2 research outputs found
Iconicity and Gesture Jointly Facilitate Learning of Second Language Signs at First Exposure in Hearing Nonsigners
When learning spoken second language (L2), words overlapping in form and meaning with one's native language (L1) help break into the new language. When nonsigning speakers learn a sign language as L2, such overlaps are absent because of the modality differences (L1: speech, L2: sign). In such cases, nonsigning speakers might use iconic form‐meaning mappings in signs or their own gestural experience as gateways into the to‐be‐acquired sign language. In this study, we investigated how both these phenomena may contribute jointly to the acquisition of sign language vocabulary by hearing nonsigners. Participants were presented with three types of signs in the Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT): arbitrary signs, iconic signs with high or low gesture overlap. Signs that were both iconic and highly overlapping with gestures boosted learning most at first exposure, and this effect remained the day after. Findings highlight the influence of modality‐specific attributes supporting the acquisition of a signed lexicon
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Effects of Delayed Language Exposure on Spatial Language Acquisition by Signing Children and Adults
Deaf children born to hearing parents are exposed to
language input quite late, which has long-lasting effects on
language production. Previous studies with deaf individuals
mostly focused on linguistic expressions of motion events,
which have several event components. We do not know if
similar effects emerge in simple events such as descriptions
of spatial configurations of objects. Moreover, previous
data mainly come from late adult signers. There is not much
known about language development of late signing children
soon after learning sign language. We compared simple
event descriptions of late signers of Turkish Sign Language
(adults, children) to age-matched native signers. Our results
indicate that while late signers in both age groups are
native-like in frequency of expressing a relational encoding,
they lag behind native signers in using morphologically
complex linguistic forms compared to other simple forms.
Late signing children perform similar to adults and thus
showed no development over time