Sign Language Structure

Abstract

The designation has been used for a wide variety of semi­ otic systems ranging from the expression of emotions in men and animals (24) to the transmission and reception of genuinely linguistic structures. Sign language is a misnomer, however, when such structures result from spoken language processing up to the point where gestured signs replace the vocal output. The kind of sign language research reviewed here contem­ plates human cultural systems in which not just the output signal but also the processes for forming words and sentences operate without any connec­ tion to speech or sound. Sign languages of this kind are used for interaction by members of deaf populations as spoken languages are used by those who can hear. Other sign languages may more or less completely and unambigu­ ously mediate general or special interaction (6, 7, 57, 87), but these are generally learned and used by persons already competent in some spoken language, and hence they differ from sign languages acquired as their native languages by persons who cannot hear speech and by children of deaf parents (82). Research reviewed here is primarily or entirely concerned with sign languages of deaf populations, and in what follows it is these languages that will be meant by the term languages. Reasons for studying sign languages and the results of such research also show wide variety. Earliest to emerge was educational research: from 1880 when a congress of educators in Milan decided that deaf children should see and use no sign language in their educational experience, incredible as this may seem to those unacquainted with the rise of oralism (2, 25, 40). Recent research reveals the inevitable effect on children who cannot hear of depriving them of sign language (23); it also strongly indicates the use of bilingual strategies (16, 21). In another direction, sign language research has helped focus new consideration of the origins and evolution of language