The Order of Signs: Perspectives on the Relationship between Language and Thought during the First Century of Widespread Sign Language Teaching

While current debates oppose the cochlear implant's privileging of speech acquisition to teaching sign language, nineteenth-century debates, in contrast, opposed those who saw sign language as a tool for learning to read and write, and those who saw in it an autonomous language for organizing t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:History of education quarterly 2020-11, Vol.60 (4), p.520-545
Main Author: Arnaud, Sabine
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
19th century
American Sign Language
Assistive Technology
Bilingual education
Bilingualism
Cochlear implants
Correlation
Culture
Deafness
Debates
Education
Educational History
Foreign Countries
French
French language
Hearing (Physiology)
History, Philosophy and Sociology of Sciences
Humanities and Social Sciences
Language Acquisition
Language Attitudes
Language thought relationship
Learning
Linguistics
Literature
Otology
Pedagogy
Reading acquisition
Schools
Sign Language
Speech
Speech Communication
Student Attitudes
Syntax
Teacher Attitudes
Teaching
Teaching Methods
Transplants & implants
Written Language
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Summary:While current debates oppose the cochlear implant's privileging of speech acquisition to teaching sign language, nineteenth-century debates, in contrast, opposed those who saw sign language as a tool for learning to read and write, and those who saw in it an autonomous language for organizing thought itself. Should the order of gestural signs follow written syntax? Or should it have its own coherence, that is, possibly a different syntax and order of enunciation? Starting with these questions, distinct teaching legacies developed, specifying which kinds of signs to use in which context and what role signs were to fulfill. This article focuses on French deaf and hearing teachers whose positions were influential throughout Europe and the United States, moving from Abbé de l'Epée's 1784 method to Rémi Valade's 1854 publication of the first sign language grammar.
ISSN:0018-2680
1748-5959
DOI:10.1017/heq.2020.46