NEXT TALK: Next talk 31st of October, 7pm - Sesonal mood disorders
Cittie Of Yorke, 22 High Holborn, WC1V 6BN
The Deaf Brain
2013/12/17
This talk looks at the British Deaf community, their language (British Sign Language), culture - and their brains. Wherever communities of deaf people exist, sign languages are spontaneously developed – languages unrelated to spoken languages - exploiting vision and space for linguistic purposes. BSL and some of its striking features will be introduced, together with an outline of the history and use of BSL (first described in the 16th century). This will be followed by a discussion of our evolving understanding of the dual roles of deafness and sign language in shaping the "deaf brain".
Professor Bencie Woll
Chair of Sign Language and Deaf Studies Cognitive, Perceptual & Brain Sciences Div of Psychology & Language Sciences Faculty of Brain Sciences.
I am a linguist by training and came to UCL in August 2005 from my previous post at City University London, where I held a Chair in Sign Language and Deaf Studies, the first in this field in the UK. Before coming to London, I was at Bristol, where I first worked on language acquisition and then was a co-founder of the Centre for Deaf Studies, pioneering research on the linguistics of BSL and on Deaf Studies. I was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 2012.
