RAPID: Language Emergence from Inception

RAPID：语言从诞生之初的出现

• 批准号: 1724718
• 负责人: Rachel Mayberry
• 金额: $ 3.97万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-03-01 至 2019-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1724718&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Language; Emergence; Inception

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.

众所周知，当没有口头或签名语言的一群聋哑儿童在教育环境中首次聚集在一起时，符号语言会自发地出现。新的标志语言的出现可以提供有关人类语言如何发展的见解。然而，迄今为止，对这种现象的研究是从自然界开始的，从聋哑儿童汇聚在一起十年或更长时间。这意味着我们对聋哑儿童如何共享他们的特质手势（称为“ Homesign”）来创建一种通用的手语。 2016年3月，目前通过Homesign手势沟通的35名聋哑儿童首次在秘鲁Iquitos的两个聋哑教室中汇集在一起​​。该项目收集了有关聋哑儿童手势的数据以及他们使用这些手势的最初人际关系沟通。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有关聋哑儿童手势的数据，然后他们在遇到其他聋哑儿童之前以及他们在彼此互动的第一年中的手势如何变化。实际上，世界各地的聋哑儿童经常在不使用共享语言的情况下成长。本研究中收集的数据将提供第一个文件，说明如何将儿童通过手势的沟通互动整理成构成语言基础的初始符号和符号话语。这项研究还将提供有关如何使用低技术和廉价的手段来促进对孤立聋哑儿童进行手语获取的方法，以教育整个拉丁美洲和发展中国家的聋哑儿童。长期以来，研究人员一直假设，将无法在语音或符号中访问传统语言的聋哑儿童聚集在一起，将导致聋哑儿童特质的手势系统的新手语出现。一种众所周知的情况是尼加拉瓜手语NSL的出现，该语言已用于建模语言演化（Senghas 2003; Senghas＆Coppola 2001; Senghas et et al 2004）。由于对NSL的研究仅在聋哑儿童在学校中汇聚在一起的10年才开始，因此有关手语出现的可用数据和研究纯粹是回顾性的。手语出现的关键，初始阶段从未观察到或研究过。对于研究iquitos的新手语的出现，必不可少的数据，秘鲁将在新兴的词汇形式和话语结构或语法方面收集聋哑儿童和聋哑儿童群体。在入学前通过与家人通过手势交流，每个孩子都已经收集了自发和引起的数据。单个儿童数据将继续每年收集。在小组级别，聋哑儿童的自发交流将在整个第一年的时间间隔定期在课堂上进行录像。这些数据在儿童和小组级别上都将在（1）之前（（2）期间（2）和（3）在孩子初次接触一年后。带有关于何时以及如何从儿童的特质姿态系统中出现手语的数据，将产生独特的观察结果。尽管研究表明，当聋哑儿童首次汇集时，在学校环境中迅速出现了符号语言，但目前尚不清楚每个孩子的手势系统对该小组新兴手语的初始组织的贡献。有机会记录从开始时出现语言的出现，拟议的研究将通过将每个孩子的现有手势系统的关系和能力绘制在他或她随后对他人的手势和迹象的学习中来填补这一理论差距。