Talk:A Man Without Words

Hey is anybody out there? We we're a group of students working on a project for our linguistics class and we want to write more about this book and link it to the wider world of wiki. Is that okay? Soffar16 (talk) 03:04, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Organization
I am going to make some headings on this talk page for subjects that I think are worthy of adding to the wiki.Feel free to add,delete, edit.Huxley1860 (talk) 22:58, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Ill is short for Ildefonso, <  > indicates a quote, (numbers) refer to page number the italics in page nine indicates ideas that are not Susan Schaller's -needs summary -write up/connections to Deaf culture -Putting in names dropped -Sales figures/ impact Soffar16 (talk) 01:45, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I've fond a NYT article on the book i put it in criticism Soffar16 (talk) 02:14, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Subject
Ildefonzo? Susan? Jenie? Vicktor? Concepts of language acquisition? Gansam12 (talk) 21:23, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Summary
Ildefonso had no concept of language—signed, spoken, or written. At first he simply mimicked Schaller’s signs, frustrating them both. Eventually, through the naively ingenious teaching strategies that Schaller concocted, Ildefonso came to connect the sign “cat” with his own experience and with the written word itself. “Ildefonso’s face opened in excitement as he slowly pondered the revelation,” Schaller says. “Slowly at first, then hungrily, he took in everything as though he had never seen anything before.”

This book presents not only Ildefonso’s first glimpse of language but also Schaller’s re-vision. A hearing person enthralled with American Sign Language since she was seventeen, Schaller asked age-old questions—what is language, what is it like to live without language—but in a fresh, stimulating way. Douninowt (talk) 20:27, 9 March 2012‎ (UTC)Newlau31 (talk) 10:23, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

intro Moved to LA to be with husband in medical school late 1970s went to community services and referral pro. for the deaf (p.19)

Chap 1 Community college dis. needed interp. for the newest campus. Room 6 bungalow D (p21) "Reading Skills Class" (23) Ilfonzo copying movements (26)

Chap 2 Deaf adults learning English (29) Ildefonso 27 years old illegal from southern me. (30). Il. thinks of signs more as commands then abstract concepts (32). Signing numbers (34-35).  (36) Mary-Ann communicates with meaningless gestures (38) Susan begins teaching the word "cat" to an invisible student (42). Ill GETS IT (44)

Chap 3 Deaf people "taught" not to ask for anything Juanita breaks that rule (48). Our need to be w/someone outweighs intellegent language (49) Susan confronts fantasy of conversing (50)  Il becomes interested in the connection between signing and writing (52)  Il learns his name (54)  Ill learns about English & Spanish  (56). Soffar16 (talk) 03:40, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Chap 4 Wondering if an adult can learn language (58). Ursula Bellugi (59) learning numbers greater then nine (60). Slow progress (62). Language as names (63). learning colors green frightens him (64). Meeting Bellugi no help (65)

Chap 5  (68). Not enough symbols to show complex thought (70) The the sign for the color green contains a deep story for Ill (70). Carries the same tattered document with written words (72) Arithmetic good, time related things bad (73). Susan feels as though there is never a wasted conversation between her and Ill (73-74) Ill's open ready mind teachers paradise (74)  Ill Beginning to think Susan has power over everything because of language (75)

Chap 6 Friends who pushed each other to explore (76). Picking up signs Susan hasn't taught him (77). Telling stories about the past? (79). Ill learns to sign I love you (80) What is language less like (82)

Chap 7 Cal a professer comes to visit (83) Until recently [late 80s?] deaf communities not seen as a minority language (84)  Cal is able to communicate much faster with Ill via gestures and facial expressions (85-86) The hearing handicap (86) The visual is much more rich (87). Cultural deafness (89) Language is the membership for belong to a certain tribe (90)

Chap 8 Ill has tools like a scientist observation & deduction. (92) Ill outlines the course and the direction of the lessons (93) The story of green is about fear of immigration and green cards (93) Susan decides to visit border patrol herself (94)  Has to take a lie detector test before people tell her how border patrol works (95)  Language less people have their own border patrol procedure (96) Describing things with one word ala 'green' works with shared association (97) Ill Wants to know about race (98) Learns about native Americans & racial history (100)  Much later Ill tells Susan he loves watching people (100).

