American Sign Language Vocabulary Acquisition

项目摘要/摘要 失聪儿童面临贫困和/或延迟接触语言的风险，无论是口语还是手语。早期词汇是一种 对语言发展的可靠预测，以及对聋人词汇发展轨迹的理解 儿童可以帮助教育工作者和研究人员制定干预措施，以减轻语言剥夺的风险和影响。 在手语词汇习得中可能发挥独特作用的两个因素是邻域密度和象似性。 听力正常的儿童通常会追踪有关语言发音的统计信息来习得新单词，这些单词 与许多其他单词相似的发音(具有较高的音系邻域密度)在早期口语中被过度使用 词汇表。手语音系学不是基于按顺序组织的声音，而是基于手部等特征 同时连接的配置和位置。在许多星座中也缺少极小配对。 语言。我们问失聪儿童在孩提时代是否会追踪有关手部特征组合的统计信息 获得口语跟踪关于单词的语音信息，或者如果手语音系学的性质决定了手势 更容易接受整体处理和收购。如果前者是真的，我们预计会出现邻域较高的迹象 密度在早期词汇中被过度表示，就像在语音习得中一样；如果后者是真实的邻域密度 不应在手势习得中发挥作用。在手语习得中可能发挥独特作用的第二个因素是 手语具有丰富的象似性。目前还不清楚孩子们是否可以利用 手语中的象似性和邻域密度混淆了手语的形式和意义。在建议的 我们首次询问象似性是否预测符号词汇习得，同时控制 儿童ASL词汇的父母报告在儿童定向言语中的邻域密度和频率 技能(ASL-CDI)。本研究中收集的所有词汇和输入因素(表达和接受习得的年龄 规范、象似性类型和儿童语言中的频率)将通过与 美国手语词汇的交互式在线数据库。ASL-Lex当前包含有关邻域的信息 成人语音中的密度、象似度、词汇类别和频率，以及其他几个属性。这 这项工作将阐明影响母语手语儿童词汇习得的因素，并将为 听力障碍父母手语习得后聋儿词汇发展的基础 正在开发中。

Project Summary/Abstract Deaf children are at risk for impoverished and/or delayed exposure to language, spoken or signed. Early vocabulary is a robust predictor of later language development, and understanding the trajectory of vocabulary development in deaf children can help educators and researchers develop interventions to mitigate the risks and effects of language deprivation. Two factors that might play a unique role in sign language vocabulary acquisition are neighborhood density and iconicity. Typically hearing children track statistical information about the sounds of language to acquire new words, and words that sound similar to many other words (have high phonological neighborhood density) are overrepresented in early spoken vocabularies. Sign language phonology is not based on sounds that are sequentially organized but on features like hand configurations and locations that are articulated simultaneously. There is also a dearth of minimal pairs in many sign languages. We ask whether deaf children track statistical information about combinations of manual features as children acquiring spoken language track phonological information about words, or if the nature of sign phonology makes signs more amenable to holistic processing and acquisition. If the former is true, we expect signs with high neighborhood density to be overrepresented in early vocabularies just as in speech acquisition; if the latter is true neighborhood density should not play a role in sign acquisition. The second factor that may play a unique role in sign acquisition is the abundance of iconicity in signed languages. It is unclear whether children can make use of iconic relationships between sign forms and meanings because iconicity is confounded with neighborhood density in sign language. In the proposed study we ask for the first time whether iconicity predicts signed vocabulary acquisition while controlling for neighborhood density and frequency in child-directed speech by using parental reports of children’s ASL vocabulary skills (ASL-CDI). All of the lexical and input factors gathered in this study (expressive and receptive age of acquisition norms, type of iconicity, and frequency in child-directed speech) will be made publically available by integrating with an interactive online database of ASL vocabulary, ASL-LEX. ASL-LEX currently contains information about neighborhood density, degree of iconicity, lexical class, and frequency in adult-directed speech, as well as several other properties. This work will shed light on the factors that shape vocabulary acquisition in native signing children, and will lay the groundwork for understanding vocabulary development in deaf children of hearing parents acquiring sign language later in development.