LINGUIST List 7.1709

Thu Dec 5 1996

Sum: Language of blind people

Editor for this issue: Ann Dizdar <dizdarunix.tamu.edu>

Directory

1. "A.T.C.Fox", Language of blind people

Dear Linguist,

A few weeks ago I asked for references on the language of blind people
and I received a number of replies. From them, I learnt firstly that
my assumption that blind people have difficulty accessing e-mail was
false, and I am grateful for the suggestions made. Secondly, I
received a number of references which make it clear that the only area
of this topic that has been seriously discussed is language
acquisition by blind children.

I append a list of the specific references that I received.

Cutsforth, Thomas Darl. 1933 [1951]. The Blind in School and Society,
A Psychological Study. New York: American Foundation for the
Blind. (Ch. III)

Dunlea, Anne. 1989. Vision and the Emergence of Meaning: Blind and
Sighted Children's Early Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

Garman, M. 1983. The Investigation of Vision in Language
Development. In A.E.Mills (ed.) (see below).

Iverson, Jana and Susan Goldin-Meadow, "What's Communication Got to Do
with It."(unpublished?)

Kemp, N J. 1981. Social psychological aspects of blindness: a
review. Current Psychological Reviews 1, 69-89.

Landau, B. and Gleitman, L. 1985. Language and Experience: Evidence
from the Blind Child. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Mills, Anne E. 1993. Visual handicap. In Dorothy Bishop & Kay
Mogford. Language Development In Exceptional Circumstances. Lawrence
Erlbaum, pp. 150-164.

Mills, Anne E. ed. 1983. Language Acquisition in the Blind Child:
Normal and Deficient. London: Croom Helm; San Diego: College-Hill
Press.

My thanks to: Ann Copestake, Peter Daniels, Mark Durie, Robert
Englebretson, Susan Fischer, Nancy Frishberg, David Good, James Myers,
David Pesetzky, Ros Temple, Zinny Bond, Gary Morgan, Anthea Fraser
Gupta, Lynn Messing, and Mary Ward.