Table Of ContentPERSPECTIVES IN
NEUROLINGUISTICS AND PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
Harry A. Whitaker, Series Editor
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK
HAIGANOOSH WHITAKER and HARRY A. WHITAKER (Eds.).
Studies in Neurolinguistics, Volumes 1, 2, and 3
NORMAN J. LASS (Ed.). Contemporary Issues in Experimental Phonetics
JASON W. BROWN. Mind, Brain, and Consciousness: The Neuropsychology
of Cognition
SIDNEY J. SEGALOWITZ and FREDERIC A. GRUBER (Eds.). Language Devel-
opment and Neurological Theory
SUSAN CURTISS. Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study of a Modern-Day "Wild
Child"
JOHN MACNAMARA (Ed.). Language Learning and Thought
I. M. SCHLESINGER and LILA NAMIR (Eds.). Sign Language of the Deaf:
Psychological, Linguistic, and Sociological Perspectives
In preparation
WILLIAM C. RITCHIE (Ed.). Principles of Second Language Learning and
Teaching
SIGN LANGUAGE
OF THE DEAF
Psychological, Linguistic,
and Sociological Perspectives
Edited by
I. M. SCHLESINGER
Department of Psychology
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jerusalem, Israel
and
The Israel Institute of Applied Social Research
Jerusalem, Israel
LILA NAMIR
Department of Psychology
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jerusalem, Israel
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United Kingdom Edition published by
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Sign language of the deaf.
(Perspectives in neurolinguistics and psycholinguis-
tics)
Includes bibliographies.
1. Sign language—Addresses, essays, lectures.
I. Schlesinger, I. M. II. Namir, Lila.
[DNLM: 1. Deafness. 2. Manual communication.
HV2474 S342s]
HV2474.S55 001.56 77-16767
ISBN 0-12-625150-9
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
List of Contributors
Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages on which the authors' contributions begin.
RICHARD L. BLANTON (243), Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt Uni-
versity, Nashville, Tennessee
HARRY BORNSTEIN (333), Department of Psychology, Gallaudet College,
Kendall Green, Washington, D. C.
PENELOPE H. BROOKS (243), Psychology Department, George Peabody
College for Teachers, Nashville, Tennessee
AARON V. CICOUREL (271), Department of Sociology, University of
California, San Diego, San Diego, California
ELMA CRAIG (141), Department of Linguistic Science, University of
Reading, Reading, England
DAVID CRYSTAL (141), Department of Linguistic Science, University of
Reading, Reading, England
GORDON W. HEWES (11), Department of Anthropology, University of
Colorado, Boulder, Colorado
LILA NAMIR (1, 97), Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University
of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
HILDE S. SCHLESINGER (57), Mental Health Services for the Deaf,
Langley Porter Neuropsychiatrie Institute, University of California,
San Francisco, California
I. M. SCHLESINGER (1, 97), Department of Psychology, The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel, and The Israel Institute of
Applied Social Research, Jerusalem, Israel
WILLIAM C. STOKOE (365), Linguistics Research Laboratory, Gallaudet
College, Kendall Green, Washington, D.C.
ix
X List of Contributors
BERNARD T. TERVOORT (169), Institute of General Linguistics, University
of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands,
LARS VON DER LIETH (315), Audiologopedic Research Group, University
of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Preface
Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in the sign language of the
deaf. After an almost complete neglect of the field in previous decades,
researchers in various countries are beginning to find this non vocal
language a fascinating subject of study. There is already a considerable
amount of research on the linguistic, psychological, social, and educational
aspects of sign language. A major volume is very much needed to provide a
background for the researcher, the student, and the educator.
This book presents a state-of-the-art report. It was first contemplated by
Thomas A. Sebeok, who approached the editors with the challenge of
compiling a survey of this rapidly expanding field. Throughout the planning
stages he provided us with invaluable guidance. But for his expertise and
the help of his wife, Donna Jean Umiker-Sebeok, this volume would hot
have been possible. We take pleasure in acknowledging their contribution
and thanking them for their cooperation.
The first chapter, "The Phylogeny of Sign Language" by Gordon
Hewes, is intended to present sign language against its evolutionary
background and offers an impressive array of data marshaled to defend the
author's thesis, which will surely interest many readers other than students
of sign language. It is symptomatic of the immature state of the field of sign
language studies that such a wide coverage is quite out of the question for
the other chapters in the volume.
Hewes's chapter is followed by that of Hilde Schlesinger, who presents a
fascinating account of sign language acquisition by small children. This
may also serve as an excellent introduction to newcomers in the field giving
them a feeling of what sign language is like.
The second section of the book, on linguistic aspects of sign language,
xi
xii Preface
contains our paper on the grammar of sign language, followed by that of
David Crystal and Elma Craig, who discuss the linguistic status of natural
and contrived sign languages. A chapter by Bernard Tervoort completes
this part of the book. Its title, "Bilingual Interference," does not fully
indicate its wide scope, for in discussing bilingual interference Tervoort
amply documents many peculiarities of the lexicon and grammar of sign
language, and its profound differences in such respects from oral language.
While the second part of the volume is devoted to linguistic aspects, the
third part attempts to link sign language research with various other
disciplines. Richard Blanton and Penelope Brooks view sign language
from the angle of psycholinguistics. Their chapter also includes an in-
teresting discussion of Wilhelm Wundt's writings on the subject. The
authors raise several important questions for which, as they rightly point
out, only the most tentative answers are available to date. Their chapter
makes us acutely aware of the need for more research on sign language.
