Education and International Communication -A Class for International Students (Erasmus) The...

Universität zu Köln - Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät Education and International Communication

Manuela Maggi 1

Universität zu Köln

Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät

Education and International Communication - A Class for International Students (Erasmus)

Lehrperson: Michael Haas, Dipl.-Päd.

Scientific Paper

The communicative value of the expression through the signs or

through the simplified use of spoken languages

Author: Manuela Maggi (Matr. N. 5338093 Universität zu Köln)


Manuela Maggi 2

Indice

Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... 3

1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 4

2. Knowledge, Communication and Language: the Logic of Peirce ......................................................... 6

3. Knowledge, Communication and Deafness ........................................................................................... 8

3.1. Developing Language and Knowledge in contexts of Deafness ....................................................... 8

3.2. Language Understanding and Learning in Deaf Children ............................................................... 11

3.3. Vocabulary Development of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children .................................................. 12

4. The Sign Language .............................................................................................................................. 13

5. Learning a New Language ................................................................................................................... 21

6. Final Remarks ...................................................................................................................................... 24

Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................ 25

Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 26


Manuela Maggi 3

Abstract

Starting from the consideration, taken from the thought of Peirce, that the truth is pursued in the

communication between stakeholders, through "external signs", this paper considers the language

that more than all uses the signs: the sign language.

The research carried out by the cognitive sciences confirm the importance of expression through the

signs in the early child's cognitive development. This is true for both deaf and hard of hearing

children.

The signs are the basic cognitive structure through which we learn a language and store concepts.

Whenever we learn and use a new language, we have to do with different syntactic structures.

The ability to store and express concepts in a new language is directly proportional to the

complexity of syntactic structures that we can use.

In this work it is carried out a comparison between the methods of simplification of the expression

in sign language and in the early stages of learning a foreign language, e.g. the German language.


Manuela Maggi 4

1. Introduction

This work rises from the reflection on my parallel experiences in the last few months and the

analysis of these experiences in light of some ideas drawn from the philosophical-epistemological

field and from the research of cognitive science in contexts of deafness.

This year I started working as a computer teacher in a professional school for deaf children.

The deaf children communicate primarily through sign language. Despite of what one might

imagine, many of them have difficulty in understanding the labial language, especially if it has not

been taught to them from the earliest years of school.

I'm not a specializing teacher in sign language and then, in my classes, I was supported by a

communication assistant. The communication assistant's job is to help the teacher to simplify the

content to be transmitted to the children and then to translate such content into signs.

Despite the good preparation and the general availability of the communications assistants of the

institute where I teach, I thought it appropriate to attend to a course in sign language, to know

directly the features of this language.

The study of sign language has given me a significant interest and questions of philosophical nature,

so I decided to develop the graduation thesis in philosophic sciences on this subject.

With the Prof. Calcaterra, of the University of Rome, we decided to entitle my thesis "The cognitive

value of visual perception" and to develop this topic starting from the epistemological studies of the

philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce.

According to Peirce, the nature of all our knowledge is inferential, based on the principle of

"external criteria". In this view communication and language have a great importance, and

especially learning languages. "Learning a language also means to experience the possibility that

statements are not confirmed by the others nor by empirical evidences that they need"1.

In accordance with this affirmation, cognitive and communicative value of the expression through

signs or by a spoken language are inextricably linked.

I then began to reflect on how the use of signs rather than spoken language in the communication

between deaf and hearing people, particularly in the period of education, affects the formation of its

own representation of the world, space and time .

I also read some articles published by the Gallaudet University2, which reported the results of

research carried out in recent years on the development of language and knowledge in contexts of

deafness.

In parallel with these reflections, last March I began an intensive German course and I attended to

the University of Cologne.

In addition to the difficulty due to the continuous travels between Italy and Germany, these months

have been challenging because I had to learn very quickly two different languages (the sign

language and the German language) and I had to apply them even during the courses.

These difficulties have enabled me to reflect on what were the elements of help or hinder learning

and use of a language other than their mother tongue.

1 R.M. Calcaterra, Psicologia e normatività epistemica. Figure dell'esternalismo, in Le ragioni del conoscere e

dell'agire. Scritti in onore di Rosaria Egidi, Franco Angeli, Milano 2006

2 The Gallaudet University is the only university of Human Sciences in the world for deaf students


Manuela Maggi 5

In particular my attention was focused on the syntactical differences between languages and the

impact of these differences in the storage of concepts and communication.

To learn a new language, we must make a substantial simplification of the concepts in the

acquisition phase and in the (re)formulation and expression, according to a diagram like this:

Acquisition Simplification Memorization

Expression Simplification Formulation

Sharing

Communication in learning a new language

All these considerations led to this little work of an interdisciplinary nature.

