n I would like to respond to Morgan Jenatton’s characterization of my comments as reported in The Daily Free Press on American Sign Language (“Despite silence, ASL is a legitimate language,” April 26, p. 8). As a linguist myself, I am perfectly well aware that American Sign Language is a legitimate language, and it was I who oversaw the approval of ASL as satisfying the College of Arts and Sciences foreign language requirement.
My remarks, rather incoherently quoted in the April 24 article, addressed a different question: Why ASL has not (yet) been adopted as a foreign language in the liberal arts curriculum here and elsewhere. That has to do with the cultural productivity of ASL, at this stage of its history, and its cultural reception outside the North American deaf community and those who work with that community.
This is not a judgment about the quality or importance of ASL or deaf culture, only about its suitability to sustain a language program in a college of arts and sciences along with, for example, French and French culture, art, cinema, history, literature, etc. Most of the world’s other languages are also unsuitable for similar reasons. Meanwhile, Boston University has a wonderful ASL program in the School of Education, appropriately as an applied language.
Jeffrey Henderson
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
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