Language emergence in the manual modality

在典型的语言学习环境中，将学习者对语言结构的贡献与语言使用方式的贡献分开是很困难的。这个研究项目转向了处于一种不寻常的语言学习环境中的个体——在缺乏传统语言输入的情况下正在开发一种手动交流系统的聋人——来解决这个问题，然后在实验室里进行实验研究来补充实地调查。该项目的目标是评估语言结构在人工交流系统中发展的程度，当它与他人共享或不共享时。除了在探索语言特性方面具有重要的理论意义外，该研究项目还具有实际意义，这些特性是如此具有弹性，不需要从语言模型中学习。如果教育工作者了解儿童学习语言的能力，他们就能更好地帮助失聪儿童或有语言障碍的听力正常儿童学习传统语言，无论是手语还是口语。此外，在实验室研究中发现语言特性是如何持续增长和结构化的，有可能为促进残疾儿童这些特性发展的条件提供见解。该项目的具体目标是确定哪些语言特征在缺乏语言输入的情况下具有弹性，哪些特征仅在二元交际过程中出现，哪些特征仅通过传递给新一代学习者而出现。家庭手语者是失聪的人，他们的听力损失使他们无法学习口语，他们的听力正常的家庭也没有让他们接触过传统的手语。尽管他们缺乏传统语言的输入，但家庭设计师交流和使用手势，这些手势具有自然语言的许多特性。在第一项研究中，研究人员将观察来自危地马拉的、经常或不经常与其他在家书写的人互动的在家书写者，以确定共享一个交流系统对语言结构出现的影响。在第二项研究中，听力正常的成年人将被要求在三种条件下描述场景，而不是用语言，而是用他们的手。与另一个手势配合；或者在学习了别人的手势之后。这种手势创作范式旨在反映家居设计的自然情境：家居设计是在没有其他家居设计师的环境中创作的；由家庭设计师在其他家庭设计师在场的情况下创作的家庭设计；而家庭符号传递给了新一代的学习者。

Disentangling contributions to language structure that are driven by learners from contributions that are driven by the way language is used is difficult in typical language-learning circumstances. This research program turns to individuals in an unusual language-learning situation--deaf individuals who are developing a manual communication system in the absence of input from a conventional language--to address this question, and then complements the fieldwork with an experimental study in the lab. The goal of the project is to assess the degree to which linguistic structures can develop in a manual communication system when it is--and is not--shared with others. In addition to its theoretical importance in exploring properties of language that are so resilient they need not be learned from a language model, the research program has practical significance. Informed of the capacities that children bring with them to language learning, educators may be better able to help deaf children or hearing children with language disabilities learn a conventional language, signed or spoken. Moreover, discovering how linguistic properties continue to grow and become structured in the lab studies has the potential to provide insight into conditions that promote the development of these properties in children with disabilities.The specific aims of this project are to determine which linguistic features are resilient to the absence of linguistic input, which emerge only in the process of dyadic communication, and which emerge only via transmission to a new generation of learners. Homesigners are deaf individuals whose hearing losses prevent them from learning a spoken language, and whose hearing families have not exposed them to a conventional sign language. Despite their lack of input from a conventional language, homesigners communicate and use gestures that have many of the properties of natural language to do so.  In the first study, homesigners from Guatemala who do, or do not, regularly interact with other homesigners will be observed to determine the impact that sharing a communication system has on the emergence of linguistic structure. In the second study, hearing adults will be asked to describe scenes not by speaking, but by using their hands, in the laboratory under three conditions:  on their own; in collaboration with another gesturer; or after learning the gestures from another gesturer. This gesture-creation paradigm is designed to mirror the naturalistic situations in which homesigns are found:  homesigns created in an environment where there are no other homesigners; homesigns created by homesigners in the presence of other homesigners; and homesigns transmitted to a new generation of learners.