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.