Signed Languages

Lecture 17
Language in the Visual Mode
Note: most figures are from Klima & Bellugi (1979) or are
modifications of their figures; some figures from Bill
Badeckers previous Language and Mind material.
Links
extra credit submission
YouTube baby signing
I offered extra credit to students submitting info on
what the Deaf community thinks of the popularity of
baby signing. See the next slide for some more extra
credit submissions
online ASL dictionaries
http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi
http://www.signingsavvy.com/index.php
Baby signing follow up . . .
Generally, the response from the Deaf
community seems positive:
When the baby sign language phenomenon burst
onto the scene, I could only think of one thing:
What took so long?
www.deaf-culture-online.com
Language as a tie that binds
See responses to YouTube video about People's Sign Language
A clip from Meet the Fockers
Gestures and Communication
Gesture and Language
Common Misconceptions
ASL is just a set of iconic gestures and/or
pantomime
ASL is a word-for-word translation of
English into gestures
or an ungrammatical translation of English
ASL consists of rapid fingerspelling of
English words.
ASL is a language
(not a paralinguistic system of gestures)
What makes a communication system a
language?
ASL is a language
(not a paralinguistic system of gestures)
Clear parallels between spoken and
signed languages in
elements of grammar
developmental path in acquisition
neuroanatomy
patterns of language breakdown
Fingerspelling
Sometimes used
when there is no
ASL sign.
adding new
proper nouns
adding technical
vocabulary
American Manual Alphabet chart posted by
Indiana Institute on Disability and Community
at Indiana University, Bloomington
Fingerspelling vs. ASL
How Iconic is ASL?
Try looking up these words:
1. mother
2. tree
3. cookie
4. cat
5. please
6. hungry
7. work
8. teach
9. cook
10. different
11. same
12. not
13. home
14. onion
15. more
ASL and English
Is there a word like English right in ASL?
from Permutters LSA FAQ entry on Signed Languages
(Actually, I think these are mirror images of the ASL signs)
Distinct Languages
American Sign Language
British Sign Language
Nicaraguan Sign Language
Chinese Sign Language
Israeli Sign Language
Filipino Sign Language
. . . and more
All have their own independent vocabularies and
grammatical structures
Lexical Differences
ASL and Finnish SL
POSSIBLE vs. WEIGH
TREE in ASL, Danish SL, and Chinese SL
Phonological Features
Stokoe (1960):
ASL signs can be analyzed as a combination of
three parameters
hand shape
location of sign
movement
Signed phonemesare also called primes.
At least three more parameters have been
posited (Klima & Bellugi 1979)
region of hand that contacts body
orientation of hand wrt body
orientation of hands wrt each other
Minimal Pairs
In spoken language,
phonemes can
appear in isolation.
In signed languages,
primes must appear
simultaneously with
other primes.
Slips of the Tongue
Spoonerisms
Target: You have wasted the whole term
Output: You have tasted the whole worm.
Target: noble sons of toil
Output: noble tons of soil
Slips of the Hand
Phonotactics
Recall Yangs TOLE vs NLAS Scrabble example
ASL vs. Chinese Sign Language
CSL signs that resemble ASL signs
HELP (like ASL PUSH)
FLOAT (like ASL MAYBE)
WEEK (like ASL FALSE)
FALSE (like ASL DIRTY)
CSL signs that are possible ASL signs
share components of sign with ASL signs
OFTEN (shares components with ASL HORSE, CARELESS)
DISTRACED (shares components with ASL YELLOW, SEPARATE)
CSL signs that are impossible ASL signs
judged by deaf signers and Klima & Bellugi to be excluded as ASL signs
WEDNESDAY
INCREASE
INTRODUCE
TOPIC
More restricted than pantomime
Derivational Morphology
Inflectional Morphology
Verb Agreement
English: limited subject-verb agreement
Swahili: subject-verb and object-verb agreement
atakupenda
-ta -ku -penda
he(SUBJ )-FUTURE-you (OBJ )-like
utampenda
u -ta -m -penda
you(SUBJ )-FUTURE-him (OBJ )-like
ASL: extensive subject-verb and object-verb agreement
sign language verbs agree in number and person with their subject and
object
The beginning and endpoints of the sign are markers for the subject and
object of the verb
space used to mark pronouns
Israeli Sign Language also has subj-verb and obj-verb agreement. See
the ISL movie clip, I show you,first position corresponds to Swahili ,
end position corresponds to Swahili ku.
ISL movie clips from online textbook resources
Syntax
Word Order
ASL: S-V-O underlying order, with flexible surface order
Yes-no questions
(non-manual) ASL question marker: raised eyebrows
Wh-questions
several possibilities, e.g.
SHE BUY YESTERDAY WHAT?
WHAT SHE BUY YESTERDAY WHAT?
