In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

• Introduction:The First Wave of Sign Language Research—Selected Memoirs
• Penny Boyes Braem (bio), Virginia Volterra (bio), Robbin Battison (bio), Nancy Frishberg (bio), and Carol Padden (bio)

Why a Special Issue?

Fifty years after William Stokoe founded Sign Language Studies (SLS) in 1972, we have reason to give thanks for a half-century of research and discovery, and to reflect on its origins. Because much has changed since those early days. And many stories have not yet been told.

The idea for a special issue arose when two of us (Boyes Braem and Volterra) wrote a short memoir relating our first steps into the nascent field of sign language research about fifty years ago. The SLS [End Page 185] editors then proposed expanding it to include memoirs from other pioneering researchers, which would also align with the journal's fiftieth anniversary.

Thus, this special issue was born, with Frishberg, Padden, and Battison joining Boyes Braem and Volterra on the editorial team. We gathered twenty-three contributions from early researchers of twelve different sign languages in North America and Europe, as well as a short report on sign languages in six Asian countries and Hawai'i.

We asked each of these contributors to describe their first steps in beginning research on the sign language in their country, and to tell it in their own way. They were also encouraged to mention any special conditions they faced as they began their work.

The resulting collection serves as historical documentation of how a new research field is born. We believe that the personal details and variety of motivations and settings will interest a wide range of readers—not only the veterans of the field who will recognize their pioneering friends, but also younger researchers seeking insights into the roots of sign language linguistics and related fields.

Scope and Limitations

To ensure the issue's feasibility, we primarily invited researchers who published descriptions of sign languages before 1980 in the United States and before 1990 in Europe. Our goal was not to document how the field has changed over fifty years, but simply to describe the startup phases. Although this cutoff may exclude some early researchers, and not everyone we invited could participate, the collection still offers a representative glimpse into the origins of this field. Following this Introduction is a short list of our contributors, in which they describe why they first became involved in sign language research.

Sadly, it was too late for some very influential researchers to contribute, as they are no longer with us—among them William Stokoe, Bernard Tervoort, Paul Jouison, Ursula Bellugi, Edward Klima, Harlan Lane, Mary Brennan, Inger Ahlgren, Harry Markowicz, Bernard Mottez, and Elena Pizzuto. Although biographies and memoirs already exist for some of these pioneers, we asked contributors who worked closely with any of them to share their memories about them. [End Page 186]

How and Why Did Early Researchers Begin?

Perhaps not surprisingly, nearly half of the contributing researchers became curious about signing from some early experience in an educational setting involving either deaf children in schools or deaf students in institutes of higher education. And more than half of the contributors had been aware of sign language, either because they grew up with families or friends who signed or are themselves deaf native signers. Many others found their way to sign language research through academic curiosity or other serendipitous channels.

These articles make it clear that studies of sign language structure were highly intertwined with sign language acquisition, education, or interpreting, with many early linguistic studies being written by people influenced by their experiences in these other fields. This has also been reported by Maher (1996) for Stokoe as well as by others for many other sign language researchers, for example, Vermeerbergen (2006), McBurney (2012), Woll (2013), Battison (2016, 2000), Hulst (2022), and in articles on sign language and gesture studies, such as Kendon (2002) and Armstrong, Stokoe, and Wilcox (1995).

American vs. European Settings

The academic and social conditions facing these first researchers often differed greatly from one country to the next. For example, in Italy and Switzerland, where local deaf signing communities were smaller and fewer than in the United States...

中文翻译：

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导言：第一波手语研究——回忆录选

以下是内容的简短摘录，以代替摘要：

• 导言：第一波手语研究——回忆录选
• Penny Boyes Braem（简介）、Virginia Volterra（简介）、Robbin Battison（简介）、Nancy Frishberg（简介）和 Carol Padden（简介）

为什么要特刊？

威廉·斯托科 (William Stokoe) 于 1972 年创立手语研究(SLS) 五十年后，我们有理由感谢半个世纪的研究和发现，并反思其起源。因为自早期以来发生了很多变化。还有很多故事还没有被讲述。

当我们两个人（博耶斯·布雷姆和沃尔泰拉）写了一篇简短的回忆录，讲述大约五十年前我们进入新兴的手语研究领域的第一步时，就产生了制作特刊的想法。SLS [完第 185 页]编辑随后提议将其扩展，以包含其他先驱研究人员的回忆录，这也将与该期刊的五十周年纪念相一致。

于是，这期特刊诞生了，Frishberg、Padden 和 Battison 加入了 Boyes Braem 和 Volterra 的编辑团队。我们收集了北美和欧洲 12 种不同手语早期研究人员的 23 份贡献，以及关于 6 个亚洲国家和夏威夷手语的简短报告。

我们要求每一位贡献者描述他们在自己的国家开始手语研究的第一步，并以自己的方式讲述。他们还被鼓励提及在开始工作时遇到的任何特殊情况。

由此产生的收藏可以作为新研究领域如何诞生的历史文献。我们相信，个人细节以及各种动机和背景会引起广泛的读者的兴趣，不仅是该领域的资深人士会认识到他们的先驱朋友，而且还有寻求深入了解手语语言学和相关领域根源的年轻研究人员。

范围和限制

为了确保课题的可行性，我们主要邀请了1980年之前在美国和1990年之前在欧洲发表过手语描述的研究人员。我们的目标不是记录该领域五十年来的变化，而只是描述启动阶段。尽管这种截止可能会排除一些早期研究人员，并且并非我们邀请的每个人都可以参与，但该集合仍然提供了对该领域起源的代表性了解。在本简介之后是我们的贡献者的简短列表，他们在其中描述了他们第一次参与手语研究的原因。

遗憾的是，对于一些非常有影响力的研究人员来说，现在做出贡献已经太晚了，因为他们已经离开了我们，其中包括 William Stokoe、Bernard Tervoort、Paul Jouison、Ursula Bellugi、Edward Klima、Harlan Lane、Mary Brennan、Inger Ahlgren、Harry Markowicz 、伯纳德·莫特兹和埃琳娜·皮祖托。尽管其中一些先驱者的传记和回忆录已经存在，但我们要求与他们密切合作的贡献者分享他们对他们的回忆。[完第186页]

早期研究人员是如何以及为何开始的？

也许并不奇怪，近一半的贡献研究人员对手语感到好奇，因为他们在教育环境中获得了一些早期经验，其中包括学校的聋哑儿童或高等教育机构的聋哑学生。超过一半的贡献者都知道手语，要么是因为他们是和手语的家人或朋友一起长大的，要么是因为他们本身就是聋哑的母语手语者。许多其他人通过学术好奇心或其他偶然的渠道找到了手语研究的方法。

这些文章清楚地表明，手语结构的研究与手语习得、教育或口译密切相关，许多早期的语言研究是由受这些其他领域经验影响的人们撰写的。Maher (1996) 为 Stokoe 以及其他许多手语研究人员也报告了这一点，例如 Vermeerbergen (2006)、McBurney (2012)、Woll (2013)、Battison (2016, 2000)、Hulst (2022)，以及关于手语和手势研究的文章，例如 Kendon (2002) 和 Armstrong、Stokoe 和 Wilcox (1995)。

美国与欧洲设置

这些第一批研究人员面临的学术和社会条件往往因国家而异。例如，在意大利和瑞士，当地聋人手语社区比美国更小、更少……