Doctoral Dissertation Research: Effects of age of acquisition in emerging sign languages

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One of the basic functions of grammar in a language is to mark who does what to whom, which is referred to as argument ordering. This is critical information for users of the language to communicate, but previous research has not identified where such grammatical marking of arguments comes from in language. Children exposed to an established language acquire the language specific grammar at a young age, but what happens when children are not exposed to a language with this grammar? Around 95% of deaf children around the world are born into hearing families who do not sign. Age of first exposure to language for these individuals varies widely and often occurs in educational settings, if at all. When deaf children are gathered without access to a sign language, the communication system they develop will become a new sign language over generations of users. This doctoral dissertation project examines the effects of age of exposure and age of language on the development of argument structure by looking at the development of word order as grammatical marking in three sign languages of various ages. Two of the three sign languages have not been documented previously and are less than 40 years old. Along with training of a doctoral student, this project will engage underrepresented individuals in scientific research and raise public awareness about emerging sign languages.The three studies use video recordings of sign language users describing pictures. The stimuli are carefully controlled to include different event types and both animate and inanimate arguments. Recordings are annotated for word order and any other potential grammatical devices used by the signers. Statistical analyses are used to determine how age of language exposure impacts the use of these grammatical devices in each of the three languages. Furthermore, differences between groups in the studies of this dissertation highlight interacting effects of both age of the emerging language and the age at which children enter the signing community on argument ordering. By looking at these factors in these unique situations, this project adds to the scientific understanding of the origins of argument ordering in language and the role of early access to language in that process.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.