The fascinations of language are many as
serious students of language quickly discover. Once the initial fear
of something
new is overcome,
once the first bite is taken, the mystery and sacredness vanish,
and a certain healthy respect rightfully emerges for the finely
wrought
structure that is a language. The person who looks at a new language
finds himself
actively engaged in a fascinating process of discovery: "My
language works in this way. How does this new and unfamiliar language
work?"
Languages are sturdy and can withstand the rigors of such unpretentious
curiosity. The scientists who study languages - linguists - are constantly
reminded of this fact as they determine how languages are put together.
Because they are social scientists, linguists look also at the people
who use the languages. Applying the precise methods of scientific investigation,
linguists carefully observe members of a particular community using their
language(s) to communicate with each other. From these observations,
they can make conclusions about the particular language under scrutiny.
Two linguists may study the same language from different vantage points,
and independently of each other. Their conclusions will be the same,
however, because their observations can be empirically verified. In the
same way that natural phenomena are interpreted by a physicist according
to a theory of physics, linguistic phenomena are interpreted within the
framework of a general theory of language structure. As in other sciences,
objective tests and double checks are applied in all aspects of linguistic
research by modern linguists.
However, despite the precision which accompanies
both language analysis and the report of findings, and despite the
long history of linguistic
study (civilizations before Ancient Greece studied language), many popular
misconceptions about languages are still prevalent. There are numerous
misconceptions about American Sign Language (ASL), which has been variously
described as universal, conceptual, iconic, concrete, ungrammatical and
ideographic. Sign language has also been called "glorified gestures." These
descriptions reflect a lack of knowledge of language in general and sign
language in particular.
In the past two decades, a growing number of linguists have become interested
in the study of sign language. Why the interest in the formal analysis
of sign language should be so long delayed is not clear, but it is possible
that the difference in mode - visual rather than auditory - prevented
linguists from seeing the basic similarities in structure between spoken
and signed languages. As these linguists are learning, the study of sign
language provides many opportunities to add to our knowledge of language
and to our understanding of how the human mind works.