1) Introduction: sign vs gesture debate; Kendon’s continuum; gesture studies and sign language linguistics

2) Gesture and sign language in Antiquity: Plato – Cratylus; Lucretius – De rerum natura; Quintilianus – Institutio oratoria.

3) Gesture and sign language in the Middle Ages: St. Augustine – De magistro. Monastic sign language.

4) Deafness as deficiency: Aristotle, Hobbes.

5) Gesture and sign language in the 18th century (I): Condillac and Rousseau

6) Gesture and sign language in the 18th century (II): Desloges and Diderot

7) Gesture and sign language in the 18th century (III): Pereira and abbé de l’Epée

8) Gesture and sign language in the 18th century (IV): the phenomenon of wild children

9) Gesture and sign language in the 19th century (I): Andrea de Jorio and Gilbert Austin

10) Gesture and sign language in the 19th century (II): Edward Tylor and Garrick Mallery

11) Gesture, speech and world (Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jürgen Streeck)

12) Summary and discussion