The Resilience of Language. What Gesture Creation in Deaf Children Can Tell Us About How All Children Learn Language.

Goldin-Meadow, Susan:

ISBN 10: 1841690260 / ISBN 13: 9781841690261

Published by New York: Psychology Press, 2003

About this Item

Series: Essays in Developmental Psychology. xxi 262p large sturdy hardback, red and black laminated boards, like new condition, no noticeable wear, firm binding, pages clean and bright, graphs and diagrams throughout, free from highlighting and annotation, a very good copy Language: English Weight (g): 635.

Seller Inventory # 234901

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Resilience of Language. What Gesture Creation in Deaf Children Can Tell Us About How All Children Learn Language.
• Publisher: New York: Psychology Press
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1841690260
• ISBN 13: 9781841690261
• Binding: Hardback
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: As New
• Seller catalogs:
  • Psychology

About this title

Synopsis

Imagine a child who has never seen or heard any language at all. Would such a child be able to invent a language on her own? Despite what one might guess, the children described in this book make it clear that the answer to this question is 'yes'. The children are congenitally deaf and cannot learn the spoken language that surrounds them. In addition, they have not yet been exposed to sign language, either by their hearing parents or their oral schools. Nevertheless, the children use their hands to communicate - they gesture - and those gestures take on many of the forms and functions of language. The properties of language that we find in the deaf children's gestures are just those properties that do not need to be handed down from generation to generation, but can be reinvented by a child de novo - the resilient properties of language. This book suggests that all children, deaf or hearing, come to language-learning ready to develop precisely these language properties. In this way, studies of gesture creation in deaf children can show us the way that children themselves have a large hand in shaping how language is learned.

About the Author

Susan Goldin-Meadow