| Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals about the Mind Contributor(s): Fox, Margalit (Author) |
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ISBN: 0743247132 ISBN-13: 9780743247139 Publisher: Simon & Schuster OUR PRICE: $21.84 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: August 2008 Annotation: Fox creates a captivating narrative that tells the story of a village whose inhabitants use a unique form of sign language. She also explores the broader issues of deaf culture, the origin and structure of sign language, and its contribution to the study of the human mind. 384 p. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Language Arts & Disciplines | Sign Language - Language Arts & Disciplines | Study & Teaching - Language Arts & Disciplines | Linguistics - General |
| Dewey: 419 |
| Physical Information: 0.9" H x 5.5" W x 8.5" (1.05 lbs) 368 pages |
| Themes: - Topical - Physically Challenged |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: 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. |
Contributor Bio(s): Fox, Margalit: - Margalit Fox is a public speaker and an award-winning reporter in the famed obituary news department of The New York Times as well a former New York Times Book Review editor. Fox has a master's degrees in linguistics from Stony Brook University and a masters degree from Columbia Journalism. she lives in Manhattan with her husband, the writer and critic George Robinson.. |