Page "Nicaraguan Sign Language" Paragraph 10

William Stokoe, known by many as the father of American Sign Language linguistics, disagreed that the emergence of ISN is evidence of a language acquisition device.

Stokoe also questions assertions that the language has emerged entirely without outside influence, from ( for example ), Spanish or ASL.

At present, there is no final evidence available to resolve the controversy surrounding nativism vs. cultural learning, and the dispute reaches far into theoretical linguistics, where different approaches may conceptualize grammar in different and non-compatible ways.

Even if the evidence collected thus far seems to indicate a lack of access to Spanish and ASL in the early emergence process, it remains a possibility that the development of ISN is facilitated by the speaker's exposure to more general communicative strategies in early infancy.

Alternatives to theories proposing a language acquisition device have been presented by Michael Tomasello ( among others ).

Tomasello argues that the process of acquiring a first language is boosted by non-linguistic communication, as in the establishment of joint intentional frames and in the understanding of communicative intentions.

In any case, once ISN came into being, like all other languages it actively engaged in contact with other languages in its environment.