front cover of Double-Consciousness/Double Bind
Double-Consciousness/Double Bind
Theoretical Issues in Twentieth-Century Black Literature
Sandra Adell
University of Illinois Press, 1994
A provocative study of major twentieth century African American writers and critics

Sandra Adell looks at Black literature and criticism's relationship with the complex ensemble of Western literature, criticism, and philosophy. Adell begins with an analysis of the metaphysical foundations of W. E. B. Du Bois's famous formulation of double-consciousness and how Black writing bears the traces of such European philosophers as Kant, Hegel, and Marx. She then examines, in the double context of black literature and European philosophy, the writings of major authors and essayists like Richard Wright, Leopold Senghor, Maya Angelou, Houston A. Baker, Jr., and Henry Louis Gates Jr. and offers a thoughtful analysis of the "double bind" created by conflicting claims of Euro- and Afrocentrism in Black literature.

[more]

front cover of Sign Language Research
Sign Language Research
Theoretical Issues
Ceil Lucas
Gallaudet University Press, 1990
The second international conference on sign language research, hosted by Gallaudet University, yielded critical findings in vital linguistic disciplines — phonology, morphology, syntax, sociolinguistics, language acquisition and psycholinguistics. Sign Language Research brings together in a fully synthesized volume the work of 24 of the researchers invited to this important gathering. Scholars from Belgium to India, from Finland to Uganda, and from Japan to the United States, exchanged the latest developments in sign language research worldwide. Now, the results of their findings are in this comprehensive volume complete with illustrations and photographs.
[more]

logo for Harvard University Press
Theoretical Issues in Literary History
David Perkins
Harvard University Press, 1991
Literary history, the dominant form of literary scholarship throughout the nineteenth century, is currently recapturing the imaginations of a new generation of scholars eager to focus on the context of literature after a half-century or more of “close” readings of isolated texts. This book represents current thinking on some of the theoretical issues and dilemmas in the conception and writing of literary history, expressed by a group of scholars from North America, Europe, and Australia. They consider afresh a broad range of topics: the role of literary history in “new” societies, the problem of finding a starting point for literary history, the problem of literary classification, problems of ideology, of institutional mediation, periodization, and the attack on literary history.
[more]

logo for University of Chicago Press
Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research, Volume 1
Linguistics
Edited by Susan D. Fischer and Patricia Siple
University of Chicago Press, 1990
Only recently has linguistic research recognized sign languages as legitimate human languages with properties analogous to those cataloged for French or Navajo, for example. There are many different sign languages, which can be analyzed on a variety of levels—phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics—in the same way as spoken languages. Yet the recognition that not all of the principles established for spoken languages hold for sign languages has made sign languages a crucial testing ground for linguistic theory.

Edited by Susan Fischer and Patricia Siple, this collection is divided into four sections, reflecting the traditional core areas of phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Although most of the contributions consider American Sign Language (ASL), five treat sign languages unrelated to ASL, offering valuable perspectives on sign universals. Since some of these languages or systems are only recently established, they provide a window onto the evolution and growth of sign languages.
[more]

logo for University of Chicago Press
Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research, Volume 2
Psychology
Edited by Patricia Siple and Susan D. Fischer
University of Chicago Press, 1991
The recent recognition of sign languages as legitimate human languages has opened up new and unique ways for both theoretical and applied psycholinguistics and language acquisition have begun to demonstrate the universality of language acquisition, comprehension, and production processes across a wide variety of modes of communication. As a result, many language practitioners, teachers, and clinicians have begun to examine the role of sign language in the education of the deaf as well as in language intervention for atypical, language-delayed populations.

This collection, edited by Patricia Siple and Susan D. Fischer, brings together theoretically important contributions from both basic research and applied settings. The studies include native sign language acquisition; acquisition and processing of sign language through a single mode under widely varying conditions; acquisition and processing of bimodal (speech and sign) input; and the use of sign language with atypical, autistic, and mentally retarded groups.

All the chapters in this collection of state-of-the-art research address one or more issues related to universality of language processes, language plasticity, and the relative contributions of biology and input to language acquisition and use.

[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter