Doctoral Disseration Research: Conventionalization of Homesign Systems in Guatemala: Lexical and Morpho-phonological Dimensions

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

The term "emergence" is sometimes used for the process by which children acquire their first language because all children create language, even as they acquire it. This project addresses how much communicative input children require to eventually develop adult-like language proficiency. It will examine whether the source of the communicative input affects eventual fluency to determine if child learners benefit more from an adult language model or the model provided by same-aged peers. This project also will examine whether the emergence of a new language in a community of speakers or signers parallels or diverges from emergence in a single child who is isolated from users of a fully established sign language. The findings from this study may inform educational policy and pedagogy for the deaf. These issues will be addressed by studying the gestural communication strategies invented by deaf children and adults who live in Guatemala. Because of their deafness, the participants in this study do not have access to the spoken language in their community, and there is not an established sign language in use in their town. The systems that deaf individuals create under such circumstances are called "homesign systems." Language-like features in these systems emerged in the absence of a language model. Thus the participants in this study lack language input, but they do have a model in the form of other homesign systems created by the other deaf individuals with whom they interact. Under the direction of Dr. Brentari, Ms. Horton will work with families with multiple generations of deafness as well as with deaf children who attend school together. The homesign input that a deaf child receives from a deaf adult relative is construed as a vertical form of transmission, whereas the homesign contact that deaf children attending school together experience is construed as horizontal transmission. The project will analyze the signs that each participant from a different social context produces to understand whether horizontal or vertical transmission accelerates the consistency of the forms and the grammar in each homesign system. Results from this study will be compared to datasets from other homesigners who have had little or no contact with deaf people as well as to native signers who use a more established sign language like American Sign Language.