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As one reviews the history of theories of language origins (especially those that spring from the view that language emerged through a process by which practical acts became transformed into symbolic acts) and considers how these symbolic acts, in the process of becoming established as socially shared communicative actions, acquired the properties of arbitrariness, contrastiveness, and other features so often cited as characteristic of language, it is striking how little this line of thought has changed. What has changed is that the support for such a line of thought is so much greater than ever before. This is clearly due to the much greater understanding of the nature of sign languages that we have today. As I have tried to show here, this increase in understanding has come about as a consequence of the philosophical issues raised by the phenomena of “gesture talk” among deaf people. Thus there is, and always has been, a reciprocal relationship between the study of sign language and the elaboration theories of language origin. Notes 1. All quotations are from the translation of Bergin and Fisch (1984). Passages are identified by paragraph numbers. 2. For a lucid account of Condillac’s ideas with regard to the origin of language , see Wells (1987). 3. On gesture and the idea of a universal language, see Knowlson (1975). See also Knox (1990). 4. Roch Ambroise Sicard, Cours d’instruction d’un sourd-muet de naissance pour servir à l’éducation des sourds-muets: Et qui peut être utile à celle de ceux qui entendent et qui parlent. (Hambourg: Chez Fauche, Librarire, 1799) and Theorie des signes pour l’instruction des sourds-muets (Paris: A l’Imprimerie de l’Institution des Sourds-Muets, sous la direction d’Ange, 1808). See Knowlson (1975, 220–21). 5. The quotations here are from chapter 2. See Wundt ([1921] 1973). 6. Ferdinand de Saussure. Cours de linguistique generale. Paris: Payot 1916. 2d ed. 1922. English translation by Roy Harris (1983). 7. Gardner and Gardner (1969) is the first published report of this study. 8. See Lenneberg (1967); for an early formulation of the idea of the Language Acquisition Device, see Chomsky (1965). 9. Perhaps the most conspicuous and most widely disseminated publication that followed from the work at the Salk Institute was Klima and Bellugi’s Signs of 48 Adam Kendon Language (1979). This was a collaborative work and many who contributed to it went on to become prominent sign language researchers in their own right. Another important publication that owed much to the excitement created at Salk was Understanding Language through Sign Language Research, a collection of papers from the first conference on Sign Language and Neurolinguistics, held in Rochester, New York, in 1976, and edited by Patricia Siple (1978). Other publications less directly related to the work at Salk, or independent of it, include Schlesinger and Namir (1972), Friedman (1977) and Peng (1978). In both Schlesinger and Namir and in Peng the connection is maintained with problems of language origins and the importance of the linguistic work with apes. Gordon Hewes contributed to both of these volumes. 10. Stokoe wrote the dictionary with Dorothy Casterline and Carl Croneberg. A new edition was issued in 1978 by Linstok Press, the publishing company Stokoe created. 11. The literature stemming from modern research on primary sign languages is now very large indeed. While this is not the place to discuss it, those looking for modern starting points from a linguistic point of view are referred to Valli and Lucas (1995) for American Sign Language and Sutton-Spence and Woll (1999) for British Sign Language. 12. See, for example, Hockett and Asher (1954). Hockett later revised his view. See his very valuable essay “In Search of Jove’s Brow” (Hockett 1978). References Armstrong, David F., William C. Stokoe, and Sherman E. Wilcox. 1995. Gesture and the nature of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bellugi, Ursula. 1981.The acquisition of a spatial language. In The development of language and language researchers: Essays in honor of Roger Brown, edited by Frank S. Kessel. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Bergin, Thomas Goddard, and Max Harold Fisch, trans. [1744] 1984. The new science of Giambattista Vico. 3d ed. and Practic of the new science. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Bronowski, Jacob, and Ursula Bellugi. 1970. Language, name, and concept. Science 168 (3932): 669–73. Brown, Roger. 1973. A first language: The early stages. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Research on Sign Languages and Language Origins Theory 49 [18.189...

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