Emmorey K. Language, Cognition, and the Brain. Insights from Sign Language Research

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002. — 402 p.Once signed languages are recognized as natural human languages, a world of exploration opens up. Signed languages provide a powerful tool for investigating the nature of human language and language processing, the relation between cognition and language, and the neural organization for language. The value of signed languages lies in their modality. Specifically, for perception, signed languages depend on high-level vision and motion-processing systems, and for production, they require the integration of motor systems involving the hands and face. These facts raise many questions: What impact does this different biological base have for grammatical systems? For online language processing? For the acquisition of language? How does it affect nonlinguistic cognitive structures and processing? Are the same neural systems involved? These are some of the questions that this book addresses. The answers provide insight into what constrains grammatical form (chap. 2), language processing (chap. 4), linguistic working memory (chap. 7), and hemispheric specialization for language (chap. 9). As we see throughout the volume, the study of signed languages allows researchers to address questions about the nature of linguistic and cognitive systems that could not otherwise be easily addressed.The Structure of American Sign Language: Linguistic Universals and Modality Effects
The Confluence of Language and Space
Psycholinguistic Studies of Sign Perception, Online Processing, and Production
The Critical Period Hypothesis and the Effects of Late Language Acquisition
Memory for Sign Language: Implications for the Structure of Working Memory
The Impact of Sign Language Use on Visuospatial Cognition
Sign Language and the Brain
Epilogue
A: Handshapes in American Sign Language
B: Linguistic Distinctions Among Communication Forms in Nicaragua