Answer to Spectacular

[Sherman Wilcox]

On 12/6/02, Steve Long said:

>It is a real trick picturing what an "internal life" would be like
>without being able to "talk" to oneself.

I have two, admittedly anecdotal, and perhaps not even trustworthy pieces of data about what such an internal life might be like. They both come from people I know, deaf people who, in their early years, were not exposed to language (couldn't hear, no one around them signed).

The first was a man I knew who grew up in a very small village in Mexico on the ocean. He told me that as a child he used to watch boats sail out of the harbor and wondered what happened to them when they went out of sight, if they disappeared forever.

The second is from a young woman (now an outstanding college student). She was born in another country, deaf from birth, had several different foster parents, who didn't sign, for the first years of her life . Then she was adopted by friends of mine. She arrived in this country by plane at around the age of four, knowing only a few (~10) rudimentary homesigns. Later, when she learned ASL, she told her parents that she remembered flying on the plane, taking off, watching the clouds, getting ged by some nice woman, being afraid, meeting them at the airport, not knowing what was happening, and so forth.

Yes, it's messy data -- maybe their "internal life" stories were filled in with these detail only later, after they could talk/sign (I doubt it for the second story). But their stories suggest that at least some sort of internal life is possible without being able to talk or sign to oneself, that it is possible to have an inner life of thoughts and fears and curiosities without language.

--
Sherman