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Title:
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Some Aspects of the Historical Development of Signs in American Sign Language
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Author:
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Nancy Frishberg
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Degree Awarded:
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University of California, San Diego
, Linguistics Department
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Degree Date:
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1976
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Historical Linguistics
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Subject Language(s):
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American Sign Language
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Director(s):
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E. Klima
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Abstract:
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American Sign Language (ASL) has been the traditional language of the deaf community in the United States since its introduction in the early nineteenth century. It was originally a modification of an earlier form of French Sign Language but in the intervening century and a half has diverged sufficiently so that these two are now quite separate languages. Previous investigators have proposed a sublexical structure for ASL, considering four simultaneously produced parameters, handshape, location (within a prescribed "signing space"), movement (of the hands), and orientation (of the hands with respect to the signer's body). The specifications for these four parameters are limited to a fairly small set of distinctive elements; constraints have been discovered which identify ways in which this language system has limited the formation of signs (= words).
By comparing signs from earlier stages of American Sign Language, and from French Sign Language, with present day usage we find that changes have occurred in the formation of the signs. This study examines the changes in detail and shows that, rather than being random or sporadic variations, the differences between older forms and modern ones are systematic and regular. Signs which were previously made in co ntact with the face using two hands now use one, whereas those which have changed from one-handed articulation to two-handed are made without contact on the face or head. Signs which use two hands tend to become symmetrical with respect to the shape and movement of the two hands. These facts are related to what is known about visual perception in general, and what has been hypothesized as a theory of sign language perception in particular.
As part of a general trend away from more "gross" movement and handshapes toward finer articulation, we find the introduction of new movement distinctions in particular signs, the reduction of compound forms to single sign units, a decreased reliance on the face, eyes, mouth, and body as articulators, and a new context-dependent definition of "neutral" orientation. All of the developments at the formational level in ASL contribute to the increased arbitrariness (in the Saussurean sense) and concomitant loss of iconicity in the sign signal.
Sources for this work include not only modern sign language manuals and the Dictionary of American Sign Language, as well as older American sign manuals (Long, 1918; Michaels, 1925) and older French sign manuals (Blanchet, 1850; l'Epee, 1787), but also films made by the National Association of the Deaf in 1911 and 1913 which confirm that the written texts describe the formational components of the signs accurately...
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