Spontaneous Sign Systems in Four Cultures

描述(由申请人提供)：说语言是什么意思 与生俱来的，还是语言必须后天习得的？这项提议试图 用便于实验的术语来阐明这些问题 调查，询问语言发展的哪些方面是这样的 过分确定，即使在不同的学习条件下，它们也会出现 与标准相去甚远。参与者是失聪儿童，他们的听力父母 还没有让他们接触手语，他们的听力损失是 深刻到妨碍口语习得的程度。尽管他们缺乏 一种易于理解的传统语言模式，这些孩子确实会交流， 开发以类似语言的方式构建的手势系统。此外， 听力正常的中国聋儿的手势系统与 他们的美国同行，暗示失聪儿童的手势 系统不仅对缺少传统语言具有很强的适应能力 模式，也要有文化的变异。这些聋哑孩子的手势在哪里 系统从何而来？其中一个候选是听成年人发出的手势 说吧。事实上，说普通话的人的手势在类型上与 说英语的人。然而，成年人在说语言时使用的手势 在类型上有别于普通话和英语动词框架语言，如 西班牙语或土耳其语--与讲西班牙语或土耳其语的人使用的手势截然不同 卫星框架语言，如英语或普通话。这四种文化 从而提供了一个机会来检查听到说话者的手势对 失聪儿童开发的手势系统。如果这四个孩子都是聋人 文化发展具有相同结构的手势系统，尽管 他们看到的手势，孩子们自己肯定带来了强烈的偏见 到沟通的情况。该项目有四个目标：(1)描述如何 说西班牙语或土耳其语的成年人手势不同于说西班牙语或土耳其语的成年人 普通话或英语。(2)确定手势系统是否由 听障父母的西班牙和土耳其聋儿的结构是这样的 中美聋儿创造的手势系统 他们看到的手势模型的差异。(3)描述西班牙语是如何， 土耳其、中国和美国的听力儿童使用不同于 这些文化中的聋哑儿童，即使他们看到听力正常的成年人使用 同样的手势。(4)确定西班牙语、土耳其语、中文和 当被要求使用手势作为他们唯一的手段时，美国听力成年人 交流，做出像聋子一样的手势。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): 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 over-determined that they will appear even under learning conditions that vary widely from the norm. The participants are deaf children whose hearing parents have not yet exposed them to sign language, and whose hearing losses are so profound as to preclude acquisition of spoken language. Despite their lack of an accessible conventional language model, these children do communicate, developing gesture systems that are structured in language-like ways. Moreover, Chinese deaf children of hearing parents develop the same gesture systems as their American counterparts, suggesting that the deaf children's gesture systems are resilient, not only to the absence of a conventional language model, but also to cultural variation. Where do these deaf children's gesture systems come from? One candidate is the gestures hearing adults produce as they talk. Indeed, the gestures of Mandarin speakers are similar in type to those of English speakers. However, the gestures adults use when speaking languages typologically distinct from Mandarin and English - verb-framed languages such as Spanish or Turkish - differ strikingly from the gestures used by speakers of satellite-framed languages such as English or Mandarin. These four cultures thus offer an opportunity to examine effects of hearing speakers' gestures on the gesture systems developed by deaf children. If deaf children in all four cultures develop gesture systems with the same structure despite differences in the gestures they see, the children themselves must be bringing strong biases to the communication situation. The project has four aims: (1) To describe how adult speakers of Spanish or Turkish gesture differently from adult speakers of Mandarin or English. (2) To determine whether gesture systems created by Spanish and Turkish deaf children of hearing parents are structured as are gesture systems created by Chinese and American deaf children despite differences in the gestural models they see. (3) To describe how Spanish, Turkish, Chinese and American hearing children use gestures differently from deaf children in these same cultures even though they see hearing adults using the same gestures. (4) To determine whether Spanish, Turkish, Chinese and American hearing adults, when asked to use gesture as their sole means of communication, produce gestures structured like the deaf child's.