Cosy Science presents: The deaf brain

This talk looks at the British Deaf community, their language (British Sign Language), culture - and their brains. Wherever communities of deaf people exist, sign languages are spontaneously developed – languages unrelated to spoken languages - exploiting vision and space for linguistic purposes. BSL and some of its striking features will be introduced, together with an outline of the history and use of BSL (first described in the 16th century). This will be followed by a discussion of our evolving understanding of the dual roles of deafness and sign language in shaping the ‘deaf brain’.