A Clear Treat!

Abstract

Reviews the book Signs & voices: Deaf culture, identity, language, and arts, edited by K. Lindgren, D. DeLuca, & D. J. Napoli (2008). Although some of the chapters in this book are a bit challenging for the naive reader, the information is extremely interesting for a variety of experienced professionals who work with deaf people. Part I-Culture and Identity gives readers a view of current perspectives that are as diverse and as wide ranging as the individuals in the community. Part II-Language and Literacy includes both intense linguistic analysis and practical chapters on literacy. It contains a broad overview of what we currently know about the languages deaf people use around the world. Signed poetry is "uniquely a matter of space," and Part III-American Sign Language (ASL) in the Arts does present a sophisticated exploration of space. Readers are presented with a phenomenological theory of spatial form in ASL literature, expert analyses of poems, Shakespeare in ASL, and transcripts of e-mail conversation that give us insight into the creative process and the work of the masters Clayton Valli, Patrick Graybill, Peter Cook, and Kenny Lerner. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)