In the next two chapters I introduce the ideas that I used in analyzing both the experience of

learning the sign language and learning the German language.

In the other two chapters I expose, with some examples, the ways in which, by simplifying

operations, we can store the concepts during the learning a new language different from the mother

tongue.

In the last chapter I will present some concluding reflections on these experiences.


Manuela Maggi 6

2. Knowledge, Communication and Language: the Logic of Peirce

The content of this chapter is taken from an article by R.M. Calcaterra Psicologia e normatività

epistemica. Figure dell'esternalismo3.

According to the philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, the human knowledge doesn’t develop within

the mind but through communication and sharing with others. In this vision it becomes central the

role of the external signs by which we communicate, share and prove the correctness of the

reasoning.

Peirce's argument is called "logical socialism": there is no absolute foundation nor a definitive

conclusion in the search of significance, our logical inferences can only be shared and confirmed by

the human community.

The study of the syntactic structure of our thought gives us the opportunity to develop the tools to

verify the correctness of our reasoning, aware of the impossibility of access to absolute foundation

of our knowledge.

So the task of the logic is necessarily to define the rules of rational knowledge.

Peirce treats Logic in the narrow sense of "science that deals with distinguishing between correct

from incorrect reasoning and between "strong" and "weak" probable reasoning", both in the

broadest sense that it covers "everything we need to study in order to draw these distinctions"4, that

is the nature and functioning of the signs, as instruments and, at the same time, objects of thought.

Logic must be based on the study of "external signs" of thought rather than internal mechanisms of

the mind. In a manuscript of 1873, Peirce says that the origin of "general truths" can be derived

from a study of mind and thought, but it can also be grasped by the simple consideration of the

external signs: in this way the search is simpler and less error-prone, while the study of mind is one

of the most difficult and uncertain.

According to Peirce "the knowledge of the way we think is not a simple description, as would the

knowledge of the functioning of the brain or other physical mechanism, but consists of a translation

or, in some cases, an analysis of "grammar" or "syntax" of thought".

In 1868, Peirce began to develop his "logical socialism". The essay Questions Concerning Certain

Faculties Claimed for Man is devoted to criticize the criterion of immediate intuition, which is also

questioned with regard to the issue of the formation of self-consciousness and the structure of

feelings and emotions. According to Peirce also self-consciousness is not even a general knowledge

of being here, but the knowledge of being in a certain way. Peirce connects the formation of self-

consciousness to experiencing the errors that occurs in the early stages of psychic development of

the human being, i.e. the stage of language learning. Learning a language also means measuring us

with the possibility that our statements are not understood nor confirmed by others.

Peirce argues the central role of language and communication. Even feelings and emotions, which

belong, according to the mentalistic approach, exclusively to the "inner world", for Peirce they lend

to our understanding only if they involve a relationship with some object outside the mind. Peirce

addresses himself to the external horizon of social meanings, cognitive criteria and values that

compose it.

In the latter essay Grounds of Validity of the Laws of Logic, Peirce emphasizes the deep connection

3 R.M. Calcaterra, Psicologia e normatività epistemica. Figure dell'esternalismo, Op. cit.

4 K.L. Ketner, H. Putnam (eds.), Ch. S. Peirce. Reasoning and the logic of things. The Cambridge conference lectures

1989, Harward University Press, Cambridge 1992, p.143.


Manuela Maggi 7

between the aesthetic-affective and the logical-rational level. Here the logic merges with cognitive

semiotics. The path of the meanings that emerge along the cognitive experiences of human society

is infinite. It is impossible to identify the absolute foundation as it is impossible to identify the final

conclusion, because it has to do with the signs - with their prior configuration of things as well as

the complexity of the interpretative processes that they set in motion. In his essay How to Make Our

Ideas Clear, Peirce says that "there is no road that leads to the logic", we can only rely on the

probability that future experience and reasoning of the human community validate our logical

inferences.

The "social" component that characterizes his conception of Logic is evident in the invitation made

in one of Peirce's Cambridge conferences: it is important to "emancipate themselves", also Socrates

dictum know yourself does not mean "Make an introspection of your soul", but rather "see yourself

how others would look at you if they were so intimate with you", that is look at you in terms of your

membership in the community of rational beings5.

Peirce’s thought should not be considered a sort of "idealism of sociality". Peirce admits that the

social '"impulse" or "feeling" of human beings is always subject to the risk of being reduced to a

psychological response to the need to have "beliefs that shape our actions". But at the same time he

feels the positive effect of this feeling that comes from our conscious choice to turn it into a

criterion for determining the correctness of our reasoning, of our approach even before the results.

