The possible range of variation between sign languages: universal grammar, modality and typological aspects
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It is an indisputable though frustrating everyday experience that languages differ from each other, usually up to complete unintelligibility. That this variability is the very nature of the human language faculty seems to be frankly denied by all those who think that at least for sign languages, there is just one universal sign language which is understood by all deaf signers around the globe. This myth is easily invalidated by empiricism and theory. As for empiricism, the many different sign languages of the world – a fraction of which is represented in this volume – are evidence that immense variability is also found in the visual-gestural language modality. As for theory, Chomsky’s well-known statement that the human language faculty is “rich and diverse” (Chomsky 1965, 1981, 1986, 2001) embraces spoken languages as well as sign languages.
En: Pamela Perniss, Roland Pfau & Marcus Steinbach (eds.), Visible variation: comparative studies on sign language structure, pp. 341-383.