ABSTRACT

I cannot remember when I first met Ursula Bellugi or Ed Klima. They were there, as

leading figures in the field of linguistics and psycholinguistics, when I first entered the

field. This was before either of them became interested in sign language. But already

each had contributed to our understanding of three major questions that have been the

center of research in the field of linguistics (Chomsky, 1986). What constitutes

knowledge of language? How is knowledge of language acquired? How is knowledge of

language put to use? Their work on both spoken and sign language throughout these

years has provided insightful answers to these questions on the acquisition, mental

representation, structure, and processing of languages and thus to an understanding of the

nature of human language in general. Much of this evidence comes from sign language

research in support of Descartes’s “revolutionary” statement in his Discours de la méthode of 1637:

It is not the want of organs that [prevents animals from making] known their

thoughts…for it is evident that magpies and parrots are able to utter words just

like ourselves, and yet they cannot speak as we do, that is, so as to give

evidence that they think of what they say. On the other hand, men who, being

born deaf and mute…and lack the organs which serve the others for talking, are

in the habit of themselves inventing certain signs by which they make

themselves understood.