Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals about the MindSimon & Schuster, 2007 - 354 páginas Imagine a village where everyone "speaks" sign language. Just such a village -- an isolated Bedouin community in Israel with an unusually high rate of deafness -- is at the heart of "Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals About the Mind." There, an indigenous sign language has sprung up, used by deaf and hearing villagers alike. It is a language no outsider has been able to decode, until now. A "New York Times" reporter trained as a linguist, Margalit Fox is the only Western journalist to have set foot in this remarkable village. In "Talking Hands, " she follows an international team of scientists that is unraveling this mysterious language. Because the sign language of the village has arisen completely on its own, outside the influence of any other language, it is a living demonstration of the "language instinct," man's inborn capacity to create language. If the researchers can decode this language, they will have helped isolate ingredients essential to all human language, signed and spoken. But as "Talking Hands" grippingly shows, their work in the village is also a race against time, because the unique language of the village may already be endangered. "Talking Hands" offers a fascinating introduction to the signed languages of the world -- languages as beautiful, vital and emphatically human as any other -- explaining why they are now furnishing cognitive scientists with long-sought keys to understanding how language works in the mind. Written in lyrical, accessible prose, "Talking Hands" will captivate anyone interested in language, the human mind and journeys to exotic places. |
Dentro del libro
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... conversation with the other deaf brother , Kamal , who sits on the balcony railing , signing animatedly and eat- ing sunflower seeds . At one point , she turns to Wendy inquiringly and holds up two hands , palms out , each middle finger ...
... conversation in sign . One of the men was a double amputee , with a hook where each hand should have been . His conversation partner , Wilcox said , seemed to have absolutely no trouble understanding him . The signer's face was almost ...
... conversation . As the investigators were careful to establish , those difficulties were not the result of paralysis or other motor problems caused by the strokes . What had happened to these three patients was a disorder of language ...
Contenido
Introduction | 1 |
In the Village of the Deaf | 5 |
What Is This Wonderful Language? | 15 |
Derechos de autor | |
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