Signed languages and cognitive linguistics

Abstract

This chapter offers an overview of signed language linguistics. We begin with a historical perspective. A brief description of American Sign Language (ASL) provides the background on linguistic analyses of signed languages. Critical issues include iconicity, metaphor, metonymy, mental spaces, grammaticization, evidentiality and modality, and pointing. A final section focuses on two themes concerning the relation between signed languages and gesture. The first describes the process by which gestures are incorporated into a signed language. The second examines the claim that some signs are fusions of linguistic and gestural material.