ABSTRACT

During the mid-1970s, while I was a research assistant working with Ed Klima and

Ursula Bellugi in their lab at The Salk Institute, it was common for linguists and

nonlinguists alike to ask whether American Sign Language (ASL) had a grammar and

whether it “qualified” as a real language. Now, more than two decades later, such

questions are no longer asked, because the status of ASL as a real language is taken for

granted. Some researchers, however, are still reluctant to consider the possibility that

ASL discourse might include a significant amount of nonphonologically controlled

gestures. This appears to be based on the concern that prior to being recognized as a

language, ASL was regarded as merely a collection of gestures-not a language. Talking

about gestures in ASL strikes some as a step in the wrong direction.