The logical rationale of reasoning will be sought on the side of the praxis, the function of the social

feeling in the research of beliefs, in the awareness of the possibility of error, which follows the

acceptance of our lack of absolute fundamentals of knowledge. Thinking and feeling in a dynamic

way, searching for points of reference sufficiently justified, precisely because they are built on the

cooperation of human beings.

The central role of communication and language, as it appears from this view of knowledge, seems

to be confirmed by research on cognition and sign language as shown in the next chapter.

5 K.L. Ketner, H. Putnam (eds.), Ch. S. Peirce. Reasoning and the logic of things. The Cambridge conference lectures

1989, Op. cit., p.196.


Manuela Maggi 8

3. Knowledge, Communication and Deafness

The content of this chapter is taken from the book Context, Cognition, and Deafness, published by

the Gallaudet University6.

This book is a collection of articles reporting the results of researches carried out over the past thirty

years by cognitive sciences in contexts characterized by deafness.

It points out, since the introductory article, the importance, in such contexts, of an interdisciplinary

approach to the issue of knowledge, including knowledge about anthropology, education and

psycholinguistics. This allows us to avoid focusing only on the disadvantages resulting from this

type of disability, taking important cues from the field of linguistics in general, allowing for

interesting parallels between the learning and use of sign language and all languages, both "mother

tongue" or second language.

Apply an interdisciplinary approach also means building a dialogue between researchers and

professionals who daily apply the results of researches, such as between specialized teachers for

deaf children and researchers working in the same area.

The following paragraphs set out a summary of the results of researches carried out on people who

are deaf or severely hard of hearing with regard to language development, building vocabulary and

methods of storage of simple and complex concepts.

3.1. Developing Language and Knowledge in contexts of Deafness

The content of this paragraph is drawn from the article of the book Context, Cognition, and

Deafness about deafness, cognition, and language7.

The research done in this area intend to demonstrate that a child that cannot hear well, and therefore

is unable to decode the spoken language, can still develop a language and a level of socialization at

the same level of a hearing child, provided that the deaf child is educated in an environment where

it is used his language: the sign language.

For deaf children, growing up in an environment where the sign language is used is essential for

cognitive development. Through interaction with interlocutors who use sign language, deaf

children's cognitive development can be absolutely comparable to that of a hearing children. In

contrast, cognitive development is made more difficult when the deaf child lives in an environment

where there is expressed only in the spoken language, in which he can neither understand or

respond appropriately to stimuli it receives.

All children, deaf and not, in the first 10 months of life mainly communicate through gestures

before they start using any language. And through the gestures express the understanding of the

messages received.

In all children, gestural interaction is the foundation for the development of their mental structures,

without which the language cannot exist.

The mechanism of the human vocal-auditory system is usually considered the biological basis of

language. But these are only biological components of verbal expression, not the language.

Language is knowledge related to sensory input and perceptible output. Verbal expression is mere

noise until the community of belonging begins to share conventions connecting pattern (consisting

6 M. Diane Clark, Marc Marschark, Michael A. Karchmer, Context, Cognition, and Deafness, Gallaudet University

Press, 2001

7 William C. Stokoe, Deafness, Cognition, and Language, in Context, Cognition, and Deafnes, Op. cit., pp. 6-13


Manuela Maggi 9

of items and heard through the hearing) to their meanings.

The gestural representation of concepts is a fundamental part of the knowledge process of the

concepts themselves. Even in the hearing child, several months before they start to express

themselves verbally, perceptions, feelings and the same experience of space are acquired through

gestures.

Since 1973, Herb Clark8 has studied the connection between perception of space and "spatial terms"

of language. Our experience and perception of space precedes our ability to talk.

Clark suggests that the structure of perceived space is fully represented by "spatial terms" of

language. Experience confirms that the spatial terms of a given language are originally represented

and understood through signs.

Also according to Clark, both in perceived space and in spatial terms of language, the simple

precedes the complex.

A further hypothesis concerns the connection between space and time. Our initial concept of time

derives from our initial knowledge of space. We learn very early that it takes longer to reach a

faraway place than a close one and that running we reach a place faster. Of course, having a gestural

representation of the word "away from" and "near" makes it easier to conceive and represent time,

using gestures to express metaphorically "there" and "here" to refer to "later" and "immediately".

Let us now consider the perceived space as the basic structure through which are acquired concepts

as "now", "before" and "after". The perception of time is acquired by the child at a later stage than

that in which the perception of space is developed.

The sequence seems to be: perception of space -> language of space -> perception of time.

The language of space depends on the perception of space, that is the human ability to speak about

space is a result of experimenting the basic features of the space during the development of the

child.

