the most widely researched aspect of dyslexia with the predominant focus on why written language is difficult to attain and how to make words attainable (White et. Al 2006, Elliot 2005, Shawitz et. Al. 1998, Hurst 2015). Language and dyslexia focuses on encoding (Whitney and Cornelissen 2005), decoding (Ossmy, Ben-Shachar and Mukamel
2014), word meaning represented in the mind (Peyrin, Lallier, Demonet et al 2012), or language acquisition (Blachman 2013:56-57). These various foci, unfortunately, create boundaries to exploring dysleXic interactions with written, read, spoken and heard language.
In this chapter, I look at how words exist for people with dysleXia in a dynamic, complex, multifaceted relationship, beyond attainment or failure. I argue that language is, for people
with dysleXia, withandwithinthe body through its performance and consumption. More specifically I state that when language expands beyond the boundaries of attained and not attained, and dysleXic perspectives are accepted, it is possible to recognise their complex,
rich and multifaceted montage of words.
Using the letter artworks, interviews, dinners and the creation of new words, I explore the layers of meaning placed on and around words through dysleXic practice as an experience
and an expression of being-in-the-world. The letter artworks are part of this chapter and explore language representing other facets of the experience of language. The images of
the work directly engage with written words and evoke “lived experience[s], that are unavailable to writing” (Taylor 1998:535 in Cox and Wright 2012:126). Ong stated that,“Print
is curiously intolerant of physical incompleteness. It can convey the impression, unintentionally and subtly, but very really that the material the text deals with is similarly complete or self-consistent” (Ong 2013:130). My collaborators have shown the page as incomplete, needing the body beyond the boundaries of the margins to have meaning. To explore this experience I alter the layout disconnecting the margin and through the ragged
edges of text play with its physical space on the page. I alter the stability of the left-hand margin modifying the familiarity of reading, encouraging the seeking of words to challenge the completeness of the page. The lines instead point off the pages and out into the world.
In changing the margins, I aim to alter the text’s accessibility and stability, engaging with some of my collaborators’ descriptions of the page. Text and images provide different forms
of information and this chapter values the different and distinct forms of knowledge each medium offers to explore embodied experience. Therefore, I use each separately to support
110 their different forms of knowing about the body. Thus, this chapter explores embodied engagement with words and their intersubjective and aesthetic potential from a dysleXic
perspective.
Words are Part of the Everyday
Words are part of our everyday experiences - from looking at bus timetables, to reading road signs, choosing a meal from a menu, checking labels in the supermarket, emailing, texting, talking, reading TV guides or reading advertising signs. Words are used intersubjectively to
tell stories, communicate, describe places and define people (Taylor 2012:4). Words are therefore a part of being-in-the-world and part of the everyday. Language has added meaning when attached to the term dyslexia and to say that someone is dyslexic defines
them as finding, predominately written, words difficult to access.
Language is the point where dyslexics become labelled and re-categorised as words become a place to define the body through their lack of easy attainment (Bell 2006,
Chevin 2009). Granger explained “the category LD (Learning Disabled or learning Difference) has been used to mark particular bodies as deviant bodies, to normalise bodies and steal our bodies from us” (2010:4). This link between body and language
recognises its personal and social nature (Lakoff and Johnson 2003:30, Crapanzano 2004:71) and places words with the body. Ricoeur (Dorairaj 2000) and Derrida (Edwards
1997:112) have suggested words contain hidden meanings and part of this, I suggest, is the way in which we interpret words through sensory and embodied knowing. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) highlighted the body in words through metaphors saying that bodies’
movements are embedded in language. Language, they propose, is corporeal and intersubjective. The connection with the body, they suggest, enables language to contain information and meanings beyond the words expressed, resulting in complex information being communicated. Ong (2013:46) adds another layer, stating that words
have meaning made on them and to assume that the meaning is constant reduces the embodied experience of language. Folb, herself dysleXic, expresses the connection between words and the body, echoing Ingold’s worlding of words (Ingold 2000:249). She
suggests that in writing, words always remain personal “they are mediated and selected, shaped by our experiences” (Watson 2012:137). Words are, therefore, withthe body
both shaping and shaped by language.1
I explore words as having the potential to impact on and with the body altering perception and interpretation of spoken and written language. Levi-Strauss (1955) suggested that
1Studies also show that the mind is reconstructed on a synaptic level as the body is moulded into being a particular type of reader. (Dehaene 2014, Dehaene et. Al. 2010)
111 language already exists and is something to be found and learned - reflecting his
structuralist perspective (Tonkin 1982:109). Heidegger (1998: 57,59-60) suggests, from a philosophical semantic view, language is a dialectic in which it both names the world
and the world calls language into being. Heidegger’s words as unfolding are also relevant to Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980:175) work that explores the ways words represent bodied experience. These perspectives state words are brought into being in
the lifeworld and related to embodied knowledge. Disseminating words in various contexts creates different types of embodied interaction through speech, writing, reading
and listening. Engaging with language from dysleXic perspectives highlights the reality that language is more than the sum of symbols or sound (Ong 1988:90). DysleXic persons complex interplays of bodied-cognition with words influence pragmatic and semantic fields through being-in-the-world with words. Words have multiple experiences
and expressions for people with dysleXia as I was told they have been used to define people as failures and to call into question people’s belief in themselves.
