SPONTANEOUS SIGN SYSTEMS IN CHINESE & AMERICAN CHILDREN

人们常问语言是后天习得的还是天生的。这项建议 改写问题，使之适合调查，问： 语言发展的各个方面对语言的敏感程度更高（或更低）。 环境投入。该提案描述了一项研究计划， 确定语言的发展可以承受广泛的特性， 学习条件的变化-“弹性”特性 语言没有接触过传统语言的儿童 将观察输入，以确定语言的哪些属性 可以在一组严重退化的输入条件下开发。的 研究的对象是听力损失如此严重的聋哑儿童， 他们不能自然地获得口头语言， 还没有让孩子接触到手工语言的父母。根据该等 在不适当的条件下，人们可能根本不期望有任何象征性的交流。 或者至少是一种不同于传统语言的交流方式。 事实证明并非如此。先前的研究表明， 尽管语言学习条件很差， 孩子们能够发展手势交流系统， 儿童早期的沟通系统也是如此， 传统的语言模型。拟议的研究将 确定缺乏常规语言模型的聋哑儿童是否 另一种文化（中国文化）可以开发手势系统， 结构类似，即，该项目将确定 语言的各种属性在面对广泛的文化差异。 研究1将探讨不同年龄段的聋儿的听力母亲 3岁和5岁的孩子与台湾和美国的孩子互动， 我将试图验证母亲之间的假设 在中国和美国文化中，他们的孩子有不同的看法。研究2 将探讨中国和美国的母亲们 在与聋哑儿童互动时产生的影响。在这样做时，研究报告 将决定失聪儿童在每一个 文化作为输入。如果两种文化中的母亲确实提供了 用不同的手势模式来训练聋哑儿童， 特别重要的是， 与他们母亲的手势系统或彼此之间更相似。 因此，研究三将分析中国聋人的手势 并将其与美国聋人的手势进行比较， 孩子正是语言的特性， 两组孩子的手势（而不是在手势的 母亲），可以说是跨文化差异的弹性。研究 4将试图把这些研究的姿态在文化背景下， 探索四位听力正常的母亲和她们的听力正常的孩子的手势 （3至4岁）在每种文化中，并比较这些 对中美听证会收集的数据的观察 母亲和她们的聋哑孩子

It is commonly asked whether language is learned or innate. This proposal recasts the question so that it is amenable to investigation, asking which aspects of language development are more (or less) sensitive to linguistic and environmental input. The proposal describes a research plan to identify the properties of language whose development can withstand wide variations in learning conditions -- the "resilient" properties of language. Children who have not been exposed to conventional linguistic input will be observed in order to determine which properties of language can be developed under one set of severely degraded input conditions. The subjects of the study are deaf children with hearing losses so extensive that they cannot naturally acquire oral language, and born to hearing parents who have not yet exposed them to a manual language. Under such inopportune conditions, one might expect no symbolic communication at all or, at the least, communication which is unlike conventional language. This turns out not to be the case. Previous research has shown that, despite these impoverished language-learning conditions, American deaf children were able to develop gestural communication systems which were structured as are the early communication systems of children acquiring language from conventional language models. The proposed research will determine whether deaf children lacking conventional language models in another culture (a Chinese culture) can develop gesture systems that are similarly structured, i.e., the project will determine the resilience of various properties of language in the face of wide cultural variation. Study 1 will explore how hearing mothers of deaf children between the ages of 3 and 5 interact with their children in Taiwan and in America, and thus will attempt to verify the assumption that mothers interact quite differently with their children in Chinese and American cultures. Study 2 will explore the spontaneous gestures that Chinese and American mothers produce when interacting with their deaf children. In so doing, the study will determine the type of gestural model that the deaf child in each culture receives as input. If the mothers in the two cultures do provide their deaf children with different gestural models, it becomes particularly important to ask whether the deaf children's gesture systems are more comparable to their mothers' gesture systems or to one another. Thus, Study 3 will analyze the gestures produced by the Chinese deaf children, and compare 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 will attempt to put these studies of gesture in a cultural context by exploring the gestures of four hearing mothers and their hearing children (between the ages of 3 and 4) in each culture, and comparing these observations to the data gathered on the Chinese and American hearing mothers and their deaf children.