Editor: Rachel Elizabeth Channon Editor: Harry van der Hulst
Electronic: ISBN: 9781614510680 Pages: 346 Price: Europe EURO
99.95 Hardback: ISBN: 9781614510673 Pages: 346 Price: Europe
EURO 99.95 Sign languages and spoken languages have an equal
capacity to communicate our thoughts. Beyond this, however,
while there are many similarities, there are also fascinating
differences, caused primarily by the reaction of the human mind
to different modalities, but also by some important social
differences. The articulators are more visible and use larger
muscles with consequent greater effort. It is difficult to
visually attend to both a sign and an object at the same time.
Iconicity is more systematic and more available in signs. The
body, especially the face, plays a much larger role in sign.
Sign languages are more frequently born anew as small groups of
deaf people come together in villages or schools. Sign languages
often borrow from the written form of the surrounding spoken
language, producing fingerspelling al