The sociolinguistics of sign languages. Ceil Lucas (Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. 259.

Extract

In the field of linguistics, as we have repeatedly seen, some languages have had a harder time than others gaining acceptance as “legitimate” and achieving recognition as “real.” Whether it is their specific histories, politics, or cultural origins, certain categories of languages and their speakers have been labeled “different” (often interpreted as deficient) and subsequently ignored, misunderstood, and not admitted into the group of languages deemed worthy of academic study and social recognition. Those languages selected for study and validation shared many features: they had traditions of literacy and literature, dictionaries and grammars, and they were spoken.