The vicissitudes of research in this field are brought home to us in the next
chapter, by Aaron Cicourel, which presents a sociolinguistic point of
view. Reporting on his own experiences in studying communication in
sign language, Cicourel allows us insights regarding what occurs when
signers communicate between themselves and what the investigator of
this problem lets himself in for. That sign language may be important for
the psychosocial adjustments of the deaf is convincingly argued by Lars
von der Lieth. His chapter presents among other things, valuable mate-
rial, partly of a historical nature, on the use of sign language. The final
chapter in this part is also of an applied nature. Harry Bornstein discusses
the educational implications of the use of sign language. For generations a
heated controversy has been going on concerning the place of sign lan-
guage in education, the opposing factions—the "oralists" and the
"manualists"—becoming deeply entrenched in their respective views.
What each faction defends is dogma rather than rationally supported
views, and it is important that this volume include a scholar's sober
presentation of what is going on in this field today.
We hope that this volume succeeds in demonstrating the great theoretical
and practical importance of research on sign language to its readers. If this
relatively young field is to prosper, a sound methodology will have to be
developed. While several of the chapters touch on methodological prob-
lems (notably those by Cicourel and by Blanton and Brooks), it was found
appropriate to conclude the volume with a chapter devoted wholly to
methodology. The choice here fell on William Stokoe, the pioneer of sign
Preface xiii
language research, who, more than most of us, is in a position to take a
synoptic view in discussing this subject, and to present the methodological
lessons to be learned from his long experience in the field. We hope that
there will be many readers who become as dedicated to sign language
research as he is.
When we set out to compile a list of possible contributors we realized
that there were more than we could possibly accommodate within one
volume. To avoid too much overlap we had, therefore, to choose between
alternatives—a choice which was not always easy to make. In some
respects, the coverage in this volume remains incomplete, partly because
the pressure of time and other circumstances compelled some of the
prospective contributors to withdraw. Among the lacunae we should
mention the important work going on at the Salk Institute under Bellugi,
Klima, and their associates, to whose work, unfortunately, we have not
been able to do sufficient justice in this volume; methods of notation for
sign languages; and work underway in the USSR and the Far East. We
believe that in spite of these gaps the present volume gives a view from
many angles of a new and vigorously developing field of research.
We should like to express our thanks to the editor of this series, Harry
A. Whitaker, for all his interest and encouragement, and to the various
contributors to this volume for their cooperative attitude which greatly
eased our task.
Introduction
I. M. SCHLESINGER
LILA NAMIR
Sign language is a form of manual communication which is used in
every community of deaf persons and seems to be invented anew by them
whenever such a form has not been previously established. It consists
largely of stable, conventional hand movements and postures each of
which conveys concepts, reminiscent of pantomime but in fact far from
being simply this. Unlike finger spelling, where different handshapes
represent letters of the alphabet, and which is thus a letter-by-letter
translation of spoken language, sign language is on the whole independent
of spoken language.
One of the characteristics of sign language is that many of the signs are
iconic (i.e., their forms resemble in some way what they denote). Al-
though this is not always clearly apparent in signs, on closer inspection we
can often trace their iconic origin. There are, however, also signs for
function words in the language. To get a fuller picture of the structure of
sign language, the reader is referred especially to the chapters by Namir
and Schlesinger, by Hilde Schlesinger, and by Tervoort.
The answer to where sign language originated or who invented it is
twofold. The springing up of some sort of sign language in every deaf
community is attested to in numerous works and revealingly described,
for instance, in an autobiographical work by the postlingually deafened
British poet David Wright (1969). There have also been a number of
attempts at creating systematic sign languages, based on those in use
among deaf communities—notably the work of l'Abbé de TEpée. The
1
2 I. M. Schlesinger and Lila Namir
history of these efforts has been reviewed by a number of authors,
including Wright.
One of the questions typically asked us when we lecture about how
signs depict objects and imitate actions is: Is the language, then, interna-
tional? The answer to this is: Not necessarily so—although sign languages
often seem to resemble one another across communities and countries to
a striking degree, and far more so than do spoken languages. The reasons
for the differences are many: There are different ways of signing the same
thing iconically, and no special reason for signers in different places to
converge on the same sign form. Then, not all concepts can be directly
described iconically. In such cases a sign often describes something
related to the concept instead. This transfer of meaning (from a concept
directly described to what it is intended to denote) greatly increases the
choices open. Signs may also be compounded, very much as words are in
spoken languages, and this possibility greatly increases the range of
alternatives available.
Where a sign language has been allowed to develop over time, being
used in a well-established signing community (as has happened, for exam-
ple, in parts of America and in Scandinavia), spoken language sometimes
intrudes into the sign language via systems such as finger spelling. This
factor again contributes to widening the differences between sign lan-
guages. Within the same country, too, there may be various dialects
differing among themselves in degree of intrusion of spoken language.
This is discussed in the chapter by Bornstein. Other chapters in this
volume frequently make reference to different versions of sign language,
using a considerable variety of different terms. We have made no attempt
here to standardize the use of terminology, preferring instead to expose
the reader to the proliferation of terms in current use. These are explained
in the contexts in which they occur.
Further, sign languages have often been subjected to deliberate at-
tempts at intervention on the part of educators of the deaf. These are
almost always hearing persons who have acquired sign language as adults,
who, with the welfare of deaf users in mind, attempt to make sign lan-
guage more like spoken language, or use it in the interest of spoken
language. One of the results of the various efforts to "improve" and
develop sign language is, for instance, that today American sign language
of the "high" variety is not well understood elsewhere.1 When watching
the users of this variety communicate among themselves, Israeli deaf
The terms "high" and "low" used in reference to sign language are not intended, of
course, to imply any value judgment.
