Language emergence in the manual modality

在典型的语言学习环境中，很难将学习者对语言结构的贡献与由语言使用方式驱动的贡献分开。这个研究项目求助于处于一种不寻常的语言学习环境中的个人--在没有来自常规语言的输入的情况下开发手动交流系统的聋人--来解决这个问题，然后通过实验室的实验研究来补充实地工作。该项目的目标是评估在与他人共享和不与他人共享的情况下，语言结构在人工交流系统中可以发展到什么程度。除了在探索语言的特性方面具有重要的理论意义外，该研究计划还具有实践意义。了解了儿童学习语言的能力后，教育工作者可能能够更好地帮助失聪儿童或有语言障碍的听力儿童学习一种传统语言，无论是手语还是口语。此外，在实验室研究中发现语言属性如何继续增长和结构化，有可能为促进残疾儿童这些属性发展的条件提供洞察。本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，哪些只出现在二元交流过程中，哪些只有通过传递给新一代学习者才能出现。房屋签名者是失聪的人，他们的听力损失阻碍了他们学习口语，他们的听力家庭没有让他们接触到传统的手语。尽管缺乏来自传统语言的输入，但家庭签名者交流和使用具有许多自然语言特性的手势来做到这一点。在第一项研究中，将观察来自危地马拉的家庭签名者是否定期与其他家庭签名者互动，以确定共享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实验室里的三种情况下描述场景，而不是通过说话，而是用手：独自操作；与另一位手势者合作；或从另一位手势者那里学习手势。这一手势创建范式旨在反映出在以下情况下发现的手势：在没有其他手势人的环境中创建的手势；由手势人在其他手势人在场的情况下创建的手势；以及传递给新一代学习者的手势。

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.