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Review: Oliver Sacks. Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. 1989. 6 x 9in. xvi & 180 pp. ISBN 0-520-06083-0. Cloth.1 In his new book, Seeing Voices, Oliver Sacks, the noted neurologist, explores the realms of deaf culture much as an excited traveler describing his first journey into a foreign and intriguing land. For Sacks the language, culture, and connections of the deaf community offer a panoply of new ideas and concepts to which he can apply his considerable knowledge of psychiatry and linguistics. As he steeps himself in the visual language, the thought process, and the cultural norms of the deaf community, he follows in the best tradition of explorers who, upon finding a land hitherto unknown to them, seek to understand rather than destroy, appreciate rather than denigrate, and attempt to integrate the differences they find into a context that is familiar and appropriate. Like many explorers whose records and journals have contributed so much to the knowledge of the society they left, Sacks in this short work allows readers new to the world of the deaf an understanding and appreciation they would not otherwise have. Seeing Voices is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the culture of deafness, and its publication emphasizes the genuine interest in and growing awareness of deaf culture, much of which was sparked by the events at Gallaudet University in March 1988. The three sections of the book, written at different times for different purposes, have quite distinct focal points. The first, based in large part on Sacks's review of Harlan Lane's monumental study of deafness, When the Mind Hears,and the essay subsequently developed from that, chronicles the origins of deaf education in France and its introduction into the United States early in the nineteenth century. 1 This isa considerably revised version of an article that appeared inthe October 1989 issue of The World &I, a publication of The Washington Times Corporation; copyright @1989; parts of that article are reprinted here with their permission. See note inside front cover ISSN 0302-1475 349 IKJ: Review Highlighted is the growth of controversy and dissension about the form that education should take and its personification in the differences between Edward Miner Gallaudet and Alexander Graham Bell. Readers new to the field will find in Seeing Voices a highly readable chronicle of this fascinating but little known history. In the second section, which will be of more interest to linguists and practitioners in the field than to the educated public, Sacks examines the roots of the communication debate, and with information and personal histories carefully selected to illustrate his argument, gives the reader a look at the psycholinguistic, anthropological, and educational consequences of early onset deafness. After discussing the development and history of the use of sign language, he recounts how American Sign Language was driven underground, and then more than fifty years later was proved by William Stokoe and his colleagues to have all the characteristics of a natural human language. Dr. Sacks then goes on to explain much of the major linguistic theory that has shaped current thinking on early language acquisition. Particularly compelling is his discussion of how language is processed in the brain and the supposition that individual users of a visual language, whether they be deaf or hearing, may evidence increased spatial-analytic ability, which in turn may facilitate the development of reading skills. This section points up the convergence of current general research on language and thought with research into signed languages and the way deaf individuals process information. Moving right to the heart of the matter today, Sacks notes that the form of signing that is now used in most Total Communication programs has become a contentious issue and is being hotly debated on the Gallaudet campus as well as in programs and schools across the country. The second chapter concludes with a powerful statement on the need for deaf people to have visually based languages and an explanation of the passion many deaf people feel for their signed languages. Reporting on his journey into the world of the deaf, Sacks has noted the controversy and...

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