Chap 9 In much of this chaper Susan compares Ill to Ishi the last "wild" Indian Susan wants Ill to learn faster so she can learn about language lessness (102) Human nature not dependent on language (103).  (104) Possessing inner language (105) Language is a part of memory and organizes our inner life (106) Alexander Luria. Ill w/o langauge cannot process abstraction (106) Naming in culture (107) The idea of a conversation (109)  Ill is shy with other people (110). The burrito conversation Ill has his first conversation (111) Used God correctly in a sentence (111).

Chap 10 Ill needs glasses no one can afford them also Susan's money is running out (115)

Chap 11 Ill wants to learn about the clock (116) Whorf language thought and reality (118)  (119-120) Ill's lesson on aging (121-122)  Ill likes using time measure to count for the sake of birthdays (123)  Ill celebrates his "first" birthday. (123-124)

Chap 12 Relying too much on Susan for answers (126) how the speaker changes the language (126-127). Christmas presents a larger problem: how to explain abstractions like religion (127) "you mean that one?" (128) Ill knows about the crucifixion (127-128) Ill gets glasses (129) Ill gets a job to earn money and quits school (130) Susan loses track of Ill for 6 months (131) Meets again at bus stop Ill language looks a lot more like adult language (131)

Chap 13 Susan moves to NC (131) Susan divorced (132) finds severely misinformed texts on language and learning (133) Tries to do research on adults learning language (134) Contacts the Deaf community (134-135) Greg Castillo (135) Language less man in Chicago murder trial & Dr. Virginia McKinney (136) Center for communicative development in LA (136)  VMK taught another language less adult Joe (138) VMK dissertation (140) Joe and Ill are very much alike (140-141)  teacher Erika in four years of teaching has met fifteen language less adults (144) Don Briedenthal (144) Be gap between the universities and this street clinic (146) VMC won't help Susan because she's not researching for a phd (147)

Chap 14 Dr Oliver Sacks Susan begins communication to him about Ill(148) Kasper Hauser + Susan Curtiss (149) Victor (150)  Did Susan have the "right to change Ill (152) vocalizations of Deaf people provoke intense responses from hearing people deaf people bring about the same fear as wild children? (155)  Physical isolation has different affects than not possessing language (156).  Ill had a sense of morality (156) Ill had a sense of self (157)

Chap 15 Robyn Natwick (159) L. Timmons (160) The Independent Living Skills Laboratory in San Fran (161) Seven years from when she met Ill (161)  Meets Ill (162) Ill scolds her for not giving him a bday present (163)  Ill seems very fluent and capable of having many conversations with everyone present (164) Susan taught Ill for four months Ill speaks elegantly about greed (164)  Ill is legal and is a very good gardener for a private hospital Ill is lonely because no one signs (166) Soffar16 (talk) 00:55, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Chap 16 Schaller meets with Ildefonso, his brother Mario, and Elena. Mario grew up with Ildefonso and they had developed their own gestural communication system as children (though the pressure and need to work caused their interactions to be limited and thereby their communication capacity to also be limited), but Schaller learns that Ildefonso can no longer communicate in this medium effectively, language has changed his thinking too much. Ildefonso is persistent in his efforts to expose Schaller to communication without language. He takes the group to a home of three languageless adults living together, friends of him and Mario.

Chap 17 Schaller is exposed to hours of story telling from the languageless members of the group. Schaller is amazed at the density of information these individuals (who do not have names) can give to one another with facial expression and mime, especially since most of the gestures being used seem spontaneous and are not shared expressions. Ildefonso emphasizes the difference between their communication and his.

Afterword (New in 1995 print) Schaller learns that, according to word of mouth in the Deaf community, "...there are hundreds of languageless deaf adults in California alone" (189). Schaller determines that languageless is actually not the right adjective to describe socially functioning adults without formal language, and that maybe something like "tribeless" would be more accurate. But for her purposes she still uses languageless to impress the importance of the communication differences of these persons (191). Harlan Lane's The Mask of Benevolence is cited to explain how easily the hearing mistake the deaf as having no language (191). Ildefonso teaches his brother some sign, and the organization NaDA is mentioned to emphasize the difference between the deaf as a linguistic minority and all other linguistic minorities, as their challenges often begin at home. Amjolley (talk) 17:35, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Criticism
"A Man Without Words" was reviewed by Carol A. Padden in the American Journal of Psychology Vol 68 Number 3 1992. She wrote that Schaller's comparison between her subject, Ildefonso, and children like Victor and Genie (feral child) distracts from their basic differences. Padden further contrasted that Ildefonso had a caretaker, was not distracted by the introduction of society and probably had a way of communicating with his deaf and language-less brother before Schaller's arrival.

