The Emergence of a Sign Language in Nicaragua

尼加拉瓜手语的出现

• 批准号: 9513762
• 负责人: Judy Kegl
• 金额: $ 36.69万
• 依托单位: Rutgers University New Brunswick
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1996
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1996-08-01 至 1999-07-09
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9513762&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Emergence; Sign; Language; Nicaragua

Nicaraguan Sign Language arose fifteen years ago when hundreds of previously isolated deaf individuals were brought together in schools for the first time as the result of an educational reform movement dedicated to providing literacy training and a fourth-grade education to everyone. For virtually the first time, it became possible to directly observe the emergence of a new language. This case is particularly interesting because this language arose not as the result of language contact or the creolization of previously existing languages, but rather from the merging of idiosyncratic gesture systems, called "home signs" that were used for communication within the immediate family by the first generation of deaf children to enter the schools. Home signers quickly began to share their idiosyncratic system imparting to the communication system more and more conventionality. In one generation, young children exposed to a mix of gesturing began to produce a communication form radically different from their input. The new form was more fluid, more complex and wholly language-like. With no co-existing signed languages and limited access to Spanish as a result of low literacy and inability to hear, the only source from which this highly complex linguistic structure could have come was the human brains of those very young first language learners. This constitutes the cleanest case to date in support of the proposal that humans are innately endowed with the capacity to acquire language--even when the input is non-optimal. This project will explore the rich source of evidence for innate language capacity offered by the Nicaraguan case. It begins with a systematic archiving, transcription and analysis of the language data collected over the past ten years including vocabulary, sentence structure, free conversation and controlled narratives elicited via 1.5 minute nonverbal cartoons. These cartoons are the stimuli for a population study that will document the signi ng of the entire population of signers in Nicaragua. The research involves several components: 1. the population study where a variety of factors conditioning sign fluency are considered including age, chronological year, and amount of exposure to signing; 2. the issue of critical mass (i.e., "How many gesturers does it take to make a language?); 3. the process by which a language emerges. While addressing issues of critical period, critical mass and the innate contribution of the human brain to language, the project will also produce a systematic linguistic analysis of Nicaraguan Sign Language. The areas of focus include the "phonetics" of this new language, an indepth analysis of its classifier and coreference systems, and the coding and analysis of the use of nonmanual gestures and facial expressions marking questions, topics, and a host of other grammatical functions.

15年前，数百名以前与世隔绝的聋人第一次在学校里聚集在一起，这是一场致力于为每个人提供识字培训和四年级教育的教育改革运动的结果。事实上，这是第一次有可能直接观察到一种新语言的出现。这一案例特别有趣，因为这种语言的产生不是语言接触的结果，也不是对先前存在的语言进行克理奥尔化的结果，而是来自于被称为“家庭手势”的特殊手势系统的融合，这些手势系统被第一代聋哑儿童用来在直系亲属中进行交流。家庭签名者很快开始分享他们的特殊系统，赋予通信系统越来越多的惯例。在一代人中，接触到各种手势的幼儿开始产生一种与他们输入的完全不同的交流形式。新的形式更流畅，更复杂，完全像语言。由于没有共同存在的手语，以及由于识字率低和听不到而导致的西班牙语有限，这种高度复杂的语言结构的唯一来源可能是那些非常年轻的第一语言学习者的大脑。这是迄今为止支持人类天生具有习得语言能力这一观点的最明确的案例，即使输入不是最佳的。 这个项目将探讨由巴布亚案例提供的先天语言能力的丰富证据来源。它首先对过去十年收集的语言数据进行系统的存档，转录和分析，包括词汇，句子结构，自由对话和通过1.5分钟的非语言漫画引起的控制叙述。这些漫画是一项人口研究的刺激因素，该研究将记录尼加拉瓜整个签名者人口的签名。本研究包括以下几个部分：1.人口研究，其中考虑了各种因素条件的迹象流畅性，包括年龄，按时间顺序排列的一年，和量的接触，以签署; 2。临界质量的问题（即，“一种语言需要多少个手势？" 3. 语言出现的过程。 在解决关键时期、临界质量和人脑对语言的先天贡献等问题的同时，该项目还将对巴布亚手语进行系统的语言学分析。重点领域包括这种新语言的“语音学”，对其分类器和共指系统的深入分析，以及对标记问题，主题和其他语法功能的非手动手势和面部表情的编码和分析。