Introduction: How Emerging Sign Languages in the Americas contributes to the study of linguistics and (emerging) sign languages

Sign networks: Nucleated network sign languages and rural homesign in Papua New Guinea

“…Since then, researchers have engaged with increasingly diverse signing communities, from single deaf children raised in non-signing households to rural communities with high rates of deafness and resulting local sign languages shared by deaf and hearing people (e.g. Goldin-Meadow 2003; de Vos & Zeshan 2012; Le Guen, Safar, & Coppola 2020). From this work, a sociodemographic typology of sign languages has emerged, in which sign languages are classified according to the configurations of people who use them.…”

Classifications and typologies: Labeling sign languages and signing communities

“…There is a growing trend of documenting the variety and complexity of signing practices in the context of diverse sociolinguistic ecologies in which the practices occur in different parts of the world (Braithwaite, 2019(Braithwaite, , 2020Ergin, 2017;Goico, 2019Goico, , 2020Green, 2014;Hofer, 2017;Horton, 2018;Hou, 2016;Jepsen et al, 2015;Kendon, 2013;Kisch, 2012;Kusters, 2015;Kusters & Sahasrabudhe, 2018;Le Guen et al, 2020;Marsaja, 2008;Moriarty Harrelson, 2017;Neveu, 2019;Nonaka, 2009Nonaka, , 2014Nyst, 2012;Nyst et al, 2012;Palfreyman, 2015Palfreyman, , 2020Polich, 2005;Reed, 2019Reed, , 2020Safar, 2020;Schuit, 2013;Zeshan & de Vos, 2012;inter alia). The signing in question may be classified as sign language, gesture, homesign/homesign system, or some variation of one of those labels such as family sign or local sign, according to the scholar's theoretical views and methodological approaches.…”

“…That chapter is one of the more oft-cited references in contemporary publications that are interested in classifying sign languages and signing communities. Emerging sign languages are situated in opposition to 'established sign languages' and these terms have been subsequently adopted and adapted by various scholars (Fenlon & Wilkinson, 2015;Le Guen et al, 2020;Zeshan & de Vos, 2012).…”

“…Many scholars have proposed a typology of sign languages based on relatively discrete linguistic and sociolinguistic criteria in order to better understand the circumstances in which sign languages emerge, grow, and change. The typology is often based on implicit assumptions of some distinction between three major categories of gesture, homesign, and sign language Le Guen et al, 2020). Those categories themselves are ideological about what constitutes language and not-language on a linear continuum, with gesture situated at one end, homesign in the middle, and sign language on the other end (Kusters & Sahasrabudhe, 2018).…”