A manual of psychology / by G.F. Stout.

  • George Frederick Stout
Date:
1921
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A manual of psychology / by G.F. Stout. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    638/800 page 614
    liiijguage must become familiar with the possibility of a conventional arrangement for the expression of ideas. But the natural system never actually passes in this manner into a conventional system. Its formative principle remains all through essentially that of imitative rejiresentation. The deaf-mute and the Indian rarely lose sight altogether of the natural connexion between sign and signification. A bystander may be totally unable to detect the meaning of the signs used in conversation, owing to abridgment of natural pantomime. But the deaf-mute, or the savage, is able if required to act out in detail his abbreviated gesture. Natural cigns may lead up to a conventional language, but they do not develop into one. § 7. Origin of Conventional Language.—The language of natural signs is pervaded by the systematic unity of a single fonnative principle—that of imitation. This gives it so strong and tenacious a hold upon the mind that it can only be displaced by a conventional language which has also a systematic unity of plan. It can never be dis- placed by a chaotic multiplicity of detached and discon- nected signs, each of which has to be separately remembered by an independent mental effort. The human mind could not endure so burdensome a load. The conventional signs which are to displace imitative gestures must therefore form some kind of S3'stem, unified by general formative princi- ples. Now visible gestures are theoretically and practically capable of forming a conventional system. The deaf-mute is sometimes taught a finger-language which is purely con- ventional. He makes a limited number of easily remem- bered manual signs, each corresponding to a letter of the alphabet, and by successively combining these he spells out words and sentences. Such a language has a unily of composition which makes it manageable. There is in it a possibility of systematic correspondence between expres-
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