Before exploring the montage of language for dysleXia, please watch the clip DYSPLA2 to begin situating language in dysleXic experience, as it is important to remember the
effect language has and continues to have on people with dysleXia. The clip is of a collection of people sharing the impact of words in what Levi-Strauss (1955) described as
finding language. Words Are Montage
Language is more than something waiting to be found.
Word meanings cannot be pinned down, as if they were dead insects. Instead, they flutter around inclusively like live butterflies. Or perhaps they should be
likened to fish which slither out of one’s grasp (Aitchison 2003:41).
Words need the body for meaning, understanding and performance (Schlee 2012:125). The sensory montage (Irving 2013:76-78) creates a space to begin to explore language
from a dysleXic perspective as dynamic and engaged with the body. Montage blends these different fragments (Buck-Morss 1992:34) which flutter in and out of intersubjective communication and recognises language as an embodied ongoing mosaic of experience;
influenced by life histories, proxemic relationships and context. Embracing the concept of montage within language acknowledges the interplay between persons and world,
112 orality and text. It points to the complex interplay of senses, experiences, internal
dialogue, internal visuality, chronoception3, introception and environment that my collaborators have described as related to language. Recognising language, from my collaborators’ perspective, as a unique sensory experience where information may not be
edited out of the process of reading or speech. Adding to this phenomenology of language opens possibilities to support both negative and positive dysleXic perspectives
of words. I am not saying that readers, in general, do not engage with sensory information, but that the way that people with dysleXia pay attention to the world alters
their interaction with words which impact on, are used and enmeshed with everyday experience. Language for dysleXics has the potential to inscribe sensorially complex
meanings around words, creating a multifaceted interplay of language with bodies. The experience of holding a pen or pencil as it travels across the page, the weight and
texture of the paper in the book being read, or the tapping of plastic keys on the keyboard under the fingertips, all give examples of sensory connection to the symbols of
written words. These levels of interaction are influenced by editing of sensory information and awareness of these experiences is affected by attention paid to them. The environment in which reading takes place or where writing is done impacts on the experience of the performance of language. The stories of authors or our own writing attest to this when we seek certain environments because they are more conducive to the act of writing or reading. For example, I find the sound of bird song outside a window
enjoyable but when a sentence will not form the song becomes annoyingly in the way of the words and I shut it out. Conversely, for many of my collaborators, the song would become enmeshed in the words they were reading or writing, not separate entities where
one exerts control over the other. Sarah showed that words communicate sensory information as they are formed and consumed. “It just gets all mixed up and rahhhhh!” (Sarah). Identifying language as a moving sensory montage enables the complexities of
handwriting and text to be juxtaposed against and withlived experience. We must also be aware that the senses can also oppose, destabilise and juxtapose conflicting realities, creating complex montages of sensory information whose consequences need to be addressed when attempting to understand how
the senses establish the basis for action and practice (Irving 2011:3).
This basis for action and practice related to the senses and words for my collaborators
113 includes social expectations of appropriate interactions with language, such as spelling,
reading, pronunciation, speed and letter shapes.
Words are not passive: Representing Language With The Body
Sensory information is part of the montage of words through their performance and consumption including the shapes made, whether through the lips or with a pen. For example, the noises of the classroom or office can influence the way in which the person shapes their letters, as Philippa explained, “I get frustrated, my body tenses and my words getsmaller andsmallerand harder to read” (Philippa). The assemblage of information creates an
experience of language that is outworked through its expression of the letters and the senses of the body. Language is expressed as bodied knowing. To put this more generally,
if while we are writing, another person walks up quietly behind us and scares us this shock can manifest through a mark on the page, by a spike on the symbol we were writing or a line across the page. The environment has altered our relationship to the process of writing. To put this into the context of the montage, the overlaying of sensory information gathered from
the feeling of paper on skin, pen in hand, ink flowing on the page is added to the quickened breathing, frustration and censure entangled in the words on the page.
The performance of words and expectations of this performance trigger responses. My collaborators, in certain contexts, manage this sensory montage around words by altering
sensory triggers, using a variety of techniques including ear plugs or music to alter their effect (Hornikel et. Al 2011). Philippa explained, “Sometimes the words are easier with music, Mum doesn’t believe me, but they are.” The sensory montage here uses other senses to connect with and manage text, as like many of my collaborators, Philippa found
words themselves caused resonses in her body. She described the need for tactile movement in her classroom, sitting clicking a pen in her left hand while writing with her right.
