Why different, why the same? Explaining effects and non-effects of modality upon linguistic structure in sign and speech

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511486777.001

1 - Why different, why the same? Explaining effects and non-effects of modality upon linguistic structure in sign and speech

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009

Edited by

Kearsy Cormier and

Richard P. Meier: Affiliation:
Professor of Linguistics and Psychology University of Texas at Austin
Richard P. Meier: Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
Kearsy Cormier: Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
David Quinto-Pozos: Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin

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Summary

Introduction

This is a book primarily about signed languages, but it is not a book targeted just at the community of linguists and psycholinguists who specialize in research on signed languages. It is instead a book in which data from signed languages are recruited in pursuit of the goal of answering a fundamental question about the nature of human language: what are the effects and non-effects of modality upon linguistic structure? By modality, I and the other authors represented in this book mean the mode – the means – by which language is produced and perceived. As anyone familiar with recent linguistic research – or even with popular culture – must know, there are at least two language modalities, the auditory–vocal modality of spoken languages and the visual–gestural modality of signed languages. Here I seek to provide a historical perspective on the issue of language and modality, as well to provide background for those who are not especially familiar with the sign literature. I also suggest some sources of modality effects and their potential consequences for the structure of language.

What's the same?

Systematic research on the signed languages of the Deaf has a short history. In 1933, even as eminent a linguist as Leonard Bloomfield (1933:39) could write with assurance that:

Some communities have a gesture language which upon occasion they use instead of speech. Such gesture languages have been observed among the lower-class Neapolitans, among Trappist monks (who have made a vow of silence), among the Indians of our western plains (where tribes of different language met in commerce and war), and among groups of deaf-mutes. […]

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Type: Chapter
Information: Modality and Structure in Signed and Spoken Languages , pp. 1 - 26

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511486777.001 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2002

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