In the early decades of the nineteenth century, when Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was famously advocating for sign language to be the language of instruction for deaf children in the United States, European philosophers were founding modern linguistics. Gallaudet was not able to benefit from their breakthroughs, however, because his upbringing,…

Recent research has shown that a distinct variety of American Sign Language, known as Black ASL, developed in the segregated schools for deaf African Americans in the US South during the pre-civil rights era. Research has also shown that in some respects Black ASL is closer than most white varieties to the standard taught in ASL classes and found…

This article focuses on the syntactic level of the grammar of Saudi Arabian Sign Language by exploring some word orders that occur in personal narratives in the language. Word order is one of the main ways in which languages indicate the main syntactic roles of subjects, verbs, and objects; others are verbal agreement and nominal case morphology.…

This article addresses the debate about the status of American Sign Language (ASL) as an example of ideological beliefs that impact linguistic judgments and policies. It also discusses the major challenges to the status of ASL with respect to formal legislative recognition, its utility as a medium of instruction, and its status as a legitimate…

Third- and fourth-grade students in two separate classrooms--one a classroom with only hearing students and the other a coenrolled classroom with hearing, hard of hearing, and deaf students--were assessed to determine friendship patterns, attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions about sign language and deafness. Sociograms, interviews, and videotape…

Summarizes research demonstrating advantages of using British Sign Language, Italian Sign Language, and American Sign Language (ASL) as a second language with young children. Reports a qualitative study to determine whether American kindergartners can achieve bilingual ability in English and ASL in one academic year through exposure to a native…

A review of problems with using such manual communication systems as cued speech, fingerspelling, Signed or Manual English, American Sign Language, and Pidgin Sign provides a rationale for using a combination of American Sign Language and Pidgin Sign and a few markers from Signed English for a Total Communication system. (CB)

Metalinguistic abilities of 20 hearing-impaired children, aged 4-10, were assessed by asking them to judge synonymy of sentence pairs presented in Signed English, Pidgin Sign English, and American Sign Language. None of the children had developed metalinguistic abilities in any of the sign language systems. (Author/JDD)

Two versions of a criterion-referenced videodisc-based instrument, SHIPS (Self-Help InterPersonal Skills), have been developed for high school students with hearing impairments. Students can choose either American Sign Language or English-based sign versions of assessment items. Field testing found that use of SHIPS enhanced data validity and…

This article explores some of the complexities of the question as to whether or not American Sign Language (ASL) is a foreign language. It reviews the historical oppression of the deaf, the development of ASL and its defining value to proponents of deaf culture, mentions other language systems (including foreign sign systems) used by the…