Poetic cohesion in American Sign Language: Valli's 'Snowflake' & Coleridge's 'Frost at Midnight'
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Valli's "Snowflake" & Coleridge's "Frost The study of sign language was just coming of age when Aaron Cicourel, in a contribution to a volume of interdisciplinary essays on sign, remarked that: "the limitations of gestural sign systems, if such limitations exist, are inherent in the cultural de velopment of the deaf and not in the structure of sign languages" (Cicourel 1978). Since Cicourel's assessment, sustained inquiry bas further revealed the complexity and subtlety of ASL, and the results of this research have filtered from the academie commu nity (hearing and deaf) to the deaf community at large. The lin guistic validation of ASL bas bad an enormous impact on signers and led to significant changes in the way that the deaf communi ty behaves and regards itself. One such change is reflected in the growing interest in original poetic composition in ASL. The de velopment of a documented body of poetry in ASL within the last twenty years-and its corollary, the development of a frame work for poetic usage-bas borne out Cicourel' s assertion and has helped affirm the legitimacy of the deaf community and its language, both to those within the community and those outside it.