In Ten Lectures on Cognitive Linguistics and the Unification of Spoken and Signed Languages Sherman Wilcox suggests that rather than abstracting away from the material substance of language, linguists can discover the deep connections between signed and spoken languages by taking an embodied view.

Sherman Wilcox (PhD 1988) is Professor of Linguistics at the University of New Mexico. His main research interests are the theoretical and applied study of signed languages. Dr. Wilcox focuses his theoretical work on iconicity, gesture, and typological studies of signed languages. He is widely recognized as an advocate for academic acceptance of American Sign Language in universities in the United States. Dr. Wilcox has taught signed language interpreting for many years and most recently has begun to demonstrate the application of Cognitive Linguistics to interpreting theory. He is author of several books and articles, including The Phonetics of Fingerspelling (1992); Gesture and the Nature of Language (with David F. Armstrong and William C. Stokoe, 1994); Learning to See: Teaching American Sign Language as a Second Language (with Phyllis Perrin Wilcox, 1997); and several edited collections. He serves on the editorial boards of Gesture, Review of Cognitive Linguistics, and Sign Language Studies, and is a board member of the International Cognitive Linguistic Association.