Regarding the perception of time, that gives an order from past to present and to the future, in

cognitive development (of a child so as of the human being), this not only is formed subsequent to

the perception of space, but the concept of space and his gestural representation (before the

development of the language of space) serves as a way of conceiving time. Our language of time is

the result of a cognitively constructed complexity9.

Of course, building or using metaphors is part of cognitive development. The gestures themselves

are metaphors: when we point in front or down to mean "here", our gesture is understood as

identifying a point in space, but the gesture is a metaphor, and doesn’t mean the real point that we

are pointing to.

As Clark points out, spatial concepts, and the words of our language used to designate them, follow

this order: perception, conception and language, but the perception and conception don’t completely

cover the cognitive path of language. There is a fourth process, the representation, that must be

considered. The sequence then becomes: perception, cognition, (visible) representation and

language. In other words, it is more accurate to say that the concepts necessary for the language are

8 Clark, A. 1973. Space, time, semantics and the child. In Cognitive development and the acquisition of language, ed. T.

Moore, 27-63. New York: Academic Press.

9 An interesting philosophical discussion of this topic is contained in the book of Bergson Saggio sui dati immediati

della coscienza, in Chapter 2 Sulla molteplicità degli stati di coscienza. L’idea di durata. in which he argues the

impossibility of giving a complete representation of time through space as "the duration escapes to space, is not a thing

but a progress", H. Bergson, Saggio sui dati immediati della coscienza, Cortina Raffaello, 2002, pp. 51-90


Manuela Maggi 10

formed by the interaction of perception and representation. Clark expresses as follows:

"It increasingly appears that the simple image of a general-purpose perceptual system delivering

input to a distinct and fully independent action system is biologically distortive. Instead, perceptual

and action systems work together, in the context of specific tasks, so as to promote adaptive

success. Perception and action, on this view, form a deeply interanimated unity"10

.

We experience the space before we can translate the experience into words. Between perception of

space and language of space there is a "manifestation" of space, that even from the etymological

point of view brings us back to the gesture of the hands (in Italian mani).

All of us understand the elements of the space before using appropriate language for them, but as

Clark points out, the current research in neurosciences confirms that we form our conception of

space through the cooperation of perception and action.

Experiencing the standing up and the falling down, the child acquires his or her perception of space.

Without cooperation between perception and action, i.e. without the "manifestation of space", could

be formed neither language of space nor language in general.

No other animal has, at the current state of our knowledge, our perception of the world because no

other animal has hands and arms like ours.

The discussion on the path from the experience of perception, action, gestures and words leads to

think about what happens when a child is unable to hear. For many months before they begin to use

language, both deaf and hard of hearing children build the cognitive structure on which the

language is in turn built.

Focusing on the early stages of development, and interacting visibly and not only verbally, parents

and educators can ensure that the child's cognitive development be optimal. Several months before

the child begins to use the language of his environment, his brain grows fastest. And this happens in

the same way for both hearing and deaf children.

It has been pointed out that before the terminology of space and time is acquired, both hearing and

deaf children benefit from being surrounded by people who communicate through a gestural

representation of time and space.

The hypothesis that perception, conception and visible representation precede the use of linguistic

terms for the basic concepts leads to new opportunities for deaf children to acquire a more complete

language. The bilingual programs in specialized schools for the deaf children (that provide visible

terms for time and space) give surprising results.

In his book The Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture11

, Wilson

presents stories of experts in different fields: free-climbers, musicians, sculptors and mechanical

workers. What they have in common among the factors that led to their excellence in their

respective fields is the creative use of the hands from an early age. It is not important if the hands

are used instrumentally (free climbers, mechanical workers ...) or symbolically (mimes, actors ...).

The important factor seems to be that the use of the hands has a profound effect in the development

of the individual. Hands and brain develop in parallel, as the neuroscientist Wilson precisely

explains.

The parallel study of the use of hands, brain, and sign language suggests that there was a sign

language long before the development of spoken language. Analyzing what hands and their

10 Clark, A. 1998. Where brain, body, and word collide. Daedalus p. 262

11 Wilson, F. 1998. The Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture. New York: Pantheon

Books


Manuela Maggi 11

movements can mean naturally and directly to the eyes and mind can also help us to give all

children, including deaf children, the best chance to develop their full potential.

The hands are real, not abstractions, and are closely related to the brain so that their use has a

significant impact on cognition.

3.2. Language Understanding and Learning in Deaf Children


Deafness about language comprehension and learning in deaf children12

.

To better understand the relationship between language and learning in deaf children, it is important

to consider how deaf and hearing children develop different structures for organizing knowledge

and its use, depending on the initial learning experiences.

