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. |
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... complex creatures . We tend to think of words as indivisible entities , little lumps of language that can't be broken down further . In reality , most words are made up of smaller pieces , and it is these pieces , and the orderly ...
... complex signs are formed from simple ones by altering the spatial signal while the simple sign is being made . By manipulating aspects of a sign's movement pattern — its manner , intensity or other features - ASL can form complex nouns ...
... complex verb A - COIN - IS - LYING - THERE . Both are made , coincidentally , with the thumb and forefinger in the " OK " position , palm facing inward . For DECIDE , the two hands , each in this shape , move downward in front of the ...
Índice
Introduction | 1 |
In the Village of the Deaf | 5 |
What Is This Wonderful Language? | 15 |
Direitos de autor | |
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Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals About the Mind Margalit Fox Pré-visualização limitada - 2008 |