Original Signs : Gesture, Sign and the Sources of Language Book

This work is an attempt to revolutionize the character of the debate of how language co-evolved with the both the cortex and deeper regions of the brain in the multi-modal areas of vision and speech. As a former student of linguistics and language acquisition, it questioned the single mode analytic world of Noam Chomsky and it's signature complexity of the generative grammar.

Instead of an almost religious adherence to the dominant linguistic theory, it offers a new view that emphasizes the role of contextual cues and multi-modal communication that just seem to make more sense. That we humans have a heightened sensitivity to signs and an inherent ability to "fill the gaps" with others seems obvious to the laymen, but has taken the scientific community some time to acknowledge. Armstrong uses his strong grasp of the history of linguistic thought, experience with deaf people signing and evolutionary perspective to enlighten this area that hasn't seen much original thought.