“It was the way I could think. I didn’t even realise I was doing it. I think it was disturbing the rest of the class though because my teacher handed me a koosh ball and said ‘try this’” (Philippa). Touch through the pen connecting with flesh, tendons, nervous system, paper and body as a whole connected to the process of writing. She did not hear the clicking pen,
but its corporeal association made it possible to focus instead on the words forming on the page. The sensory experience of the repetitive clicking enabled her to alter her sensory relationship. “I guess it was a bit like a stress release or something. I just wrote better that
way when I was clicking the pen” (Philippa).
Words, from a dysleXic perspective, reveal expectations in the way they are performed and responses when they are not achieved. For example, Elise showed this while helping in the
114 final stages of setting up the exhibition, “Do you need any help with anything?” (Elise). I asked if she could put something onto the canvases, so people knew what to do. “If you could just put ‘write on me’ on one and ‘draw on me’ on the other that would really help.”
When we caught up later on, she explained that she had written on the canvas but had realised she had written the wrong ‘write’. “Initially I panicked and then I thought it doesn’t matter I’ll make it into a statement. It’s now wright, write, right on me” (Elise). Her statement
was to write the homophones revealing differences in the performances of the spoken and written word. Crapanzano has stated bodies exist between the signifier and the signified (2004:21) and in this moment words leaked across each other and the senses. Her body both affected what was written and responded when she realised she had made a mistake.
Whilst this could be looked at as being related to phonetic similarities in the word, it is a dysleXic representation of the plasticity of written words across bodies.
In his recent book, Sam Barclay (2014)4, challenges the normalisation of spelling and text requiring particular formats to be accessible. By altering word formats through various techniques he challenges the symbols of language and replication of the symbols through the forming of repetitive shapes. As both dysleXic and a typographer, he explained to me
that words had “always fascinated” him. In his work on spelling, he shows adaption of words by eliminating parts of them (2014:6) showing it does not always alter comprehension.
Barclay shows that language is not as vulnerable as the repetitive training and censure for an incorrect performance of language implies, in one piece, he alters the letters showing the words remain accessible. For example “No one eevr siad taht riaedng on the baech was
esay” (Barclay 2014:9) is still able to be read by a majority of people. At the installation people with dysleXia often commented they found it easier to read. His works in the installation confused several people and raised questions about why letters are in the order they are. “Why do they insist if it can be understood?” (a ten-year-old boy at the installation).
For my key collaborators, it raised questions about why they had suffered so much by the insistence letters be spelt correctly when they could still be understood out of order.
Performing Words
The dysleXic experience of language communicates further complexities relating to how language is used to define bodies and people’s expectations of what makes language a consistent form of intersubjective communication (Philpott 2000:193). The concreteness of language is represented in its intersubjective expectations of performance and these relate
4Sam’s book was created to give non-dyslexic people an understanding of what reading is like for people with dyslexia. However, I found more often dyslexic people responded favourably to the work finding it easy to read.
115 to formatting, phraseology, spelling and grammar in writing, context and tone in speech (Philpott 2000:181, Blakemore 1992:18). Jean blamed these rules on the creator of the printing press saying, “It was the printing press that created all these problems, that’s where
they began.” She explained, “They normalised spelling. Until then it wasn’t fixed, just look at the history and all the spellings.” Heidegger states that humanities “guardianship accomplishes the manifestation of being insofar as they bring this manifestation into language and preserve it in language through their saying” (1998:239). The preserving of
being and language attaches to the written format of words and speech and, as my collaborators have expressed, their personhood can be challenged.
Performance of words through the body shows societal expectations of language. Training at school teaches that letters have specific shapes and that words are constructed and performed a particular way. In some cases, my collaborators had been told after being diagnosed as dyslexic to stop trying to write by hand and to learn to type instead. This is not
uncommon. My nephew (who is dysleXic) was advised, when diagnosed, to focus on learning to type rather than using a pen because his writing would never be very good;
language at that moment was ascribed meaning and a particular expectation in its performance. However like Amanda, he enjoys writing by hand when participating in creative writing. This tactile relationship to the page and the process of thinking with the pen
embraced the sensory act of writing rather than the correct performance of its shapes. For some of my collaborators learning the shapes of letters had been changed “from pen to clay”
(Philippa) making letters tactile and impacting on their relationships to shaping letters. DysleXic intersubjective listening and speech, predominantly, did not follow linguistic turn
taking theories5as described by Kendon (2004:159) but could handle non sequiturs and multiple conversations happening at the same time. In one unforgettable attempt to transcribe one of our dinners, I counted 7 conversations taking place between 5 people, with no one losing track of the conversations they were taking part in, except for me who became lost as I tried to transcribe them. Words are not passive as bodies impact on language and
language impacts on bodies through their performance and consumption. When my key collaborators and I came to represent the experience of writing, the expressions of frustration were easier to represent than those of pleasure. Through the gloves and tray interactive artworks at the installation, people embodied the tension between
corporeal and cognitive experiences of language. They would begin with reading the