Many educators and researchers have highlighted the importance of the visual mode for deaf

children in the contexts of teaching / learning.

The deaf children who know the sign language tend to have superior performance in certain visual /

spatial contexts, such as the decoding of facial expressions or image manipulation (generation,

transformation and rotation).

The researches in this area lead to say that the advanced visual / spatial skills does not represent a

kind of sensory compensation in deaf individuals. Rather, the opportunity to learn a language that is

both visual and spatial seems to bring to an organization of functions that has greatest cognitive and

social benefits.

Deaf children of hearing parents often don’t have sufficient interaction and communication with

their parents during the early years of life. Their ability in social interaction in educational contexts

may therefore be less developed compared to that of children who share the language with their

parents.

Deaf children tend to remember sequences using a method of spatial encoding, while hearing

children prefer a sequential spatial or temporal organization. Spatial or temporal encoding of short

sequences leads to the same short-term memory performance.

At first glance it may seem irrelevant to use a mode of language rather than another with respect to

storage ability. Instead, the researches of recent years indicate that verbal languages are more

efficient for storing sequences of information. In general, students with greater ability in language

tend to have more developed memory.

As an alternative to storage based on verbal language, deaf people use sign language in the

encoding and storing information. It happens, however, that signs that have similar configurations

of the hands create ambiguity and thus reduce the memory capacity, just as words with similar

sounds for hearing people. But the vocabulary of spoken language is richer than the language of

signs, so for the latter more cases of ambiguity occur.

Although deaf students recognize and use associations between words and images to improve their

memory capacity, however, they show less flexibility in the overall understanding of the meanings

and in the ability to place a concept in a hierarchical taxonomy. There are not only difficulties

relating to the use of metaphors or abstraction but in general there are difficulties in understanding

complex and articulated concepts.

12 Marc Marschark and Jennifer Lukomski, Understanding Language and Learning in Deaf Children, in Context,

cognition, and deafness, Op. cit., pp. 71-87


Manuela Maggi 12

3.3. Vocabulary Development of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children


Deafness about the vocabulary development of deaf and hard of hearing children13

.

Vocabulary development can be considered along three dimensions: 1) the amount and nature of

words that children know, 2) the rate of growth in the number of known words (i.e. the speed with

which new words are learned), 3) the process of learning new words or the strategies that children

use to facilitate and guide the learning of new words.

Cognitive skills as association, memory, categorization and social cognition play an essential role in

the development of the vocabulary of children.

Deaf or hard of hearing children are relatively deprived of linguistic input and develop language in

a less rich environment in terms of language than hearing children or deaf children of deaf parents.

The vocabulary of deaf children contains no articles or auxiliary verbs or modal.

The size of the vocabulary of deaf children is related to the number of signs used, but is not related

to the child's age. The lack of correlation with age suggests that the characteristics of the language

have a greater effect on vocabulary than the one related to cognitive development.

A deaf child who acquires both sign language and verbal language develops a vocabulary as rich as

a hearing child.

Vocabulary development can be rather slow in deaf children educated only at “lip reading” so that

they cannot build a phonological representation of new words.

*

Over the next two chapters I will take up particularly the statements about the sign language for

what concerns the syntax, the absence of articles and auxiliary verbs and the reduced size of the

vocabulary, all these characteristics emerge immediately in the early stages in learning this

language.

13 Amy R. Lederberg and Patricia E. Spencer, Vocabulary Development of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children, in

Context, cognition, and deafnes, Op. cit., pp. 88-112


Manuela Maggi 13

4. The Sign Language

The content of this chapter is based on the knowledge that I directly acquired attending to the

course of Italian Sign Language14

.

Sign language is a real language with its grammar and syntax.

Despite of what we might think, sign language varies from country to country: there is an Italian

sign language, a German sign language, and so on. In fact every nation characterizes her sign

language with some symbols drawn from the spoken language in the same land.

In the following pages I would like to explain with some examples, some of the features of the LIS

(Lingua Italiana dei Segni) in which one can observe a different syntax compared with the italian

spoken language.

In order to understand how the LIS has a different syntax from the italian language, I will present

some short phrases and the corresponding sequences of signs.

The following tables show a dialogue between a hearing person and a deaf person. The tables are

divided into 3 columns, the first column shows the English sentence, the second shows the sentence

in Italian, the third the LIS. Between the second and the third column the correspondence of words

and syntactical differences are highlighted.

14 A systematic treatment of these topics is contained in M. Cristina Caselli, Simonetta Maragna, Virginia Volterra,

Linguaggio e sordità. Gesti, segni e parole nello sviluppo e nell'educazione, Il Mulino, 2006. For the basics of the sign

language, see the volume Metodo vista per l'insegnamento della lingua italiana dei segni, Kappa, 1997.


