Emergence of Grammar in a New Sign Language

新手语中语法的出现

• 批准号: 8209278
• 负责人: CAROL PADDEN
• 金额: $ 35.83万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-01-27 至 2013-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8209278
• 关键词: Age; Attention; Autistic Disorder; Back; Bedouin; Categories; Cereals; Cerebral Palsy; Child; Code; Collaborations; Communication; Communities; Complement; Complex; Computer Simulation; Development; Documentation; Elements; Environment; Evolution; Family; Funding; Generations; Health; Hearing; Hearing Impaired Persons; Household; Human; Individual; Investigation; Israel; Judgment; Laboratories; Language; Learning; Linguistics; Maps; Measures; Methods; Modeling; Morphology; Names; Nature; Oral; Pattern; Perception; Production; Property; Psychologist; Research; Research Personnel; Sign Language; Signal Transduction; Simulate; Staging; Structure; System; Testing; Time; Universities; Videotape; Vocabulary; Work; Writing; age group; aged; base; cohort; density; design; feeding; innovation; insight; interest; intervention program; model design; natural language; next generation; novel; phonology; phrases; research study; self organization; social; syntax; time use; tool; transmission process

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Our aim is to gain understanding of human language through further investigation of a village sign language, created within the past 75 years with little if any outside influence. When a small group of people grow up together with no direct linguistic input, the language that they create should provide a window into the fundamentals of all human languages. The object of study is Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL), named after the community in the south of Israel where the language was created. The language is used by deaf and hearing people, and is the second language of the village after the local dialect of Arabic. The language of the older signers, which serves a wide range of communicative functions, is highly regular in some ways. However, unlike more mature sign languages, it appears to be remarkably spare in grammatical structure, suggesting that functional human language is possible without complex grammar. The language of younger signers shows indications of more complexity and regularity, and it is to this group that we propose to turn our attention. We are particularly interested in the development of the following types of linguistic complexity: syntactic embedding, dual patterning, complex word formation, and prosodic structure. More fundamentally, we are interested in uncovering the mechanisms and social circumstances that permit the development of more complex language from the simple systems found among older signers of ABSL. Using a variety of elicitation tools that we developed for this language and community, we will videotape signers of three generations on tasks designed to produce (a) complex sentences; (b) citation forms of vocabulary items; (c) compound words; and (d) descriptive narratives. Propositional complexity such as embedding is signaled by prosody in ABSL, and we will use a specially created, detailed prosodic coding system to identify the development of complexity across age groups. The requirement for duality of patterning in human language -- a meaningless level of formational elements that combine to form the meaningful words and sentences of language -- has never been challenged before, and we will investigate this issue from three main angles: (1) phonological analysis across generations and in comparison with a mature sign language, (2) a perception experiment designed to tease apart gradient from discrete identification of handshapes, and (3) a laboratory evolution experiment attempting to identify the self-organization of duality from holistic forms through iterated social transmission. A sign language density profile will be recorded for all signers to reveal the amount of sing language interaction in their families and cohorts, as a means of mapping the innovation and spread of linguistic regularity and complexity in the community. We expect this rare opportunity to document a new language and the emergence of conventionalization and complexity to provide a model of the essential elements of language and their organization, forming the basis for any intervention program where normal access to or production of language is hampered. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: We expect this rare opportunity to document a new language and the emergence of conventionalization and complexity to be highly relevant for all language related health issues. It will provide a model of the essential elements of natural language and their organization, forming a basis for any intervention program where normal access to or production of language is hampered, e.g., for SLI; young deaf children in need of a basis for proficiency in sign, oral, or written language; autism; cerebral palsy or other conditions requiring symbol manipulation communication systems; etc.

描述（由申请人提供）：我们的目标是通过进一步调查在过去75年中几乎没有任何外部影响的村庄手语来了解人类语言。当一小群人在没有直接语言输入的情况下一起长大时，他们创造的语言应该为所有人类语言的基础提供一个窗口。研究对象是Al-Sayyid贝都因手语（ABSL），以以色列南部创建该语言的社区命名。该语言由聋人和听力正常的人使用，是当地方言阿拉伯语之后的第二语言。老年手语者的语言具有广泛的交际功能，在某些方面具有高度的规则性。然而，与更成熟的手语不同的是，它在语法结构上显得非常稀疏，这表明功能性人类语言是可能没有复杂的语法的。年轻签名者的语言显示出更多的复杂性和规律性，我们建议将注意力转向这一群体。我们特别感兴趣的是以下类型的语言复杂性的发展：句法嵌入，双重模式，复杂的构词法，韵律结构。更重要的是，我们有兴趣揭示的机制和社会环境，允许发展更复杂的语言，从简单的系统中发现的老年人签名的ABSL。使用我们为这一语言和社区开发的各种启发工具，我们将对三代签名者进行录像，以完成以下任务：（a）复杂句子;（B）词汇项的引用形式;（c）复合词;（d）描述性叙述。在ABSL中，诸如嵌入之类的命题复杂性是由韵律发出信号的，我们将使用一个专门创建的、详细的韵律编码系统来识别不同年龄组的复杂性发展。人类语言中模式化的二元性要求--一种无意义的形成元素水平，它们联合收割机组成语言中有意义的单词和句子--以前从未受到过挑战，我们将从三个主要角度来研究这个问题：（1）跨代语音分析，并与成熟手语进行比较，（2）一个感知实验，旨在梳理从离散识别手形的梯度，（3）实验室进化实验，试图通过迭代的社会传播，从整体形式中识别二元性的自组织。将记录所有手语者的手语密度概况，以揭示其家庭和群体中手语互动的数量，作为绘制社区语言规则性和复杂性的创新和传播的手段。我们期待这个难得的机会来记录一种新语言以及惯例化和复杂性的出现，以提供语言基本要素及其组织的模型，为任何正常获取或产生语言受到阻碍的干预计划奠定基础。公共卫生关系：我们希望这个难得的机会来记录一种新的语言，以及惯例化和复杂性的出现与所有与语言相关的健康问题高度相关。它将提供一个自然语言及其组织的基本要素的模型，为任何干预计划奠定基础，这些干预计划阻碍了语言的正常获取或产生，例如，对于SLI;需要掌握手语、口语或书面语言基础的聋哑儿童;自闭症;脑瘫或其他需要符号操作通信系统的情况;等等。