Padden added, "In the end, the comparison of Ildefonso with Genie and Victor would be more interesting if Schaller could extract real differences among them. The fact that all are 'language-less' may not seem as revealing as the fact that Genie and Victor lost not only the opportunity to acquire language, but the ability to participate in the social rhythm of life, the symbolic nature of organized human contact with one another. Without this essential symbolism, the point of using linguistic symbols is difficult, if not impossible, to grasp." (pg.652-653)

The book was also reviewed in the Language Vol. 68, No. 3 (Sep., 1992), pp. 664-665 by Jürgen Tesak, who wrote,

"Considering what one finds out about Ildefonso's past, the story of a Kaspar-Hauser-creature rescued by S after 'twenty-seven years of a mental isolation' (36) 'in a black hell of meaninglessness and incomprehensible loneliness' (45) is simply not true." (pg. 665)

He criticized that the books lack of reference to a more scientific approach of studying the subjects case, writing that the book should be treated "with a maximum of caution" (pg. 665) Huxley1860 (talk) 22:58, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/03/books/all-language-was-foreign.html link to NYT article Soffar16 (talk) 02:13, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Podcast
Susan Schaller, the author of "A Man Without Words," was featured on a RadioLab podcast August 9 2010 called Words.Huxley1860 (talk) 22:58, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Oliver Sacks
I went to the Oliver Sacks page and found out that his work on the forward of A Man Without Words is not listed. I started a discussion on their talk page as to whether or not it would be relevant to add it. Huxley1860 (talk) 20:48, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

We can also add a quick background on Oliver Sacks as well as connecting him to this page, he has several other books which correlate with brain related issues that I think can tie in very nicely to this. Gansam12 (talk) 21:23, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Connections
I imputted this couple of paragraphs into a section call "stories on other subject in isolation" Hope that helps :)Sbvandi (talk) 20:13, 20 March 2012 (UTC) What can we link this to? It seems that this can be applied to several other types of brain study/language study pages that can be a good reference for people who want to know more. They can see that this book may be something interesting, if they are already looking at a similar wiki.In

1970 a story of a child came to light. This was an awful story of a girl that was morbidly abused by being force to sit on a potty chair for up to 24 hour a day. Without any communication or contact with anyone except for her abusive father who would spoon feed her and only growl and bark at her like a dog if she attempted to make any noise at all she remain alone. After twelve miserable years she was discovered and removed from her parents. She was then taken to Children's Hospital UCLA. When they first encountered the girl they named her "Genie"Genie_(feral_child). She could not talk and could barely walk. She had no communication skilled and was extremely delayedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEnkY2iaKis.Sbvandi (talk) 19:54, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

The story of "Genie" is just one of the many stories that have been uncovered the past few decades about children that have been confined to one space and given no or limited contact with the outside world. Another terrifying story is of children in Serbian Orphanages where children are kept in cribs and often times strapped down to the cribs. Because of this inhumane treatment that last for an entire childhood and sometimes well into adulthood, these children have no communication skills at all and their bodies have contorted into unnatural positions to stay within the confinements of the cribs. Doctors that have visited these horrific orphanages say the children have what's called "Failure to Thrive syndrome" This syndrome happens when a child in confined to a small space for an extended length of time and their bodies stop growing. "Genie's" small frame showed symptoms of failure to thrive syndrome.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgxNgV5SrSk.Sbvandi (talk) 19:54, 15 March 2012 (UTC) Gansam12 (talk) 21:23, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I linked Genie to her Wiki and Victor to "Feral Child" above. This format is a little hard for me to read, so please edit my links out if they were already applied elsewhere. Newlau31 (talk) 10:23, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Genie, obviously. Oliver Sacks, Susan Schaller, Helen Keller? Language Acquisition page, Language, Language developmentGansam12 (talk) 21:23, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

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