The Study of Signed Languages: Essays in Honor of William C. Stokoe

Concluding Thoughts: The Future of American Sign Language

simultaneously, one by each hand. This provides opportunities for the way in which combinations might occur in this medium. By contrast, two words cannot be said at once, and this provides constraints on how meanings are expressed, in that words can only be combined sequentially. The organization of the delivery systems of meaning has, therefore, to be discontinuous between the two modalities. But at an abstract level, there can still be continuities between how “elementary particles” of meaning are combined, irrespective of the communicative modality being used. To get at these continuities requires looking at things in a new way. Recently, some authors have begun to consider data on the development of gesture and speech and its implications for both the neural organization of language and language evolution. With regard to the neural organization of language, Iverson and Thelen (1999) have speculated that The speech-gesture-language system is a particularly transparent manifestation, we believe, not only of the sensorimotor origins of thought, but also of its continued embodiment throughout life. . . . For the systems involved in speech, gesture, and language to be so linked together, they must be represented in the brain in compatible means; that is, the representations of the mental aspects of language must be able to mesh seamlessly with those involved in the control of movements. We suggest that as these aspects are linked initially, when language emerges, so they remain coupled throughout life. With respect to the question of whether human language evolved from manual gestures, an issue that has been of considerable interest in the past two centuries, Deacon (1997) has argued that Though children’s language development likely does not recapitulate language evolution in most respects (because neither immature brains nor children’s partial mapping of adult modern languages are comparable to mature brains and adult languages of any ancestor), we can nevertheless observe a progressive assimilation of nonverbal supports 242 Capirci, Caselli, Iverson, Pizzuto, andVolterra to more flexible and efficient vocal forms as their language abilities develop. These facts suggest that gesture comprised a significant part of early symbolic communication, but that it existed side by side with vocal communication for most of the last 2 million years. Rather than substitutes for one another, gesture and speech have co-evolved complex interrelationships throughout their long and changing partnership . (Deacon 1997, 354–55) We conclude this chapter as we began it with a quotation taken from Stokoe’s recent writings, a quotation that we believe is consistent with the premises underlying our work. “Not only is a human brain necessary for language, but also human society and culture are necessary for language to have evolved, to be acquired and to operate. The social and the biological aspects of language together make it unique to have evolved.” References Abrahamsen, Adele. 2000. Explorations of enhanced gestural input to children in the bimodal period. In The signs of language revisited: An anthology to honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima, edited by Harlan Lane and Karen Emmorey, 357–99. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Armstrong, David F., William C. Stokoe, and Sherman E. Wilcox. 1995. Gesture and the nature of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bates, Elizabeth, Laura Benigni, Inge Bretherton, Luigia Camaioni, and Virginia Volterra. 1979. The emergence of symbols: Cognition and communication in infancy. New York: Academic Press. Bates, Elizabeth, Luigia Camaioni, and Virginia Volterra. 1975. The acquisition of performatives prior to speech. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 21: 205–26. Bekken, Kaaren. 1989. Is there motherese in gesture? Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago. Bruner, Jerome S. 1975. The ontogenesis of speech acts. Journal of Child Language 2: 1–19. Butcher, Cynthia, and Susan Goldin-Meadow. 1993. From one word to two: Exploring the changing role of gesture. Paper presented at the Biennial Gesture and the Nature of Language in Infancy 243 Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development, New Orleans, La. Camaioni, Luigia, M. Cristina Caselli, Emiddia Longobardi, and Virginia Volterra. 1991. A parent report instrument for early language assessment. First Language 11: 345–59. Capirci, Olga, Jana M. Iverson, Elena Pizzuto, and Virginia Volterra. 1996. Gestures and words during the transition to two-word speech. Journal of Child Language 23: 645–73. Capirci, Olga, Jana M. Iverson, Elena Pizzuto, and Virginia Volterra. Forthcoming . Gestures, sign, and words in early language development: The role of linguistic input. Bilingualism and Cognition. Caselli, M. Cristina. 1983. Communication to language: Deaf children...