The burgeoning of research on signed language during the last two decades has had a major influence on several disciplines concerned with mind and language, including linguistics, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, child language acquisition, sociolinguistics, bilingualism, and deaf education. The genealogy of this research can be traced to a remarkable degree to a single pair of scholars, Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima, who have conducted their research on signed language and educated scores of scholars in the field since the early 1970s. The Signs of Language Revisited has three major objectives: * presenting the latest findings and theories of leading scientists in numerous specialties from language acquisition in children to literacy and deaf people; * taking stock of the distance scholarship has come in a given field, where we are now, and where we should be headed; and * acknowledging and articulating the intellectual debt of the authors to Bellugi and Klima--in some cases through personal reminiscences. Thus, this book is also a document in the sociology and history of science.

This book summarizes the latest research on the origins of language, with a focus on the process of evolution and differentiation of language. It provides an update on the earlier successful book, “The Origins of Language” edited by Nobuo Masataka and published in 2008, with new content on emerging topics. Drawing on the empirical evidence in each respective chapter, the editor presents a coherent account of how language evolved, how music differentiated from language, and how humans finally became neurodivergent as a species. Chapters on nonhuman primate communication reveal that the evolution of language required the neural rewiring of circuits that controlled vocalization. Language contributed not only to the differentiation of our conceptual ability but also to the differentiation of psychic functions of concepts, emotion, and behavior. It is noteworthy that a rudimentary form of syntax (regularity of call sequences) has emerged in nonhuman primates. The following chapters explain how music differentiated from language, whereas the pre-linguistic system, or the “prosodic protolanguage,” in nonhuman primates provided a precursor for both language and music. Readers will gain a new understanding of music as a rudimentary form of language that has been discarded in the course of evolution and its role in restoring the primordial synthesis in the human psyche. The discussion leads to an inspiring insight into autism and neurodiversity in humans. This thought-provoking and carefully presented book will appeal to a wide range of readers in linguistics, psychology, phonology, biology, anthropology and music.

In a book with far-reaching implications, Edward S. Klima and Ursula Bellugi present a full exploration of a language in another mode--a language of the hands and of the eyes. They discuss the origin and development of American Sign Language, the internal structure of its basic units, the grammatical processes it employs, and its heightened use in poetry and wit. The authors draw on research, much of it by and with deaf people, to answer the crucial question of what is fundamental to language as language and what is determined by the mode (vocal or gestural) in which a language is produced.

The 13th Volume in the Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities series describes various accounts of contact between sign languages worldwide to further understand structural and social factors of this linguistic component.

Proceedings of the annual meeting of the Society in v. 1-11, 1925-34. After 1934 they appear in Its Bulletin.

Master's Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 100%, Humboldt-University of Berlin (English Department), language: English, abstract: This is a book about Burning Man - its history as a re-enactment of the American Frontier and its cultural significance and symbolism for the post-modern, post-western, post-rational society. As a European, Burning Man has always struck me as an event of the Wild West where almost everything was possible and acceptable and where a community reinvented civilization anew. Like the typical Western stories and movies, Burning Man is a story of humble beginnings in the isolation of the desert. The growth from a primitive to complex society seen in the numerous institutions and services we see today in Black Rock City was also accompanied by a surge in rules to safeguard the health and well being of its citizens. Therefore, Burning Man serves as an echo-land of the American Frontier myth. At the same time, Burning Man is the event of the 21st century that foretells the undergoing changes of Western society and mankind. After 3000 years of left-brain-hemisphere dominance induced by the phonetic alphabet and later typography, the age of electric and electronic media finally brought us back to right-hemisphere modes of perception and cognition. Participation and a new emphasis on ritual are just two examples of this new awareness wherein the space/time dimensions have changed dramatically from linear to acoustic. With this essay I want to give something back to the Burning Man community and hope that maybe some feel inspired to think of Burning Man in a new historical and global context. Anyone interested in American history and the countercultural precedence of Burning Man as well as Burning Man as the Marshall McLuhan's Global Theater will definitely find some interesting insights. This is the master thesis as part of my American Studies Program at Humboldt-University in B