The Validity of the Gallaudet Lecture Films

Despite our growing understanding of sign languages, particularly ASL, there is still a profound limitation on the availability of literary, linguistic, historical, and other reference materials related to them because of the lack of a commonly accepted writing system. We have transcribed and are currently analyzing a set of films commissioned by the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) from 1910 to 1920. The fifteen films include speeches and poetic performances produced by master signers who were selected by the NAD to preserve the sign language in use at that time.

Does the signing in these films provide a valid sample on which to base historical linguistic and other types of analyses? This article reviews our investigation into the biographical backgrounds of those master signers selected by the NAD for filming and identifies three generations of signers, each using a distinctive register, thus providing an invaluable sample of the language of that period. Second, we propose an interpretation of the signers' attitudes toward formal and colloquial uses of sign language that is based on a review of historical documents on sign language usage as recorded by educators in the nineteenth century. As a final means of assessing these historical materials, we show how theories of language change can help us determine whether observed patterns of change occurred in particular specifiable directions. Our analyses confirm that these historical