Research on sign languages to realize a new development of philosophy

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K00027
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 01010:Philosophy and ethics-related
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: TAKAYAMA MAMORU 東京大学, 大学院人文社会系研究科(文学部), 名誉教授 (20121460)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 手話言語 / 画像言語 / 画像思考 / 身体言語 / 直観と概念

Outline of Final Research Achievements

People who are deaf and have sign language as their native language at their command, move parts of their body, especially their hands, in order to visualize their thoughts in images and thereby convey them to others. Their language essentially consists in visualization through movements. It could therefore be considered a sort of pictorial language. But ‘pictorial’ in this case, ought to be understood in a radical sense. For the deaf people fundamentally think in pictorial entities, that is, they originally form their thoughts on the basis of visual impressions of the world. Here is the possibility that their thoughts are genuinely corresponding to the world that they perceive visually. This correspondence is closely related to "the problem of right (quid juris)" (according to Kant) concerning the correspondence between thoughts and the world. I tried a new development of philosophy from the viewpoint of the correspondence.

Free Research Field

人文学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

手話言語は、現在、言語的な観点、ならびに社会的な観点から、注目を浴びていると言いうるが、そうしたなか、これまでは、この言語の画像性が特筆されることはきわめて少なく、むしろ、それはしばしば積極的に度外視されてきた。というのも、これまでにおいては、手話言語は音声言語と相並ぶ、れっきとした一言語であるということが強調され、また、強調されざるをえなかったからである。この強調点は、いまなお強調されてしかるべき状況だが、しかし、それは徐々に変わりつつある。こうしたなか、本研究は手話言語の画像性を前面に打ち出して、それを積極的に論じるものであり、その点で、学術的ならびに社会的意義は、小さくないものと考える。