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Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture, Chapter 4 Article #3: Living in Others' World The article titled "Living in Others' World" is about how deaf peoples' theories about themselves and their language are impacted by others' beliefs. The article went on to talk about how Leonard Bloomfield, a linguist, studied guesture languages. He came up with a theory that said, "It seems certain that these gesture languages are merely developments of ordinary gestures and that any and all complicated or not immediately intelligible gestures are based on the conveniences of speech." This theory failed to recognize that signed languages are different from gestures made by monks or Plain Indians because they are the primary mode of social interaction and they are acquired as a first language.
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