Sign language linguistics has a much shorter history when compared with spoken language linguistics. The academic study of spoken language linguistics can be dated back to several centuries BCE. Most of these early linguistic analyses were motivated by observations of language change, and there were different linguistic traditions in different parts of the world, e.g., The Greek grammatical tradition, Roman linguistics, the Hebrew tradition. The surge of long-distance voyages, military conquests, and colonialization since the sixteenth century opened up more opportunities for Europeans to learn about spoken languages on other continents. Cross-linguistic comparisons and descriptions at the lexical and grammatical levels began to take root in the field of linguistics as a result (Campbell, 2017).
In the late 19thC and early 20thC, linguists’ attention began to shift from historical linguistics (i.e., diachronic approach) to a non-historical perspective (i.e., synchronic approach), focusing especially on how linguistic elements are organized as a structural system in a language. This laid the foundation of modern Western linguistics. One such important scholars was Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), who proposed that a language system consists of different sub-fields, and each language can be described on its own terms based on the empirical observations of the structural properties (François & Ponsonnet, 2013).
Before the 1960s, despite the vigorous research developments in spoken language linguistics, no researchers actually paid much attention to sign languages used by deaf people. In fact, it was not uncommon to see prominent linguists downplaying the linguistic status of sign languages. Leonard Bloomfield, one of the most influential linguists of his time, made the following comment about the gesture languages used by deaf people in his seminal book Language (Bloomfield, 1933, p.39):
- “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 conventions of ordinary speech.”
In Bloomfield’s eyes, sign languages used by deaf people were only a collection of ‘ordinary gestures’, and were based on spoken languages rather than having their own grammatical systems.
Similar negative views against sign languages also existed in the field of Psychology. In his book Psychology of Deafness (1957), Helmer Myklebust claimed that sign languages were inferior to spoken languages, and accused sign languages of depriving deaf people of their chance to develop their potential in full because they are pictorial.
The above two examples illustrated the prevalent negative views against sign languages in the academia before 1960s. Such an anti-sign language mentality among scholars undoubtedly had an adverse effect on deaf education. During that period of time, the oralist approach dominated in deaf schools around the globe. The universal goal of deaf education was the learning of spoken language and lip-reading at the expense of other education goals, e.g., acquiring general knowledge (Armstrong & Karchmer, 2002). Things began to change, however, when William Stokoe made a bold step in applying linguistic principles on lexical signs in American Sign Language in the 1960s.
William Stokoe (1919-2000) is now widely known as ‘the Father of Sign Linguistics’. He joined Gallaudet College (later Gallaudet University) as an English teacher in 1955. Before he joined Gallaudet, he had neither knowledge nor experience about deaf people, and it was the very first time he was exposed to American Sign Language, the language his students used in their peer communications. What made Stokoe different from his fellow colleagues and other linguists at that time was his realization that American Sign Language showed linguistic characteristics similar to spoken languages, and had the same potential for human communication (Armstrong & Karchmer, 2002).
In 1960, Stokoe published his groundbreaking monograph, Sign Language Structure: An Outline of the Visual Communication Systems of the American Deaf (Stokoe, 1960/2005). His proposal that an individual sign could be decomposed into three discrete linguistic elements, namely, handshape (dez), location (tab) and movement (sig), revolutionized the contemporary negative views held by linguists and others against American Sign Language. We will go into the details of his proposal in our later modules on phonetics and phonology. In the four decades after his first publication on American Sign Language, Stokoe continued his efforts in doing sign language research and convincing the public about the linguistic status of sign languages and their application values in the education of deaf children (Armstrong & Karchmer, 2002).
Stokoe’s first publication on ASL opened up an entirely new area for research. Over the past 60 years, the field of sign linguistics has continued to expand, with lots and lots of deaf and hearing linguists doing research on sign languages around the world. For an overview of the historical development of sign linguistics, you can read Woll (2013).
At present, sign linguistics is a recognized academic discipline, with its own professional body (Sign Language Linguistics Society, https://slls.eu/), academic journals (e.g., Sign Language Studies, Sign Language and Linguistics), and conferences (e.g., Theoretical Issues of Sign Language Research (TISLR), International Conference on Sign Language Acquisition (ICSLA), Formal and Experimental Advances in Sign Language Theory (FEAST)). The findings of sign linguistics have convincingly proven the linguistic status of sign languages and their importance for Deaf communities around the world, particularly in the education of deaf children.
Reference:
- Armstrong, D., & Karchmer, M. (2002). Preface. In D. Armstrong, M. Karchmer, & J. Cleve (Eds.), The study of signed languages: Essays in honor of William Stokoe.
Gallaudet University Press. - Bloomfield, L. (1933). Language. George Allen & Unwin Limited.
- Campbell, L. (2017). The history of linguistics: approaches to linguistics. In M. Aronoff, & J. Rees-Miller (Eds.), The handbook of linguistics (2nd. ed., pp. 97-117). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
- François, A., & Ponsonnet, M. (2013). Descriptive linguistics. In R. J. McGee, & L. R. Warms (Eds.), Theory in social and cultural anthropology: An encyclopedia (pp. 184-187). Sage.
- Myklebust, H. (1960). The psychology of deafness: Sensory deprivation, learning and adjustment. Grune & Stratton, Inc.
- Stokoe, W. (2005). Sign language structure: An outline of the visual communication system of the American deaf. Journal of deaf studies and deaf education, 10(1), 3-37. (Original work published 1960).
- Woll, B. (2013). The history of sign language linguistics. In K. Allan (Ed.), The oxford handbook of the history of linguistics. Doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199585847.013.0005.
