This article talks about how American Sign Language has shifted from being more iconic to consisting of more arbitrary gestures. It disproves many myths about ASL, for example that it is universal. But if this were the case, than the French and British would able to understand it. They have their own sign language and can't understand ours. The second myth is that ASL is simply pantomimic. But if this were the case, then wouldn't anyone be able to understand it? Even someone who has never come across it before should be able to understand what is being communicated if the signs exactly mimic the verbal words. And wouldn't this also make sign language universal for everyone?
This article interested me because I remembered the class we had maybe a week or two ago when we were talking about Saussure. I don't think we every really came to a conclusion on whether we thought that sign language was more arbitrary or iconic. So I guess this article is just another viewpoint we can add into our debate about it.
http://0-www.jstor.org.allecat3.allegheny.edu/stable/view/412894?seq=2&Search=yes&term=sign&term=language&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dsign%2Blanguage%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3Dgender%2Bin%2Blanguage%26hp%3D25&item=12&ttl=100187&returnArticleService=showArticle