Abstract:

In the early decades of the nineteenth century, when Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was famously advocating for sign language to be the language of instruction for deaf children in the United States, European philosophers were founding modern linguistics. Gallaudet was not able to benefit from their breakthroughs, however, because his upbringing, education, and religious beliefs all conspired to preclude any interest in European thought or, indeed, any secular thought at all. For this reason, his arguments for sign language were seen as naive and uninformed by educated people of his day and thus were easily dismissed by liberally educated oralists, who were better acquainted with new ways of understanding the human mind. The first part of the present study examines the limitations on what Gallaudet read and learned in his college courses and graduate studies, as well as how his underlying religious beliefs about language, its origin, and its purposes worked to compound these limitations. The second part of this study shows how his archaic ideas about language undermined his public efforts for sign language instruction. In short, Gallaudet argued for the right thing—sign language education—but he supported his arguments with reasoning based on assumptions few thinkers of his time could any longer accept.

摘要：

在19世纪初期，托马斯·霍普金斯·加洛德（Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet）著名地倡导手语成为美国聋哑儿童的教学语言，欧洲哲学家们正在建立现代语言学。然而，加洛德（Gallaudet）未能从他们的突破中受益，因为他的成长，教育和宗教信仰都密谋排除了对欧洲思想的兴趣，或者甚至对世俗思想的兴趣。由于这个原因，他的手势语言论据被当时的受过教育的人们视为天真无知，因此被那些受过良好教育的口述者轻易地驳斥了，他们更了解新的理解人类思想的方式。本研究的第一部分探讨了加洛德在大学课程和研究生学习中所读和学到的限制，以及他对语言，其起源和目的的基本宗教信仰如何克服了这些限制。本研究的第二部分显示了他关于语言的古老观念如何破坏了他对手语教学的公共努力。简而言之，加洛德（Gallaudet）主张正确的事情-手语教育-但他基于自己的时代的思想家再也无法接受的假设，以推理来支持自己的论点。本研究的第二部分显示了他关于语言的古老观念如何破坏了他对手语教学的公共努力。简而言之，加洛德（Gallaudet）主张正确的事情-手语教育-但他基于自己的时代的思想家再也无法接受的假设，以推理来支持自己的论点。本研究的第二部分显示了他关于语言的古老观念如何破坏了他对手语教学的公共努力。简而言之，加洛德（Gallaudet）主张正确的事情-手语教育-但他基于自己的时代的思想家再也无法接受的假设，以推理来支持自己的论点。