Sign Languages: More of the same or not quite?

For a long time, sign languages -the languages used mainly within Deaf communities- were, at best, considered more primitive, more limited than spoken languages. It seemed hard to understand that human capacity for language did not depend on human capacity for speech. Until around 1960, sign languages remained ignored by linguists. Especially in the early days of sign linguistics a large part of the research concentrated on the similarities between spoken and sign languages and emphasised the underlying identity of signed and spoken language. Characteristics that make sign languages unique were often ignored or minimised. This approach arose from the desire -or need- to demonstrate that sign languages are indeed fully-fledged, natural languages. Today the “spoken languages compatibility view” seems to make room for a “sign language differential view”. More and more research(ers) is (are) focusing on what makes sign languages unique. This presentation starts with an account of how sign language research has changed radically since the publication of the first linguistic analysis of a sign language now almost 45 years ago. It also presents an overview of several unique characteristics of sign languages, as exemplified by Flemish Sign Language. Today, sign linguists are being confronted with a number of fundamental questions: questions about the nature of gestural-visual languages, what their unique characteristics mean and how they should be dealt with. To conclude the presentation, it is shown how the relevance of these questions -and their answers- extends well beyond the domain of sign linguistics.status: publishe