SPONTANEOUS SIGN SYSTEM IN CHINESE AND AMERICAN CHILDREN

描述（改编自研究者摘要）：可能意味着什么 说语言是天生的，或者说语言必须是 学会了？ 本提案试图阐明这些问题， 进行实验研究，询问哪些方面 语言发展在人类中是如此的不可预测， 即使是在与典型情况相差很大的学习条件下。 的 研究的对象是听力正常的父母还没有 使他们接触手语，他们的听力损失如此严重， 阻碍了口语的习得 尽管他们缺乏一个 这些语言是一种易于使用的传统语言，可用作交流模式， 孩子们确实是通过一个结构化的手势系统来交流的， 在单词和句子的层面上。 此外，他们使用的手势是 与听力正常的人使用的手势不同 身边 虽然聋儿的手势系统不是模式化的， 在听到父母的自发手势后， 儿童社会环境的其他非语言方面的影响 他们手势的结构。 为了确定在多大程度上 聋儿手势的结构是由动作的方式形成的， 母亲和孩子在他们的文化中共同互动， 做，探索这些结构的“弹性”，在广泛的文化 在第二种文化中，听力正常的父母的聋哑儿童将 观察 研究1探讨了听力正常的母亲和他们的母亲之间的互动。 在台湾和美国的聋哑儿童（3-5岁），测试的假设 母亲用汉语与孩子互动的方式不同， 美国文化。 研究2探讨了自发的手势产生的 中国和美国的母亲在与她们的聋哑孩子互动时， 澄清在每种文化中呈现给聋儿的手势模式。 如果两种文化中的母亲确实为她们的聋哑孩子提供了 不同的手势模型，对聋儿手势系统的影响更大 与母亲的手势系统或彼此的手势系统非常相似吗 研究3 分析了中国聋儿的手势动作， 他们对美国聋哑儿童的手势产生了兴趣。 是 正是语言的特性，在两者的手势中都可以找到。 孩子们的团体（而不是在母亲的手势），可以说， to be resilient弹性across横过cultural文化variation变异. 研究4试图将这些 在文化背景下的手势研究，通过探索手势， 每种文化中的听力母亲及其听力儿童（3-5岁），以及 将这些观察结果与收集的中国人的数据进行比较， 美国听力正常的母亲和她们的聋哑孩子。

DESCRIPTION (Adapted from the Investigator's Abstract): What might it mean to say that language is innate or, alternatively, that language must be learned? This proposal attempts to articulate these questions in terms that lend themselves to experimental investigation, asking which aspects of language development are so overdetermined in humans that they will appear even under learning conditions that vary widely from the typical. The subjects of the studies are deaf children whose hearing parents have not yet exposed them to sign language, and whose hearing losses are so profound as to preclude the acquisition of spoken language. Despite their lack of an accessible conventional language to use as a model for communication, these children do communicate and do so using a gestural system that is structured at both word and sentence levels. Moreover, the gestures they use are structured differently from the gestures used by the hearing individuals around them. Although the deaf children's gesture systems are not patterned after the spontaneous gestures of their hearing parents, it is possible that other non-linguistic aspects of the children's social environment influence the structure of their gestures. In order to determine the extent to which the structures in the deaf children's gestures are shaped by the way in which mothers and children jointly interact in their culture -- and in so doing, explore the "resilience" of these structures across wide cultural variation -- deaf children of hearing parents in a second culture will be observed. Study 1 explores the interactions of hearing mothers and their deaf children (ages 3-5) in Taiwan and in America, testing the hypothesis that mothers interact differently with their children in Chinese and American cultures. Study 2 explores the spontaneous gestures produced by Chinese and American mothers when interacting with their deaf children, clarifying the gestural model presented to the deaf child in each culture. If the mothers in the two cultures do provide their deaf children with different gestural models, do the deaf children's gesture systems more closely resemble their mothers' gesture systems or one another's? Study 3 analyzes the gestures produced by the Chinese deaf children, and compares them to the gestures produced by the American deaf children. It is precisely the properties of language which are found in the gestures of both groups of children (and not in the gestures of the mothers) that can be said to be resilient across cultural variation. Study 4 attempts to put these studies of gesture in a cultural context by exploring the gestures of hearing mothers and their hearing children (ages 3-5) in each culture, and comparing these observations to the data gathered on the Chinese and American hearing mothers and their deaf children.