Sign Language as a Form of Speech*

Abstract

THE relationship between mouth gestures A (which produce speech) and bodily gesture was indicated by Darwin (“Expression of the Emotions”, 1872): it had been noticed thirty years earlier by Charles Dickens in the “Pickwick Papers”, where he shows Sam Weller, junior, forming with his tongue “imaginary characters to correspond” with the letters of his valentine to Mary. This hand and mouth association deserves to be systematically studied. It lies at the very root of human speech: its rudiments are found in the behaviour of chimpanzees.

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