American Sign Language (ASL)

American Sign Language (ASL) is a language that uses hand gestures, facial expressions, and body movements to create a complex system of nonverbal communication. It is distinct from spoken English and has its own linguistic principles, such as semantics, syntax, morphology, and pragmatics. Like other living languages, it is continually changing and possesses variations and dialects based on geography and ethnicity. It is the recognized sign language of the deaf community in the United States and parts of Canada, and is the chief sign language or basis for dialects in much of West Africa and Southeast Asia as well. No accurate census of ASL users exists, but users include not only deaf individuals for whom it is a primary language but also hearing individuals who typically use it as a second language.

Overview

American Sign Language was developed through the efforts of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, a minister from Hartford, Connecticut, whose interest in educating the deaf stemmed from his observation of a young deaf neighbor. Gallaudet studied Langue des Signes Française (LSF) for four months at the Paris school founded by the Abbe Charles Michel de l’Epee. L’Epee defied the prevailing philosophy of the day, in which the power of thought was connected to oral expression—an idea entrenched in teachings of the Catholic Church—and in the 1760s, he began teaching deaf children using the hand signs he had seen the children using to communicate with one another.

Gallaudet persuaded Laurent Clerc, a faculty member at the French school, to return to Connecticut with him, and in 1817 they opened the American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, now known as the American School for the Deaf, in Hartford, with thirty-one students from ten states. Gallaudet and Clerc used LSF, Epee’s modification of signs used by the deaf, and the students’ own signing systems to instruct them. From this mix, ASL evolved. Although ASL and LSF are separate, distinct languages, a lexical similarity of about 57 percent still exists between the two modern forms. As graduates of the school and other adherents founded similar schools in other parts of the United States, ASL became standardized. In 1864 Congress authorized the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind as a degree-granting university in Washington, DC. Edward Miner Gallaudet, son of Thomas Gallaudet, became its first president. He adopted his father’s methods of instruction, using ASL and written English instruction for all students. In 1954 Congress changed the name of the institution to Gallaudet College in honor of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. It became Gallaudet University in 1986.

Despite the success of Gallaudet’s work and over the strenuous objection of supporters, ASL fell into disrepute at the beginning of the twentieth century. Fueled by fears that signing among the deaf would lead to a closed community of deaf culture that, in turn, would increase the number of deaf marriages and deaf children, prohibition of ASL in classrooms became common practice for the first half of the twentieth century. But ASL survived in the deaf community outside the classroom. In the early 1960s, William Stokoe, a hearing linguist and English professor at Gallaudet, observed the connection between facial expressions used consistently in ASL and grammatical constructions. His work led to other linguistic research in ASL. Eventually ASL won wide acceptance as a true language and was reintroduced into classrooms.

By the twenty-first century, every state in the United States had at least one residential school for deaf children in grades K–12. In these schools and in public schools where deaf students are covered under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, reauthorized and amended in 2004, instruction is in ASL, wholly or partially. From 1998 to 2013, enrollment in ASL courses increased 800 percent. Enrollment in ASL courses increased again in 2023, and ASL became the third most studied modern language at colleges and universities in the United States.

Bibliography

“American Sign Language.” NIH National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, US Dept. of Health and Human Services, 28 Oct. 2021, www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/american-sign-language#1. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.

Karchmer, Michael A., et al. “How Many People Use ASL in the United States?: Why Estimates Need Updating.” Sign Language Studies, vol. 6, no. 3, 2006, pp. 306–335.

Kemp, Mike. “Why Is Learning American Sign Language a Challenge?” American Annals of the Deaf, vol. 143, no. 3, 1998, pp. 255–59.

Lucas, Ceil, Robert Bayley, and Clayton Valli. Sociolinguistic Variation in American Sign Language. Gallaudet UP, 2001.

Liddell, Scott K. Grammar, Gesture, and Meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge UP, 2003.

Shaw, Emily, and Yves Delaporte. “New Perspectives on the History of American Sign Language.” Sign Language Studies vol. 11, no. 2, 2011, pp. 158–204.

Stokoe, William C., et al. The Study of Signed Languages: Essays in Honor of William C. Stokoe. Gallaudet UP, 2002.

Taub, Sarah F. Language from the Body: Iconicity and Metaphor in American Sign Language. Cambridge UP, 2001.

Thompson, Robin L., David P. Vinson, and Gabriella Vigliocco. “The Link between Form and Meaning in American Sign Language: Lexical Processing Effects.” Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory & Cognition, vol. 35, no. 2, 2009, pp. 550–557.

Wilcox, Phyllis Perrin. Metaphor in American Sign Language. Gallaudet UP, 2000.