Fingerspelling and the Appropriation of Language: The Shifting Stakes of a Practice of Signs

Recent studies have proven the specificity and advantages of fingerspelling from a linguistic point of view. However, while the use of fingerspelling is widespread today, it is limited to sign language interactions. The appreciation for both sign language and fingerspelling is recent; in fact, the t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sign language studies 2019, Vol.19 (4), p.565-605
Main Author: ARNAUD, SABINE
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
17th century
18th century
Alphabets
Communication
Deafness
Finger Spelling
Fingers & toes
Fingerspelling
History of ideas
Humanities and Social Sciences
Linguistics
Pedagogy
Physicians
Sign language
Teachers
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Summary:Recent studies have proven the specificity and advantages of fingerspelling from a linguistic point of view. However, while the use of fingerspelling is widespread today, it is limited to sign language interactions. The appreciation for both sign language and fingerspelling is recent; in fact, the two systems were often opposed to each other in the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth century worldwide. While a number of teachers, doctors, and politicians considered fingerspelling, or dactylology, to be a communication method that could stand on its own, it was the object of a double controversy concerning its use in school and in society and concerning the proper production of signs. This article will focus on the invention of manual alphabets and the debates around them, which divided the deaf-mute community in France in the time between Jacob Péreire’s work in 1750 and F. Legrand’s in 1902.
ISSN:0302-1475
1533-6263
1533-6263
DOI:10.1353/sls.2019.0011