The term homesign has been used to describe the signing of deaf indi- viduals who have not had sustained access to the linguistic resources of a named language. Early studies of child homesigners focused on document- ing their manual communication systems through the lens of developmental psycholinguistics and generative linguistics, but a recent wave of linguistic ethnographic investigations is challenging many of the established theo- retical presuppositions that underlie the foundational homesign research. Sparked by a larger critical movement within Deaf Studies led by deaf schol- ars, this new generation of scholarship interrogates how researchers portray deaf individuals and their communication practices and questions the con- ceptualization of language in the foundational body of homesign research. In this review, we discuss these contested issues and the current moment of transition within research on homesign.
Homesign: Contested Issues
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