Universals, Generalizability, and the Acquisition of Signed Language

Abstract

Abstract “Why do you study sign language?” That question is asked a surprising number of times of someone like me who did not grow up with deaf relatives and was trained as an experimental psychologist. There are two parts to my answer. In the applied arena, a solid base of fundamental research on the acquisition and use of sign language is crucial for making informed decisions about educational and social issues of concern to deaf people. The importance of this responsibility cannot be underestimated by the sign language researcher. It is the theoretical part, though, that brought me into sign language research, and it is the theoretical reasons for studying sign language that are the focus of this chapter. The stage for the current theoretical interest in sign language was set in the 1960s by the pioneering work of William Stokoe. Stokoe (1960) argued that American Sign Language (ASL), while produced in a different modality, could be studied using the same principles employed to study spoken languages. He demonstrated that ASL signs were not irreducible holistic units but could be analyzed as composed of discrete elements corresponding to a phonetic and phonological description of language. Stokoe’s work, result-