Seeing Voices
by Oliver Sacks
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Book Summary Information
Author: Oliver SacksEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-11-28
ISBN: 0375704078
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Seeing Voices
Book Review: "Better Understanding of the Deaf" by Sean Lynch
Summary: 4 Stars
Oliver Sacks composed this work because he became highly intrigued by the deaf after reading the paper "When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf" by Harlan Lane. Similarly, it is hard not to be both intrigued and impressed by the deaf population after reading Sacks' work "Seeing Voices". The focus of this book is on those in the human population who were born deaf or became deaf at an early age, and thus had to learn to communicate with the world without the power of spoken language.
The book is divided into three parts. The first section of the book introduces the deaf population and the definition of being Deaf. Sacks also explains how he became interested in learning about the deaf. Considering that Sacks has no prior connections to any deaf people, his curiosity for learning is impressive. The second section makes up the bulk of the book. In this section, Sacks describes his interactions with several patients, including Joseph and Charlotte, two deaf children who were raised differently by their parents. Sacks also discusses the neural background of being deaf, and makes several comparisons and contrasts between the deaf brain and the speaking brain. In the final section of the book, Sacks tells the story of the "Deaf Revolution" at Gallaudet College in 1988. In this revolution, deaf students rebel against the school administration and succeed in having a deaf member of the faculty named as president of the university. This section focuses mainly on deaf rights.
Sacks interacts with several patients on his journey of learning, and finds many contrasts between the abilities of deaf children. Joseph, born deaf, was treated like many deaf children in our society: he was unable to learn sign language and was forced to struggle with English and lip-reading at an early age. When Sacks talks to Joseph, he discovers that it is impossible to have a dialogue with Joseph, and that he "found it impossible to ask Joseph a question" (p.45). Joseph does poorly in school and is not able to function in our society. On the other hand, Charlotte, also born deaf, was diagnosed with deafness as an infant. Her parents, realizing that their daughter would never be able to hear their own spoken language, quickly took up learning a basic sign language. They would continue to learn more complicated sign languages as Charlotte grew, and continued to teach their daughter everything that they were learning about Sign. Because of this, Charlotte developed as normally as any speaking child. She is highly animated and very expressive. She is able to communicate with others, both the deaf and the speaking, easily because she was given the opportunity to develop her linguistic ability in a language that she is a natural: Sign language. Charlotte's case shows that often, deaf people are seen as "dumb" because speaking people force them to try to learn our language, which is not natural for them. They fall behind in the world. These cases also show that "one cannot acquire language by oneself" (p. 49), and thus they need help from one who already knows language. Also, it shows that Sign language is the natural language for deaf people, just as spoken language is the natural language for speaking people. Sacks confirms this through studies of the deaf brain, in comparison to the speaking brain, later in the book.
From these and other patient interactions, Sacks then dives into a study of the neural influences of the deaf. He discovered, through sifting through many studies, that the brains of deaf people were shown to show plasticity; that is, they reorganized themselves to adjust to the lack of speaking language. In these brains the areas that are responsible for language weren't not used, instead they were activated for visual stimuli. Since signers have a higher awareness of visual stimuli, signing is natural for them to learn. "Signers show the same cerebral lateralization as speakers, even though signing is entirely visuospatial in nature" (p.75). This discovery confirms that signing IS a language . Also,"the fact that Sign is based in the left hemisphere, despite its spatial organization, suggests that there is a representation of `linguistic' space in the brain" (p.76). This linguistic space must be reared correctly however, at a child's young age, when learning is very critical to their development. This marks the significant difference between Charlotte and Joseph, the two child patients discussed earlier.
In conclusion, Sacks wants the reader to know that the deaf strive to not be seen as "deaf and dumb". They have their own schools, colleges, and language (sign, in various forms) and can be highly intelligent if reared correctly. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning about the deaf as well as anyone interested in neural plasticity. I especially enjoyed hearing the stories of the deaf patients and deaf schools. I was not previously aware that deaf schools even existed! I believe that many of us are ignorant of the situation of the deaf, and Oliver Sack's book is a good place to start our understanding of them.
Summary of Seeing Voices
Like The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, this is a fascinating voyage into a strange and wonderful land, a provocative meditation on communication, biology, adaptation, and culture. In Seeing Voices, Oliver Sacks turns his attention to the subject of deafness, and the result is a deeply felt portrait of a minority struggling for recognition and respect--a minority with its own rich, sometimes astonishing, culture and unique visual language, an extraordinary mode of communication that tells us much about the basis of language in hearing people as well. Seeing Voices is, as Studs Terkel has written, "an exquisite, as well as revelatory, work."Sign Language Books
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