Manuela Maggi 14

Hello. Ciao. (no signs)

1

I’m deaf. Sono sordo.

Sono non udente.

Sono udente

no.

2

3

Are you deaf? Sei non udente?

Sei non udente

tu? 4

5

6

We can observe that the verb to be is not translated into signs and that the denial is postponed

(Figure 3).

Even in translation signs of the question, "Are you deaf?" The subject is postponed (Figure 6).


Manuela Maggi 15

Yes, I’m deaf. Sì.

7

Did you learn

the

sign

language?

Hai imparato

la

lingua

dei segni?

Lingua dei segni

imparare

finito

tu?

8

9

10

11

We can see that the order of the sentence is completely overturned.

Figures 9 and 10 show how in the sign language the past participle of the verb is obtained by adding

the sign of "action completed" to the infinitive.


Manuela Maggi 16

Yes,

I’m learning

the

sign

language.

Sì,

sto imparando

la

lingua

dei segni.

Io

Lingua dei segni

sto imparando

12

13

14

15

Where? Dove?

16

Also in this table we can see that the articles are never translated and the verb is placed at the end of

the sentence.


Manuela Maggi 17

With the

LIS

group.

Al

gruppo

LIS.

Gruppo

L

I

S

17

18

19

20

21

Also articulated prepositions are never translated.

For spelling the dumb alphabet is used (it is shown in the appendix).


Manuela Maggi 18

Who

is

the teacher?

Chi

è

l’insegnante?

Insegnante

chi?

22

23

24

Guido Proietti. Guido Proietti.

25

The verb to be is always implicit.

In the W questions (in LIS they are called K questions), the "W word" is always at the bottom of the

question (Figure 24).

In the community of deaf people it is used to assign to everyone a "sign name", because spelling an

entire name with the dumb alphabet would be too long.

In this case the name of the teacher is Guido (initial G) and it was decided to call Guido with the

symbol of the month January (initial G), because they have the same initial (Fig. 25).


Manuela Maggi 19

Excuse me,

where is

the

English

vocabulary?

Scusa,

dov’è

il

vocabolario

d’inglese?

Scusa

vocabolario

inglese

dove?

26

27

28

29

30

Here it is. Eccolo.

31

Yes. Sì.

32


Manuela Maggi 20

Thank you. Grazie.

33

34

Bye. Ciao.

35

36

From the sequences shown we can see how a simple dialog is totally transformed by the translation

into signs.

It is easy to imagine how a complex speech should be greatly simplified to be translated in a way

comprehensible to deaf people.

At this point I would try to build a parallel with the work of simplification that I had to do to be able

to store texts written in German.


Manuela Maggi 21

5. Learning a New Language

In these months I had to prepare the examination of intercultural psychology. Two of the texts

distributed by the teacher were in German. Before the examination, to be able to store the concepts

in German, I had to make a significant simplification of the contents.

The following tables show how the necessary simplification has been comparable to that which

occurs in the translation into signs.

The first table shows the first step of synthesis that has been made to the German text.

The second table shows the subsequent operation of simplification: the left column lists the contents

of the German text after the first operation of synthesis and the right column the further simplified

concepts.


Manuela Maggi 22

Table 1 - Synthesis Operation

2 Theoretische Grundlagen (G. Layes)

2.1 Grundbegriffe interkultureller Psychologie

2.1.1 Definition des Kulturbegriffs

2.1.1.1 Kultur als Bedeutungssystem

[…] Wie das Zitat zeigt, geht die Kulturpsychologie davon aus,

daß der Mensch dazu in der Lage ist, die Welt und seine

Position in der Welt mit spezifischen Bedeutungen zu belegen

und dadurch sinnhafte Strukturen zu schaffen. Dieses Sinn- und

Bedeutungssystem ist gegenüber anderen Menschen potentiell

kommunizierbar und somit auch an nachfolgende Generationen

tradierbar, wobei diese die tradierten Sinn- und

Bedeutungssysteme ihrerseits reflektieren und verändern

können. Somit ist es vor allem der Begriff der „Bedeutung", der

im Zentrum kulturpsychologischer Definitionen des

Kulturbegriffes steht. So definiert etwa Geertz (1983; S.9)

