Lecture | Sign Languages & Deaf People
A Historical and Etymological Look at Co-Speech Gestures and Signs
- Date
- Wednesday 13 May 2026
- Time
- Serie
- Sign Languages and Deaf People (SL&D) lecture series
- Address
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 0.01
Abstract
In this talk, I present etymological research on American Sign Language (ASL) and French Sign Language (LSF) conducted in collaboration with Yves Delaporte. Our work is grounded in the view that signed languages, like spoken languages, have recoverable histories that can be traced through careful analysis of form, meaning, and use over time. By drawing on archival documents, early sign language dictionaries and manuals, and comparative lexical data, we retraced how signs have been transmitted, transformed, and reinterpreted across generations and national contexts. Of particular interest is the connection between gestures used among hearing people and the signs influenced by them. I will focus specifically on instances where signing deaf people adopted and transformed gestures - in both form and meaning - to suit their linguistic repertoires. This research has implications for contemporary analyses of sign language evolution and change, particularly with respect to the ways in which signing deaf people incorporate cospeech gestures in contemporary sign language.