David Quinto-Pozos

Modality and Structure in Signed and Spoken Languages

The realization that signed languages are true languages is one of the great discoveries of the last 30 years of linguistic research. The work of many sign language researchers has revealed deep similarities between signed and spoken languages in their structure, acquisition, and processing, as well as differences, arising from the differing articulatory and perceptual constraints under which signed languages are used and learned. This book provides a crosslinguistic examination of the properties of many signed languages, including detailed case studies of Hong Kong, British, Mexican, and German sign languages. The contributions to this volume, by some of the most prominent researchers in the field, focus on a single question: to what extent is linguistic structure influenced by the modality of language? Their answers offer particular insights into the factors that shape the nature of language and contribute to our understanding of why languages are organized as they are.

Teaching American Sign Language to Hearing Adult Learners

American Sign Language (ASL) has become a very popular language in high schools, colleges, and universities throughout the U.S., due, in part, to the growing number of schools that allow students to take the language in order to fulfill a foreign or general language requirement. Within the past couple decades, the number of students enrolled in ASL classes has increased dramatically, and there are likely more instructors of ASL at the present time than ever before. ASL and spoken language instruction are similar in some aspects; however, there are also differences between the two (e.g., modality differences involving visual rather than auditory perception and processing, no commonly used writing system in ASL, and the socio-cultural history of deaf-hearing relations). In spite of these differences, minimal research has been done on ASL learning and classroom pedagogy—especially in recent years. This article reports on studies that have been performed recently and it also suggests various themes for future research. In particular, three main areas of research are proposed: the possible role of the socio-political history of the Deaf community in which ASL teaching is situated, linguistic differences between signed and spoken languages, and the use of video and computer-based technologies.

Atypical signed language development: A case study of challenges with visual–spatial processing

In signed languages, the articulatory space in front of the signer is used grammatically, topographically, and to depict a real or imagined space around a signer and thus is an important consideration in signed language acquisition. It has been suggested that children who acquire signed languages rely on concomitant visual–spatial development to support their linguistic development. We consider the case of a native-signing deaf adolescent female with average intelligence who had been reported to struggle with spatial aspects of American Sign Language (ASL) as a child. Results of a battery of linguistic and nonlinguistic tests suggest that she has relatively good ASL skills with the exception of some specific difficulties on spatial tasks that require attention to ASL and nonlinguistic topographic space or changes in visual perspective (e.g., classifiers and referential shift). This child has some difficulties with visual–spatial abilities, and we suggest that this has affected her acquisition of those aspects of ASL that are heavily dependent on visual–spatial processing.

Second language acquisition across modalities: Production variability in adult L2 learners of American Sign Language

A study was conducted to examine production variability in American Sign Language (ASL) in order to gain insight into the development of motor control in a language produced in another modality. Production variability was characterized through the spatiotemporal index (STI), which represents production stability in whole utterances and is a function of variability in effector displacement waveforms (Smith et al., 1995). Motion capture apparatus was used to acquire wrist displacement data across a set of eight target signs embedded in carrier phrases. The STI values of Deaf signers and hearing learners at three different ASL experience levels were compared to determine whether production stability varied as a function of time spent acquiring ASL. We hypothesized that lower production stability as indexed by the STI would be evident for beginning ASL learners, indicating greater production variability, with variability decreasing as ASL language experience increased. As predicted, Deaf signers showed significantly lower STI values than the hearing learners, suggesting that stability of production is indeed characteristic of increased ASL use. The linear trend across experience levels of hearing learners was not statistically significant in all spatial dimensions, indicating that improvement in production stability across relatively short time scales was weak. This novel approach to characterizing production stability in ASL utterances has relevance for the identification of sign production disorders and for assessing L2 acquisition of sign languages.

ASL Discourse Strategies: Chaining and Connecting-Explaining across Audiences

This study takes advantage of a novel methodology—the use of a single culturally-meaningful text written in English and presented to different audiences in ASL—to examine the ways in which Deaf native signers utilize contextualization strategies in order to match the perceived linguistic and informational needs of an audience. We demonstrate, through close examination of the ASL text in comparison with the English source text, that signers use contextualization techniques (Gumper, 1982), which are discourse strategies that support the construction of meaning. We suggest that two strategies for supporting communication in ASL could be labeled contextualization cues: chaining (Humphries and MacDougall 1999/2000) and what we refer to as connecting-explaining. Both contextualization strategies appear throughout all of the ASL texts, though connecting-explaining is much more prevalent; it appears, on average, once every ten seconds with most audiences. This study of contextualization contributes to our knowledge of ASL discourse strategies and has implications for various professionals, including educators of Deaf children, signedlanguage linguists, signed-language interpreters, and interpreting educators.

