Morphology in the Spontaneous Sign Systems of American and Chinese Deaf Children

这个项目将观察听力严重失聪的儿童 没有接触过人工语言的父母（如 美国手语（American Sign Language） 在以前的工作中，PI和她 同事们发现，尽管语言如此贫乏， 学习条件，一个美国聋哑儿童可以发展一个 手势通信系统， 词/形态水平。 本项目观察中国 听力正常的父母的聋哑儿童也没有接触过 到任何手动语言，看看它们是否也开发出一种 手势系统结构在字的水平，尽管不同的 文化背景 十名美国聋人的纵向比较 儿童和五名中国聋哑儿童在类似的情况下， 记录在录像带和转录，将显示是否 这些儿童发展的家庭手势系统是类似的 或者是否受到听力正常的父母的影响， 反过来又受到不同文化的影响， 不同类型的语言。

This project will observe profoundly deaf children of hearing parents who have not exposed them to manual language (such as American Sign Language). In previous work, the PI and her associates have found that despite such impoverished language- learning conditions, an American deaf child could develop a gestural communication system structured at the word/morphological level. The current project observes Chinese deaf children of hearing parents who also have not been exposed to any manual language to see whether they, too, develop a gesture system structured at the word level despite the different cultural context. A longitudinal comparison of ten American deaf children and five Chinese deaf children in similar circumstances, recorded on videotape and transcribed, will show whether the home-sign gestural systems developed by such children is similar or whether it is affected by input from the hearing parents, who in turn are affected by their different cultures and typologically different languages.