Editing American Sign Language (section)

== Iconicity ==
Common misconceptions are that signs are iconically self-explanatory, that they are a transparent imitation of what they mean, or even that they are [[pantomime]].<ref name="cxxiii">{{Harvcoltxt|Costello|2008|p=xxiii}}</ref> In fact, many signs bear no resemblance to their referent because they were originally arbitrary symbols, or their iconicity has been obscured over time.<ref name="cxxiii" /> Even so, in ASL [[iconicity]] plays a significant role; a high percentage of signs resemble their referents in some way.<ref name="l60" /> That may be because the medium of sign, three-dimensional space, naturally allows more iconicity than oral language.<ref name="cxxiii" />

In the era of the influential linguist [[Ferdinand de Saussure]], it was assumed that the mapping between form and meaning in language must be completely arbitrary.<ref name="l60">{{Harvcoltxt|Liddell|2002|p=60}}</ref> Although [[onomatopoeia]] is a clear exception, since words like "choo-choo" bear clear resemblance to the sounds that they mimic, the Saussurean approach was to treat them as marginal exceptions.<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Liddell|2002|p=61}}</ref> ASL, with its significant inventory of iconic signs, directly challenges that theory.<ref name="l62">{{Harvcoltxt|Liddell|2002|p=62}}</ref>

Research on acquisition of pronouns in ASL has shown that children do not always take advantage of the iconic properties of signs when they interpret their meaning.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Thompson|first1=Robin L.|last2=Vinson|first2=David P.|last3=Vigliocco|first3=Gabriella|date=March 2009|title=The Link Between Form and Meaning in American Sign Language: Lexical Processing Effects|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition|volume=35|issue=2|pages=550–557|doi=10.1037/a0014547|issn=0278-7393|pmc=3667647|pmid=19271866}}</ref> It has been found that when children acquire the pronoun "you", the iconicity of the point (at the child) is often confused, being treated more like a name.<ref name="petitto">{{cite journal |doi=10.1016/0010-0277(87)90034-5 |title=On the autonomy of language and gesture: Evidence from the acquisition of personal pronouns in American sign language |year=1987 |last1=Petitto |first1=Laura A. |journal=Cognition |volume=27 |pages=1–52 |pmid=3691016 |issue=1|s2cid=31570908 }}</ref> That is a similar finding to research in oral languages on pronoun acquisition. It has also been found that iconicity of signs does not affect immediate memory and recall; less iconic signs are remembered just as well as highly-iconic signs.<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Klima|Bellugi|1979|p=27}}</ref>