Seeing Voices
by Oliver Sacks
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- Seeing Voices
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- Oliver Sacks
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A neurologist investigates the world of the deaf, examining their past and present treatment at the hands of society, and assesses the value and significance of sign language.Tags
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My American Sign Language teacher recommended the class read Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks, so I decided to read it during our break between terms. I quickly found myself immersed in a world within the world in which we live. Sacks, a hearing man, explores the Deaf world and Deaf Culture in a way that brings clarity to something that feels impossible to understand. Sacks provides a glimpse into the history of deaf people and their interactions with the world. His observations are compassionate but never pitying. At times I found myself wincing at the cruelty people are capable of inflicting on one another as I read his descriptions of the attitudes toward deaf people throughout history. In his discussion on communication among the Deaf show more and between Deaf and hearing people, I felt a sense of the urgency all living beings feel to communicate. His examination of deaf people's attempts to communicate and how often hearing people force their communication on other people as if its the only way to communicate left me heartsick but more aware of my own tendencies. I felt incredibly aware of how often I take hearing for granted and how often it serves me without me giving it a second thought. Sacks also pushed me to think about how "normal" doesn't mean the same thing to everyone, something I know but sometimes forget. Seeing Voices is about more than Deaf Culture and deaf people, it's a book about how society functions and normalizes and fears and creates and destroys and changes. Seeing Voices screams for us to open our world and see beyond the limitations we place on ourselves and others based on misconception and lack of communication... show less
Here I am listening to Beethoven on my bed, piano arpeggios mingling with the keyboard clicks, someone's footsteps on the stairway, and beyond that this newly consoling silence just floating in the night. I finished this book in a loud pizza shop and had to put earphones in (no music) to focus. At once it is commentary on the density of the prose and research and my chronic inability to focus, especially given how readily available sound and music and hubbub is in my life and in our society.
I don't Sign, but now I want to be introduced to the wholly novel way of thinking and framing that Sign facilitates. I am reminded of the Master of None scene where the soundtrack evaporates and the deaf character begins to express herself, to show more seemingly vibrate with life off the screen, her facial expressions and gestural emotiveness leaping onto a whole new linguistic dimension. My favorite parts of this book were the times Sacks conveys this admiration for Sign, as well as his admiration for language in general. Sign in this book is a channel by which Sacks navigates the anatomical, developmental, cultural, and aesthetic structures and textures of language.
It took me a while to get through this short book, though. Mostly because it is dense. show less
I don't Sign, but now I want to be introduced to the wholly novel way of thinking and framing that Sign facilitates. I am reminded of the Master of None scene where the soundtrack evaporates and the deaf character begins to express herself, to show more seemingly vibrate with life off the screen, her facial expressions and gestural emotiveness leaping onto a whole new linguistic dimension. My favorite parts of this book were the times Sacks conveys this admiration for Sign, as well as his admiration for language in general. Sign in this book is a channel by which Sacks navigates the anatomical, developmental, cultural, and aesthetic structures and textures of language.
It took me a while to get through this short book, though. Mostly because it is dense. show less
First of all I have to mention the footnotes. They are extensive and take up half the page in some instances. This was very distracting, and I felt almost as if I were reading two books at once.
There were several things here that struck me. I picked up the book as sign language has always interested me, more so after working my last job, where some of the children were not able to hear, and some unable to speak in other ways. This book was interesting and informative and a very quick read.
There was mention early on how one young man, who had lost his hearing after seven years. He would hear the voice of his mother in his head even after his hearing was gone. This made me think of how I and possibly you, do this with books. I hear the show more voices of well known and loved characters in my head as I read. This was defined by the author as an "illusory" type of hearing.
This book explores the options given to the patents of non hearing children as far as signing and lip reading are concerned. There is mention of how som who live in the deaf community choose to Live without trying any extreme measures to give them at least some hearing. I think this is a perfectly good choice for an adult to make.
For an adult to make it for a child, at least as far as not exposing them to different learning settings and options, is in my opinion a mistake. All of us have ways of learning that suit us better than others, and when it comes to parents of a child who faces difficulty from the outset, the choices must be quite stressful. Finding what works best for your child can be difficult without any added obstacles.
We have all heard the horror stories from the past where of children grew to adulthood having been labeled as "slow" or "feeble minded" or worse, when their only issue was lack of hearing, and thus lack of ability to communicate. I have no reason to believe that things have changed enough over the years to keep this from happening now.
My reason for reading this book is that there was a girl I will call V in the classroom where I worked. She was brought in as a 4 year old who had not had any prior intervention, aside from the implantation of a cochlear implant. There was little training for her after the initial few weeks, as she didn't seem to like having the magnet near her head. I believe that if she had been sent to an appropriate school where profoundly deaf children were top priority and the the staff was trained and equipped for that particular challenge, her chances of acieving some learning would have been much better.
At one point she was taken out of school for three years, with no intervention or teaching at all, and then sent back to the same place. By that time she was an adolescent trapped in a world of silence and low vision. I read this book because of her and because I always believed that she would have been capable of so much more, were she given the chance. What I read affirmed that belief for me. show less
There were several things here that struck me. I picked up the book as sign language has always interested me, more so after working my last job, where some of the children were not able to hear, and some unable to speak in other ways. This book was interesting and informative and a very quick read.