Kultur als ein „selbstgesponnenes Bedeutungsgewebe", in das

der Mensch verstrickt ist, und Bruner (1990) sieht in der Kultur

ein „interpretive System ... that shapes human life and the

human mind, that gives meaning to action by situating its

underlying intentional states" (S.34). Derselbe Autor ist darüber

hinaus sogar der Auffassung, daß der Prozeß der

„Bedeutungsgebung" das zentralste Konzept der Psychologie

überhaupt darstellt (Bruner, 1990, S.33). Eine bemerkenswerte

Ergänzung zu dieser Konzeption stammt von Shweder (1990),

der schreibt: „The principle of existential uncertainty

[Hervorhebung v. Verf.] asserts that human beings ... are highly

motivated to seize meanings and resources out of a socio-

cultural environment that has been arranged to provide them

with meanings and resources to seize and to use" (S.1). Shweder

(1990) identifiziert hier eine Art „existentielle Unsicherheit" des

Menschen als Bedingung für dessen Bedeutungsgebungen.

Dieses Element ist deshalb so bemerkenswert, weil gerade auch

bei interkulturellen Forschern Begriffe wie „Unsicherheit"

(Gudykunst, 1995) oder „Orientierung" (Dadder, 1987; Thomas,

1996c) mit ins Zentrum rücken. So definiert etwa Thomas

(1996c) die Kultur als „ein universelles, für eine Gesellschaft,

Organisation und Gruppe aber sehr typisches

Orientierungssystem [Hervorhebung v. Verf.]", das für die sich

ihm zugehörig fühlenden Individuen ein „spezifisches

Handlungsfeld" schafft und ihnen damit „eigenständige Formen

der Umweltbewältigung" ermöglicht (S.112). Nach

kulturpsychologischer Auffassung ist Kultur somit ein potentiell

reflektierbares, kommunizierbares und somit tradierbares

Bedeutungssystem, das die vielfältigen Aspekte der Welt in eine

sinnhafte Anordnung bringt. Diese Sinnstiftung bietet dem

Menschen Orientierung bei seiner Lebensbewältigung; eine

Funktion von Kultur, die besonders von interkulturellen

Forschern betont wird.

Die Tatsache, dass gerade interkulturelle Forscher die

orientierungsstiftende Funktion von kulturellen

Bedeutungssystemen betonen, ist sicher kein Zufall. Vielmehr

darf man vermuten, daß gerade sie die Phänomene der

Verunsicherung und Desorientierung vor Augen haben, die

entstehen können, wenn Angehörige unterschiedlicher

kultureller Bedeutungssysteme in einer konkreten Situation

miteinander interagieren.





[…]

Vor allem ist es der Begriff der „Bedeutung", der im

Zentrum kulturpsychologischer Definitionen des

Kulturbegriffes steht.

Kultur als ein Netz von Bedeutungen.

Kultur als ein „interpretative System“.

Man identifiziert hier eine Art „existentielle

Unsicherheit" des Menschen als Bedingung für

dessen Bedeutung.

Die Tatsache, dass gerade interkulturelle Forscher

die orientierungsstiftende Funktion von kulturellen

Bedeutungssystemen betonen, ist sicher kein Zufall.

Vielmehr darf man vermuten, dass gerade sie die

Phänomene der Verunsicherung und

Desorientierung vor Augen haben.


Manuela Maggi 23

Table 2 - Further simplification of the concepts





Vor allem ist es der Begriff der „Bedeutung", der im

Zentrum kulturpsychologischer Definitionen des

Kulturbegriffes steht.



Man identifiziert hier eine Art „existentielle

Unsicherheit" des Menschen als Bedingung für

dessen Bedeutung.

Die Tatsache, dass gerade interkulturelle Forscher

die orientierungsstiftende Funktion von kulturellen

Bedeutungssystemen betonen, ist sicher kein Zufall.

Vielmehr darf man vermuten, dass gerade sie die

Phänomene der Verunsicherung und Desorientierung

vor Augen haben.

2.1.1.2 Kultur als Bedingung von Fremderleben

Thomas (1993a) und Graumann (1997) stellen fest,

dass Begriffe wie „Fremde" oder „Fremdheit" keine

sehr etablierten psychologischen Termini darstellen.

In der deutschen Sprache können mit dem Begriff

„Fremde" folgende drei Sachverhalte gemeint:

„der Fremde = der fremde Mensch (dessen weibliche

Form die Fremde ist); …

die Fremde = das Land fern der Heimat, das weiter

entfernte Ausland; …

das Fremde = Dinge, Ereignisse, Sachverhalte, die

uns fremd erscheinen“

Der dritte ist im Mittelpunkt des Interesses der

Interkulturellen Psychologie.

„Die Fremdheit, die wir an anderen erfahren, ist

immer ein interaktionales Phänomen".

