The scope of signed phonological generalizations

Northeastern University, Boston MA

Investigators

Abstract

Every language includes a phonological system that expresses words as patterns of meaningless elements. Moreover, people readily generalize these patterns to novel forms that they have never heard before. For example, upon hearing the forms "bagogo" and "malulu", people rapidly extract the ABB pattern and they extend it to "wufifi". These results from spoken languages are significant because they suggest that human brains encode linguistic phonological patterns by means of abstract rules. Phonological patterns however, are not limited to spoken languages. Like their spoken counterparts, every sign language exhibits (manual) phonological patterns, and signers extend those patterns to novel forms. Accordingly, one can ask whether rules form part of all languages, or of spoken systems alone. Similarities (and differences) in the design of signed and spoken languages are significant because they allow us to determine whether some features of natural language are core to the human biological capacity for language, irrespective of the specific modality (speech vs. manual gestures) in which it is transmitted. The proposed research seeks to gauge the role of rules in sign language phonology. To this end, this investigation will examine the scope of generalizations afforded by sign language phonology to determine whether these generalizations are best captured by algebraic or non-algebraic (statistical and visual/phonetic) mechanisms. As a case study, Dr. Berent will investigate the reduplication rule in American Sign Language. Among the issues to be addressed are: whether signers freely generalize the reduplication pattern across the board--irrespective of the similarity of novel items to familiar signed elements; and whether reduplication relies on linguistic knowledge or visual repetition. For example, experiments will examine whether reduplication depends on various linguistically-relevant variables such as the lexical status of the signs; and whether it is dependant on participants' linguistic experience with ASL. The project also includes a set of Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) studies to explore sensitivity to reduplication in neonates. Results will shed light on the basis of the human capacity for language. By exploring the structure of typical phonological systems, the findings from this project are relevant to our understanding of the host of clinical disorders linked to phonology, ranging from specific language impairment to dyslexia. This investigation of signed phonological systems may also help promote reading gains among deaf individuals by informing research-based educational practices.