Doctoral Disseration Research: Conventionalization of Homesign Systems in Guatemala: Lexical and Morpho-phonological Dimensions

术语“涌现”有时被用来指儿童习得第一语言的过程，因为所有的儿童都在创造语言，即使他们在习得语言的同时也在创造语言。本项目探讨儿童需要多少交际输入才能最终发展出类似成人的语言能力。它将研究交际输入的来源是否会影响最终的流利性，以确定儿童学习者是否从成人语言模型或同龄人提供的模型中受益更多。本项目还将研究一种新语言在讲者或手语者社区中的出现与一个与完全建立的手语使用者隔离的儿童的出现是否平行或不同。 这项研究的结果可以为聋人的教育政策和教学提供信息。这些问题将通过研究居住在危地马拉的聋哑儿童和成年人发明的手势交流策略来解决。由于耳聋，这项研究的参与者无法在他们的社区使用口语，并且在他们的城镇中没有既定的手语。聋人在这种情况下创造的系统被称为“家庭手语系统”。“这些系统中类似于数据库的功能是在没有语言模型的情况下出现的。因此，这项研究的参与者缺乏语言输入，但他们确实有一个由其他聋人与他们互动创造的其他家乡符号系统的模型。在Brentari博士的指导下，Horton女士将与多代耳聋的家庭以及一起上学的聋哑儿童合作。聋人儿童从聋人成年亲属那里接收到的家乡符号输入被解释为垂直形式的传播，而一起上学的聋人儿童所经历的家乡符号接触被解释为水平传播。该项目将分析来自不同社会背景的每个参与者产生的符号，以了解水平或垂直传播是否加速了每个homesign系统中形式和语法的一致性。这项研究的结果将与其他很少或根本没有与聋人接触的家庭签名者以及使用更成熟的手语（如美国手语）的本地签名者的数据集进行比较。

The term "emergence" is sometimes used for the process by which children acquire their first language because all children create language, even as they acquire it. This project addresses how much communicative input children require to eventually develop adult-like language proficiency. It will examine whether the source of the communicative input affects eventual fluency to determine if child learners benefit more from an adult language model or the model provided by same-aged peers. This project also will examine whether the emergence of a new language in a community of speakers or signers parallels or diverges from emergence in a single child who is isolated from users of a fully established sign language. The findings from this study may inform educational policy and pedagogy for the deaf. These issues will be addressed by studying the gestural communication strategies invented by deaf children and adults who live in Guatemala. Because of their deafness, the participants in this study do not have access to the spoken language in their community, and there is not an established sign language in use in their town. The systems that deaf individuals create under such circumstances are called "homesign systems." Language-like features in these systems emerged in the absence of a language model. Thus the participants in this study lack language input, but they do have a model in the form of other homesign systems created by the other deaf individuals with whom they interact. Under the direction of Dr. Brentari, Ms. Horton will work with families with multiple generations of deafness as well as with deaf children who attend school together. The homesign input that a deaf child receives from a deaf adult relative is construed as a vertical form of transmission, whereas the homesign contact that deaf children attending school together experience is construed as horizontal transmission. The project will analyze the signs that each participant from a different social context produces to understand whether horizontal or vertical transmission accelerates the consistency of the forms and the grammar in each homesign system. Results from this study will be compared to datasets from other homesigners who have had little or no contact with deaf people as well as to native signers who use a more established sign language like American Sign Language.