Introduction

The fascinations of language are many as serious students of language quickly discover. Once the initial fear of something new is overcome, once the first bite is taken, the mystery and sacredness vanish, and a certain healthy respect rightfully emerges for the finely wrought structure that is a language. The person who looks at a new language finds himself actively engaged in a fascinating process of discovery: "My language works in this way. How does this new and unfamiliar language work?"

Languages are sturdy and can withstand the rigors of such unpretentious curiosity. The scientists who study languages - linguists - are constantly reminded of this fact as they determine how languages are put together. Because they are social scientists, linguists look also at the people who use the languages. Applying the precise methods of scientific investigation, linguists carefully observe members of a particular community using their language(s) to communicate with each other. From these observations, they can make conclusions about the particular language under scrutiny.

Two linguists may study the same language from different vantage points, and independently of each other. Their conclusions will be the same, however, because their observations can be empirically verified. In the same way that natural phenomena are interpreted by a physicist according to a theory of physics, linguistic phenomena are interpreted within the framework of a general theory of language structure. As in other sciences, objective tests and double checks are applied in all aspects of linguistic research by modern linguists.

However, despite the precision which accompanies both language analysis and the report of findings, and despite the long history of linguistic study (civilizations before Ancient Greece studied language), many popular misconceptions about languages are still prevalent. There are numerous misconceptions about American Sign Language (ASL), which has been variously described as universal, conceptual, iconic, concrete, ungrammatical and ideographic. Sign language has also been called "glorified gestures." These descriptions reflect a lack of knowledge of language in general and sign language in particular.

In the past two decades, a growing number of linguists have become interested in the study of sign language. Why the interest in the formal analysis of sign language should be so long delayed is not clear, but it is possible that the difference in mode - visual rather than auditory - prevented linguists from seeing the basic similarities in structure between spoken and signed languages. As these linguists are learning, the study of sign language provides many opportunities to add to our knowledge of language and to our understanding of how the human mind works.