A survey of foreign language studies in colleges and universities across the nation, completed by the Modern Language Association, showed that from 1998 to 2002 there has been a 432 percent increase in the study of American Sign Language, or ASL.

This is more than four times the increase of any of the 15 most commonly studied languages on college campuses. With this burst of curiosity and interest in ASL, the question is why some colleges are still currently refusing to accept this language as a fulfillment of their foreign language requirement.

More than 100 colleges and universities are accepting ASL for the foreign language requirement, and at most of these schools the study of the language is thriving.

Still other schools are fighting to prevent this language from fulfilling the requirement, prohibiting students from exploring the depths of this remarkable language.

Why? Because it is indigenous to the United States? Or because ASL involves no written language? These reasons should not be stopping students from learning an amazing language that really interests them while fulfilling their school’s foreign language requirement. ASL should fulfill the foreign language requirement at all colleges and universities across the country.

Some argue that ASL should not be considered a language at all, an argument with little support. American Sign Language is a natural language that has evolved over many years, like other languages.

This language should not be confused with sign systems based on the English language, which are used to teach English to deaf children.

ASL is a full and working language of its very own. As Eve Sweetser, president of International Cognitive Linguistics Association, writes “There is no doubt in the mind of any linguist who has actually looked at signed languages that they are full and complete human languages. Its just not a debate anymore. The disagreement is only between people who know something about signed languages and those who have no knowledge about them, and imagine them to be primitive and possibly universal gesture systems.”

Margaret Speas, associate professor of Linguists at the University of Massachusetts agrees. “There’s no question that it is a complete language. It has its own phonology, morphology and syntax, which cannot be violated if the signer is to look like a native signer. It is processed in the language areas of the brain, not the spatial processing areas.”

American Sign Language is most certainly a language and a comprehensive one at that.

Not only should ASL be considered a language in the first place, but it should be considered a foreign language.

Unless the student already knows ASL, the language will be foreign to the learner. It is not manual English, in which there is a sign made for each individual English word using English syntax nor is it a translation of English. The grammatical structure of ASL is drastically different than that of English.

Paul Smolensky, professor and chair of the department of Cognitive Sciences at Johns Hopkins University states that ASL has much less in common with English than does German or French, so it must count as a foreign language. Again, there can be no doubt of this on the part of any linguist.

Too many people are comparing ASL to languages such as French or Spanish, commonly studied foreign languages, and concluding that these other languages must be foreign because they are not domestic. How can this be a reasonable conclusion if Spanish has more domestic speakers than ASL?

Just because ASL is indigenous to the United States does not mean that it cannot be considered foreign. Other languages that are fulfilling the foreign language requirement among colleges are indigenous to the United States as well, such as Native American.

Also, languages like Spanish, French and German have been used in the United States for as long as English has, but are considered foreign.

ASL is just as foreign as the other languages taught nationally and should be recognized equally.

Since ASL can clearly be considered both a complete language and a foreign language, it should fulfill foreign language requirements on all campuses across the nation.

Students studying ASL are exposed to a whole new culture flourishing in America that many people currently know very little about.

With nearly 13 million people in the United States using ASL regularly, it is a wonderful thing for people who are not hard of hearing to experience and be a part of this culture. Students who study ASL will be better able to serve the deaf community.

They will also gain a skill that may give them a competitive edge in many professions, such as medicine, counseling, social work, emergency services, government positions and research.

One of the reasons some schools hesitate to accept ASL as a foreign language is the lack of literature. These schools must have misunderstood. ASL has a wide variety of non-written literature including poetry, folklore, drama and performance art.

Students will not be deprived from studying a variety of literature if they choose to study ASL and this should not be a reason to prevent them from doing so and receiving full credit.

Every college and university in America should be embracing the recent and massive increase of interest in American Sign Language.

This language is intriguing more and more students and if they choose to study ASL then they should certainly receive credit toward their foreign language requirement.

ASL is both a complete and foreign language and nothing should stop students from fulfilling their foreign language requirement by studying American Sign Language.

Student: Heather Lord, '10 - 08/29/07