Abstract
Although it is easy to do so, The
sociolinguistics of sign languages (henceforth SSL)
is not to be confused with Ceil Lucas's other books, The
sociolinguistics of the deaf community (1989) and its sequels,
the Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities series. Whereas the
latter volumes aim to present new research in the area of
sociolinguistics pertaining to Deaf people and other users of
sign languages, the book under review presents almost no new
(to those already familiar with this field) information on aspects
of sociolinguistic research on members of this language community.
Instead, this book should more accurately be seen as a companion
volume to her book (with Clayton Valli) Linguistics of American
Sign Language: An introduction (2000; henceforth
LASL). Like LASL, SSL is intended
as a textbook for use in college-level courses dealing with
linguistics (or a stand-alone course in sociolinguistics, as
was Lucas's intention) of sign languages and Deaf
communities.