In particular, I was haunted by descriptions of isolated deaf people who had failed to acquire any language whatever: their evident intellectual disabilities and, equally seriously, the mishaps in emotional and social development to which they might fall prey in the absence of any authentic language or communication. What is necessary, I wondered, for us to become complete human beings? Is our humanity, so-called, partly dependent on language? What happens to us if we fail to acquire any language? Does language develop spontaneously and naturally, or does it require contact with other human beings? One way—a dramatic way—of exploring these topics is to look at human beings deprived of language; and deprivation of language, in the form of aphasia, has been a central preoccupation of neurologists since the 1860’s: Hughlings-Jackson, Head, Goldstein, Luria all wrote extensively on it—and Freud too wrote a monograph in the 1890’s. But aphasia is the deprivation of language (through a stroke or other cerebral accident) in an already formed mind, a completed individual.
What do You think about 1989 - Seeing Voices (1989)?