Sign language contact and interference: ASL and LSM

This work concerns structural outcomes of contact between Mexican Sign Language (LSM) and American Sign Language (ASL). A brief description of the social environment that leads to contact between LSM and ASL along the U.S.-Mexico border is provided, and two claims are advanced: (i) Con tact between sign languages can exhibit characteristics of contact between spoken languages (e.g., interference), but there are also unique features of signed-language contact due to the ability to produce elements from a signed and spoken language simultaneously; and (ii) examples of interference from one sign language in the production of the other are sometimes systematic and predictable based on the signers linguistic background, but cases of lack of interference also provide evidence that some signers are able to em ploy subtle articulatory differences, either consciously or not, when produc ing signs from the sign language that was learned after they acquired their first sign language. (Language contact, interference, foreign accent, static, dynamic, border studies)* SETTINGS THAT CURRENTLY FOSTER CONTACT BETWEEN LSM AND ASL Cities of the southwestern United States that lie along the border with Mexico are fertile areas for the study of language contact, and the most common exam ples of contact in these areas involve Spanish and English. However, these cities also contain Deaf1 communities where Mexican Sign Language (la Lengua de Se?as Mexicana, henceforth LSM)2 is used; this results in contact between LSM and American Sign Language (ASL). Unlike contact between spoken languages, contact between two signed languages has been addressed only minimally. A substantial number of Deaf Mexicans have immigrated to the United States and settled in border towns and beyond; many of these people are in search of employment and/or educational opportunities for their children. Social services for Deaf people in Mexico are not widespread, although there does exist some accommodation for communication (e.g., Spanish-LSM interpreting services), primarily in larger cities such as state capitals. Unfortunately, the number of ? 2008 Cambridge University Press 0047-4045/08

A Case of Specific Language Impairment in a Deaf Signer of American Sign Language

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Linguistic, gestural, and cinematographic viewpoint : An analysis of ASL and English narrative

This article describes the case of a deaf native signer of American Sign Language (ASL) with a specific language impairment (SLI). School records documented normal cognitive development but atypical language development. Data include school records; interviews with the child, his mother, and school professionals; ASL and English evaluations; and a comprehensive neuropsychological and psychoeducational evaluation, and they span an approximate period of 7.5 years (11;10-19;6) including scores from school records (11;10-16;5) and a 3.5-year period (15;10-19;6) during which we collected linguistic and neuropsychological data. Results revealed that this student has average intelligence, intact visual perceptual skills, visuospatial skills, and motor skills but demonstrates challenges with some memory and sequential processing tasks. Scores from ASL testing signaled language impairment and marked difficulty with fingerspelling. The student also had significant deficits in English vocabulary, spelling, reading comprehension, reading fluency, and writing. Accepted SLI diagnostic criteria exclude deaf individuals from an SLI diagnosis, but the authors propose modified criteria in this work. The results of this study have practical implications for professionals including school psychologists, speech language pathologists, and ASL specialists. The results also support the theoretical argument that SLI can be evident regardless of the modality in which it is communicated.

Modality and structure in signed and spoken languages: Contents

Abstract Multimodal narrative can help us understand how conceptualizers schematize information when they create mental representations of films and may shed light on why some cinematic conventions are easier or harder for viewers to integrate. This study compares descriptions of a shot/reverse shot sequence (a sequence of camera shots from the viewpoints of different characters) across users of English and American Sign Language (ASL). We ask which gestural and linguistic resources participants use to narrate this event. Speakers and signers tended to represent the same characters via the same point of view and to show a single perspective rather than combining multiple perspectives simultaneously. Neither group explicitly mentioned the shift in cinematographic perspective. We argue that encoding multiple points of view might be a more accurate visual description, but is avoided because it does not create a better narrative.

Modality and structure in signed and spoken languages: List of contributors

The realization that signed languages are true languages is one of the great discoveries of the last 30 years of linguistic research. The work of many sign language researchers has revealed deep similarities between signed and spoken languages in their structure, acquisition, and processing, as well as differences, arising from the differing articulatory and perceptual constraints under which signed languages are used and learned. This book provides a crosslinguistic examination of the properties of many signed languages, including detailed case studies of Hong Kong, British, Mexican, and German sign languages. The contributions to this volume, by some of the most prominent researchers in the field, focus on a single question: to what extent is linguistic structure influenced by the modality of language? Their answers offer particular insights into the factors that shape the nature of language and contribute to our understanding of why languages are organized as they are.