Sign Language And What Language do deaf people think in?
Wonder 1: What Language do deaf people think in?
For upon |The hearing-impaired, also known as the deaf, think in phrases of their “inner voice”. Some of them think in American Sign Language, (ASL). Other deaf think in the vocal language they learned, with their brains coming up with how the language sounds.
Additionally, their thinking process is a little different from people who can hear. When they think, they see themselves signing from the first-person point of view or a third-person point of view. When they imagine a hearing person speaking. They imagine them signing instead of speaking. There are no signs for every word in ASL. Sometimes when deaf people want to think of a word that doesn’t have a sign, they finger-spell it. It’s like imagining letters in hand shapes.
Treat Spoken Language
Our brains treat sign language as they treat spoken language, even using the same part of the brain. This is as absurd as you’d think the brain would use some part of the right side with sign language being visual. It turns out though that it uses the same portion of the left hemisphere to process sign language as it does for vocal language in the hearing.
On the webpage titled todayifoundout.com, it says those who were born completely deaf and only learned sign language will think in sign language. What is surprising? Those who were born completely deaf but learn to speak through vocal training. They will occasionally think not only in the particular signing language that they know, but they will also sometimes think in the vocal (speaking) language that they learned, with their brains processing how the word(s) sound. Primarily though, most people who are completely deaf think in sign language. Like how the “inner voice” of a hearing person is heard in their voice, a completely deaf person sees or feels themselves signing in their head as they “talk” to themselves.
The article was originally published here.
Deaf Language
For upon |Hearing-impaired (also referred to as deaf) people think in terms of their “inner voice”. Some of them think in ASL (American Sign Language), while others think in the vocal language they learned, with their brains coming up with how the vocal language sounds. Additionally, their thinking process is a little different from hearing people. When they think, they’re seeing themselves signing from the first-person point of view or a third-person point of view. When they imagine a hearing person speaking, they imagine him/her signing instead of speaking. The reason is they can understand him/her that way. Because there aren’t signs for every word in ASL. Sometimes when deaf people want to think of a word that doesn’t have a sign, they finger-spell it. It’s like imagining letters in hand shapes. Finger-spelling occurs more frequently if a deaf person is reading words instead of signing them.
Of course, there is always room for variability. And, according to the article “How Deaf People Think” by Today I Found Out “.Our brains treat sign language exactly as they treat spoken language, even using the same part of the brain to process it. This is counterintuitive as you’d think the brain would use some part of the right hemisphere. It turns out though that it uses the same portion of the left hemisphere to process sign language as it does for vocal language in the hearing.”
Cool, huh?
The article was originally published here.
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