Negative statements
negative marker NO
(non-manual) negative headshake: stretched over scope of
negation
Syntax
Using space to index participants and
assign roles
Linking Referents to Locations
Linking Referents to Locations
Expressing Time
Language Change
Recall NSL:
grammaticalization of signs by later cohorts
Some ASL changes
Acquisition of Signed Languages
Consider language development for:
children born with severe hearing loss
children who lose their hearing in infancy
i.e. excluding cases of:
hearing loss after language acquisition
children with mild moderate hearing loss, who still can hear
some spoken language
The same task:
acquire a grammar system
acquire a lexicon
Developmental Trajectory
For deaf children who are exposed to signed languages
like ASL from birth, the course of sign language
development is essentially like the course of
development of spoken languages.
The same acquisition stages in the same order.
(Manual) Babbling
single-sign stage (1 word stage)
two word stage
telegraphic signing
morphological development
more complex syntax
The same timing of stages
except, possibly, the age of production of first word
Babbling
Deaf infants begin to make babbling sounds several
months later than hearing infants, however . . .
Deaf infants may begin a type of manual babblingat
the same time hearing infants begin oral babbling.
(Pettito & Marentette, 1991)
videotape analysis: by tenth month, infants use about a dozen
distinct hand gestures, most resemble basic elements of ASL, in
a rhythmic repetitive manner analogous to oral babbling.
Similar timing suggests brain maturation more than specific
maturation of the vocal apparatus underlies human ability to
develop language
Similarity in Errors
Overregularization errors in use of
morphological markers
Persist in errors/Ignore parental correction
which sometimes even involve the parents actually
molding the childs handshape (Bellugi et al 1993)
Negation strategies
Pronoun reversal errors
confusion with you and me/I at same age as children
acquiring spoken language
you: point to listener
I: point an index finger to self
a pointing finger in ASL is linguistic, not gestural
Age of Acquisition and Fluency
Recall Simon and his parents
Recall NSL and cohorts 1-4
Newport (1990)
adult signers age 35-70
used sign for daily communication 30+ yrs
differed wrt age of first exposure to ASL
All mastered basic word order
Mastery of grammatical morphology declined
with age of first exposure
Neuroanatomy
Certain areas of the brain are specially implicated in supporting language
imaging studies
language breakdown
Brocas area - in the LEFT hemisphere
Examiner: Tell me, what did you do before you retired?
Aphasic: Uh, uh, uh, pub, par, partender, no.
Examiner: Carptener?
Aphasic: (shaking head yes) Carpenter, tuh, tuh, tenty year.
Wernickes area - also in the LEFT hemisphere
Examiner: Do you like it here in Kansas City?
Aphasic: Yes I am.
Examiner: Id like to have you tell me something about your problem.
Aphasic: Yes, I, ugh, cant hill all of my way. I cant talk all of the things I do, and
part of the part I can go alright, but I cant tell from the other people. I usually
most of my things. I know what can I talk and know what they are, but I cant
always come back even though I know they should be in, and I know should
something eely I should know what Im doing . . .
To be discussed in typical populations further in a future lecture
Neuroanatomy
Imaging studies of inner Signing(fMRI)
Imagined (ASL) signing of sentences activates Brocas area, not visual
cortex
Imaging studies of sentence comprehension
Experimental design
Signers viewed a videotape
of a female deaf native signer.
The hearing non-signers saw
and heard a videotape of a
female native English speaker.
The speakers full face and torso
were shown.
Experimental condition:
sentence comprehension
Participants watched five signed
BSL sentences or audiovisual
English translations of the same
sentences.
Task: identify the semantically
anomalous sentence.
Left Hemisphere Damage
Left Hemisphere Damage
Left Hemisphere Damage
Right Hemisphere Damage
ASL signers with similar or even larger
lesions to the homologous structures in
the right hemisphere showed no evidence
of aphasia (though left-sided paralysis (or
partial paralysis) did frequently limit
signing to the unaffected limb)
Uses of Space
Linguistic: grammatical relations
vs.
Non-linguistic: representing the world
Neglect: a spatial processing deficit
Does Neglect affect syntax?
Summary of Similarities and
Differences
Similarities
Arbitrary form paired with meaning
Phonetic features
Morphological combinations
Babbling
Similar neuroanatomy
Similar aphasias
Differences
Its easier to be somewhat iconic in ASL
Space can be used to establish reference
ASL is a Language
Clear parallels between spoken and signed languages
signed languages have a phonology, morphology, and syntax
developmental path in acquisition
neuroanatomy & patterns of language breakdown
Dissociation of mental representation of space and
processing of spatial relations for linguistic vs.
nonlinguistic purposes
Language is not dependent on the auditory-vocal
channel.
Language is a function of the mind that can make use of
other channels if the typical channel is not available.
Stokoe: Language is not mouth stuff Its brain stuff.