Das Fremde kann „ängstigen wie anziehen“, es ist

„Lockung und Bedrohung" zugleich, so dass wir

„von der Ambivalenz des Fremden ausgehen

müssen". Genau diese Ambivalenz ist es, durch die

das Fremde eine „LernProblematik" bietet, aus der

sich Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten ergeben können.





Der Begriff der Bedeutung steht im Zentrum

kulturpsychologischer Definitionen des

Kulturbegriffs.



Die existentielle Unsicherheit des Menschen als

Bedingung für dessen Bedeutung.

Die Forscher haben vor Augen Phänomene der

Verunsicherung und Desorientierung, deshalb

studieren sie die Orientierungsfunktion.

2.1.1.2 Kultur als Bedingung von Fremderleben

In der deutschen Sprache können mit dem Begriff

„Fremde" folgende drei Sachverhalte gemeint

werden:

„der Fremde = der fremde Mensch

die Fremde = das Land fern der Heimat

das Fremde = Dinge, Ereignisse, Sachverhalte, die

uns fremd erscheinen“

Der dritte ist im Mittelpunkt des Interesses der

Interkulturellen Psychologie.

„Die Fremdheit ist immer ein interaktionales

Phänomen".

Das Fremde kann ängstigen aber es kann auch

Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten bringen.


Manuela Maggi 24

6. Final Remarks

This work starts from the consideration, drawn from the thought of Peirce, that the truth is pursued

in the communication between stakeholders, and communication is developed primarily through

external signs.

The importance of the external signs in communication, and then in the development of knowledge,

is confirmed by research on cognitive development of deaf children and hearing children.

The insights are not formed in the mind to be expressed outside. Even within an individual,

knowledge is a cooperation between perception and action. To transform the perception in language

it is necessary to give a representation through the use of hand gestures, just a manifestation. The

communication through signs is so basic, even for the formation of verbal language.

The sign language has its own vocabulary and syntax, both simpler compared to spoken languages.

In order to learn sign language and to communicate through it, we should make a simplification of

the concepts, just like in the early stages of learning a foreign language.

The need for simplification is mainly due to the fact that the new language uses different syntactic

structures from those of our mother tongue.

The simplification is so necessary to store concepts and for their reformulation and expression in

the language we are learning.

In acquiring a new language is like if we go over again the evolutionary path of learning that

specific language / cognitive structure.

Our memory structures in fact, from an empirical standpoint, would seem to reproduce the syntactic

structures of the language we use.

Through the syntactic structures we can store the concepts in a more or less articulated way,

depending on the complexity of the structures.

The more complex sentence structures we have, the more we can process and store complex

concepts.

The more complex the structures are, the more storage is based on the auditory function, which

gives the "melody" to the discourse.

The more we simplify and synthesize, the more the visual memory comes into play. This also

explains why in these cases it becomes very effective the use of diagrams and charts that need no

translation.

This synthesis, however, entails the removal of verbs, prepositions and articles, with a consequent

loss of part of the meanings.

These considerations seem to lead to the conclusion that while in the spoken languages, through the

deep knowledge of language, we can handle complex meanings, in the sign language this can never

happen, because the sign language is a simplified language.

But we must not neglect the nonverbal component of the sign language. The facial expression adds

the very meaning to the message. This component is mistakenly neglected whenever the

communication is based on a shared spoken language.

And the influence of facial expressions and emotional component in the transmission of profound

significance remains an interesting field to explore.


Manuela Maggi 25

Bibliography

R.M. Calcaterra, Psicologia e normatività epistemica. Figure dell'esternalismo, in Le ragioni del

conoscere e dell'agire. Scritti in onore di Rosaria Egidi (a cura di), Franco Angeli, Milano 2006

H. Bergson, Saggio sui dati immediati della coscienza, Cortina Raffaello, 2002

K.L. Ketner, H. Putnam (eds.), Ch. S. Peirce. Reasoning and the logic of things. The Cambridge

conference lectures 1989, Harward University Press, Cambridge 1992, p.143.

Clark, A. 1973. Space, time, semantics and the child. In Cognitive development and the acquisition

of language, ed. T. Moore, 27-63. New York: Academic Press.

Clark, A. 1998. Where brain, body, and word collide. Daedalus

Wilson, F. 1998. The Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture. New

York: Pantheon Books

M. Diane Clark, Marc Marschark, Michael A. Karchmer, Context, Cognition, and Deafness,

Gallaudet University Press, 2001

M. Cristina Caselli, Simonetta Maragna, Virginia Volterra, Linguaggio e sordità. Gesti, segni e

parole nello sviluppo e nell'educazione, Il Mulino, 2006

Metodo vista per l'insegnamento della lingua italiana dei segni, Kappa, 1997


Manuela Maggi 26

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