There was mention early on how one young man, who had lost his hearing after seven years. He would hear the voice of his mother in his head even after his hearing was gone. This made me think of how I and possibly you, do this with books. I hear the show more voices of well known and loved characters in my head as I read. This was defined by the author as an "illusory" type of hearing.
This book explores the options given to the patents of non hearing children as far as signing and lip reading are concerned. There is mention of how som who live in the deaf community choose to Live without trying any extreme measures to give them at least some hearing. I think this is a perfectly good choice for an adult to make.
For an adult to make it for a child, at least as far as not exposing them to different learning settings and options, is in my opinion a mistake. All of us have ways of learning that suit us better than others, and when it comes to parents of a child who faces difficulty from the outset, the choices must be quite stressful. Finding what works best for your child can be difficult without any added obstacles.
We have all heard the horror stories from the past where of children grew to adulthood having been labeled as "slow" or "feeble minded" or worse, when their only issue was lack of hearing, and thus lack of ability to communicate. I have no reason to believe that things have changed enough over the years to keep this from happening now.
My reason for reading this book is that there was a girl I will call V in the classroom where I worked. She was brought in as a 4 year old who had not had any prior intervention, aside from the implantation of a cochlear implant. There was little training for her after the initial few weeks, as she didn't seem to like having the magnet near her head. I believe that if she had been sent to an appropriate school where profoundly deaf children were top priority and the the staff was trained and equipped for that particular challenge, her chances of acieving some learning would have been much better.
At one point she was taken out of school for three years, with no intervention or teaching at all, and then sent back to the same place. By that time she was an adolescent trapped in a world of silence and low vision. I read this book because of her and because I always believed that she would have been capable of so much more, were she given the chance. What I read affirmed that belief for me. show less
In this book, Oliver Sacks explores the Deaf culture and the acquisition and development of Sign language. It is told in three parts. The first part I really liked, and it gave me some more books to add to (or move up) the TBR. The second part got rather technical and I lost interest. The third part I didn't get around to reading because of the lost momentum.
I wouldn't totally discourage anyone from reading this, despite my low rating; however, there may be more up-to-date books on Deaf culture and Sign available for readers to gain an understanding of this world.
I wouldn't totally discourage anyone from reading this, despite my low rating; however, there may be more up-to-date books on Deaf culture and Sign available for readers to gain an understanding of this world.
Plus half a star. Jumped at the chance when I saw this book in a charity shop. I have some knowledge of the history of the treatment of deaf people and the miracles and disasters of deaf education, and the obscenity of Milan 1880 - stimulated by a level 1 BSL course which I passed, and level 2 which I failed. So I enjoyed part 1 which covered the history again. Parts 2 and 3 suffer from being 30 years out of date, but that is not the author's fault, although the text could probably have been organised better and less repetitious. However most importantly it brought me to understand why I found it so difficult to take BSL beyond a certain point. I thought I needed better teaching and more immersion in the language - but actually even show more with this there are good neurological reasons why it is so very hard to acquire fluent sign skills late in life. But even learning very rudimentary sign language was an amazing experience and I know there are debates raging now over cochlear implants and mainstreaming and the closing of residential schools. Hope to find some up to date reading to follow this. show less
Three essays by Oliver Sacks on Sign. One is based on an extended review, the second is a longer reflection on Sign and what it can tell us about language, and the third about the student rebellion at Gallaudet University demanding a Deaf university president.
Lots of interesting rabbit holes. A pity he is no longer with us to give us an update.
Lots of interesting rabbit holes. A pity he is no longer with us to give us an update.
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Oliver Sacks was born in London, England on July 9, 1933. He received a medical degree from Queen's College, Oxford University and performed his internship at Middlesex Hospital in London and Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco. He completed his residency at UCLA. In 1965, he became a clinical neurologist to the Little Sisters of the Poor and show more Beth Abraham Hospital. His work in a Bronx charity hospital led him to write the book Awakenings in 1973. The book inspired a play by Harold Pinter and became a film starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams. His other works included An Anthropologist on Mars, The Mind's Eye, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Uncle Tungsten, Musicophilia, A Leg to Stand On, On the Move: A Life, and Gratitude. In 2007, he ended his 42-year relationship with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine to accept an interdisciplinary teaching position at Columbia. In 2012, he returned to the New York University School of Medicine as a professor of neurology. He died of cancer on August 30, 2015 at the age of 82. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Vedere voci: un viaggio nel mondo dei sordi
- Original title
- Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf
- Original publication date
- 1989
- Epigraph
- [Sign language] is, in the hands of its masters, a most beautiful and expressive language, for which, in their intercourse with each other and as a means of easily and quickly reaching the minds of the deaf, neither nature no... (show all)r art has given them a satisfactory substitute.
It is impossible for those who do not understand it to comprehend its possibilities with the deaf, its powerful influence on the moral and social happiness of those deprived of hearing, and its wonderful power of carrying thought to intellects which would otherwise be in perpetual darkness. Nor can they appreciate the hold it has upon the deaf. So long as there are two deaf people upon the face of the earth and they get together, so long will signs be in use.
--J. Schuyler Long
Head teacher, Iowa School for the Deaf
The Sign Language (1910) - Dedication
- For Isabelle Rapin, Bob Johnson, Bob Silvers, and Kate Edgar
- First words
- We are remarkably ignorant about deafness, which Dr. Johnson called "one of the most desperate of human calamities"--much more ignorant than an educated man would have been in 1886, or 1786.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)One hopes the events at Gallaudet will be but the beginning.
- Original language
- English
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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