RAPID: Language Emergence from Inception

据了解，当一群聋哑儿童第一次在教育环境中聚集在一起时，手语会自发地出现。新手语的出现可以为人类语言的演变提供见解。然而，迄今为止，对这一现象的研究在性质上是从聋儿被带到一起十年或更长时间后开始的。这意味着我们对失聪儿童如何分享他们独特的手势，即所谓的“家庭手势”，以创造一种共同的手语知之甚少。2016年3月，秘鲁伊基托斯的两个全聋教室首次将35名目前通过手势交流的聋哑儿童聚集在一起。本研究收集聋儿的手势及使用手势进行人际交流的资料。我们的目标是了解语言出现的第一阶段。这项调查的独特见解是收集数据的聋哑儿童的手势之前，他们满足其他聋哑儿童和他们的手势如何改变整个第一年的相互作用。事实上，世界各地的聋哑儿童在成长过程中经常无法使用共同的语言。在本研究中收集的数据将提供第一个文件的儿童的沟通互动，通过手势成为编入最初的符号和象征性的话语，形成语言的基础。这项研究还将深入了解如何利用一种低技术和廉价的手段来促进孤立的聋哑儿童学习手语，以教育整个拉丁美洲和发展中世界的聋哑儿童。长期以来，研究人员一直假设，将无法使用传统语言的聋哑儿童聚集在一起，无论是言语还是手势，都会导致一种新的手语从聋哑儿童的特殊手势系统中出现。其中一个众所周知的情况是巴布亚新几内亚手语（NSL）的出现，它被用来模拟语言的演变（Senghas 2003; Senghas Coppola 2001; Senghas et al 2004）。由于对NSL的研究只是在马那瓜的聋哑儿童首次被带到一所学校10年后才开始的，关于手语出现的现有数据和研究纯粹是回顾性的。手语出现的关键、初始阶段以前从未被观察或研究过。调查秘鲁伊基托斯新手语的出现所必需的数据将从个别儿童和聋儿群体中收集，以了解新出现的词汇形式和话语结构或句法。自发和引出的数据已经收集了每个孩子，而通过手势与他或她的家人在入学前沟通。儿童个人数据将继续每年收集一次。在小组一级，聋哑儿童之间的自发交流将在教室里定期录像，在他们一起的第一年里。这些数据，在儿童和群体层面，将收集（1）之前，（2）期间，和（3）一年后的时间的儿童的第一次接触。这些数据将产生关于何时以及如何从儿童的特殊手势系统中出现手语的独特观察。虽然研究表明，当聋哑儿童第一次聚集在一起时，手语在学校环境中很快出现，但每个儿童的手势系统对该群体新兴手语的最初组织的贡献目前尚不清楚。有机会从一开始就记录语言的出现，拟议的研究将填补这一理论空白，通过映射每个孩子的预先存在的手势系统和能力的关系到他或她随后学习他人的手势和符号。

Sign languages are known to emerge spontaneously when groups of deaf children, who have acquired no spoken or signed language, are brought together for the first time in educational settings. The emergence of new sign languages can provide insights into how human language evolves. To date, however, studies of the phenomenon are retrospective in nature beginning ten or more years after the deaf children were brought together. This means that we know little about how deaf children share their idiosyncratic gestures, known as 'homesign', to create a common sign language. In March 2016, 35 deaf children who currently communicate via homesign gestures were brought together for the first time in two all deaf classrooms in Iquitos, Peru. This project gathers data on the individual deaf children's gesture and their initial inter-personal communication using these gestures. The goal is to understand the very first stage of language emergence. The unique insight of this investigation is the gathering of data about the deaf children's gestures before they meet other deaf children and how their gestures change throughout their first year of interaction with one another. In reality, deaf children across the world frequently grow up without access to a shared language. The data gathered in the present study will provide the first documentation of how children's communicative interactions via gesture become codified into the initial symbols and symbolic utterances that form the basis of language. The study will also provide insights into how a low-tech and inexpensive means to facilitate sign language acquisition for isolated deaf children can be used to educate deaf children throughout Latin America and the developing world. Researchers have long hypothesized that bringing together deaf children who have not had access to a conventional language in either speech or sign will result in the emergence of a new sign language from the deaf children's idiosyncratic gesture systems. One such well-known situation is the emergence of Nicaraguan Sign Language, NSL, which has been used to model language evolution (Senghas 2003; Senghas & Coppola 2001; Senghas et al 2004). Because research on NSL only began 10 years after deaf children of Managua were first brought together in a school, the available data and research on sign language emergence is purely retrospective in nature. The crucial, initial stages of sign language emergence have never before been observed or studied. Data essential to investigate the emergence of a new sign language in Iquitos, Peru will be gathered from individual children and groups of deaf children with respect to emerging lexical forms and utterance structure, or syntax. Spontaneous and elicited data have already been gathered from each child while communicating via gesture with his or her family prior to school enrollment. The individual child data will continue to be gathered on a yearly basis. At the group level, the deaf children's spontaneous communication with each other will be videotaped in the classrooms at regular intervals throughout their first year together. This data, at both the child and group level, will be gathered (1) prior to, (2) during, and (3) after one year's time of the children's initial contact. The data with will yield unique observations about when and how a sign language emerges from children's idiosyncratic gesture systems. Although research suggests that sign languages emerge quickly in school settings when deaf children are brought together for the first time, the contribution of each child's gesture system to the initial organization of the group's emerging sign language is currently unknown. With the opportunity to document language emergence from inception, the proposed study will fill this theoretical gap by mapping the relation of each child's pre-existing gestural system and ability onto his or her subsequent learning of others' gestures and signs.