Gesture, speech, and sign. Lynn Messing and Ruth Campbell (Eds.). New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. 227.

2001 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 643-647
Author(s):  
Meredith L. Rowe
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Communication Disorders ◽  
The Other ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Sign Systems ◽  
Hearing Children

The study of gesture, especially its relationship to spoken and signed languages, has become a broadly studied topic for researchers from various fields, including neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, evolutionary psychology, human development, and communication disorders. One possible reason for the wide interest in gesture is its universality. People of all ages and cultures use gestures for various purposes. Young language-learning, hearing children often use gestures alone or in combination with speech to help express themselves to their interlocutors, for example, pointing to a desired object while saying “mine.” As a more striking example, deaf children in Nicaragua who had previously been unexposed to any conventional sign language, used gestures to develop home-sign systems that eventually developed into Nicaraguan Sign Language (Kegl, Senghas, & Coppola, 1999). On the other hand, gestures are often used in situations where the underlying purpose of the gesture is less clear. For example, people who are blind from birth are nonetheless found to gesture in conversation (Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, 1997), and adults gesture frequently, and often subconsciously, during conversations with one another. Despite their omnipresence, we know relatively little about gestures' origins, their relationship to language, and, in some instances, the purposes they serve.

Code-Mixing in Moeder-Kind Interactie in Dove Families

2002 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 49-63
Author(s):  
Anne Baker ◽  
Beppie van den Bogaerde
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Mixed Form ◽  
Code Mixing ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Language Data ◽  
Language Input ◽  
Hearing Children

In this article, we discuss the mixed input offered by four profoundly deaf mothers and the mixed output of their deaf and hearing children. Muysken (2000) distinguishes different forms of code-mixing: insertion, alternation and congruent lexicalisation. We applied these definitions to these language data and found that the mothers used mainly the last type of code-mixing, namely congruent lexicalisation. This results in a mixed form of NGT (Nederlandse Gebarentaal, 'Dutch Sign Language') and Dutch, in which the structure of the utterance is grammatical in both NGT and Dutch. Lexical insertion also occurs, both in the basically NGT utterances and in the Dutch utterances. The deaf children (up to age three) are just beginning to become bilingual and hardly produce any mixed utterances. The hearing children, on the other hand, clearly show that they code-mix, under the influence of the language input.

scholarly journals Widening the lens: what the manual modality reveals about language, learning and cognition

2014 ◽  
Vol 369 (1651) ◽  
pp. 20130295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Goldin-Meadow
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Model ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Hearing Parents ◽  
Sign Systems ◽  
Learning Contexts ◽  
Representational Format ◽  
Learning And Cognition ◽  
Hearing Children

The goal of this paper is to widen the lens on language to include the manual modality. We look first at hearing children who are acquiring language from a spoken language model and find that even before they use speech to communicate, they use gesture. Moreover, those gestures precede, and predict, the acquisition of structures in speech. We look next at deaf children whose hearing losses prevent them from using the oral modality, and whose hearing parents have not presented them with a language model in the manual modality. These children fall back on the manual modality to communicate and use gestures, which take on many of the forms and functions of natural language. These homemade gesture systems constitute the first step in the emergence of manual sign systems that are shared within deaf communities and are full-fledged languages. We end by widening the lens on sign language to include gesture and find that signers not only gesture, but they also use gesture in learning contexts just as speakers do. These findings suggest that what is key in gesture's ability to predict learning is its ability to add a second representational format to communication, rather than a second modality. Gesture can thus be language, assuming linguistic forms and functions, when other vehicles are not available; but when speech or sign is possible, gesture works along with language, providing an additional representational format that can promote learning.

Modern Catholic Perspectives Catholicism. The story of Catholic Christianity. By Gerald O'Collins and Mario Farrugia. Pp. xiii + 409 incl. 13 figs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. £63. 0 19 925994; 0 19 925995 X Priests, prelates and people. A history of European Catholicism since 1750. By Nicholas Atkin and Frank Tallett. Pp. x + 390. London–New York: I. B. Tauris, 2003. £25. 1 86064 665 4

2005 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 749-753
Author(s):  
JEFFREY T. ZALAR
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
The Other ◽  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University ◽  
Oxford University Press

Postmodern communitarian theory insists that all knowledge is participant knowledge: who we are is at least if not more foundational to learning than any philosophy of what we can know. These two books, one written by Jesuit priests and professors of systematic theology at the Gregorian University in Rome and the other by non-Catholic professional historians working at the University of Reading, invite us to consider this assertion.

Narrative competences of Deaf children in German Sign Language

2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Becker
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Narrative Skills ◽  
Deaf Adults ◽  
Everyday Interaction ◽  
Hearing Children ◽  
German Sign Language

Hearing children acquire discourse competences like storytelling through everyday interaction and are systematically supported in this process by adults. In contrast, deaf children in Germany often lack appropriate interlocutors with German Sign Language proficiency in family or school. The focus of our research is on narrative competences in deaf children and on the consequences of the lack of interlocutors on the acquisition of these competences. We carried out three studies to examine narrative skills of deaf children aged 8 to 17. We collected data from dyadic conversations with deaf adults and analyzed this data against the background of a cognitive approach to language acquisition and of conversation analysis. From a developmental perspective, our results indicate that the narrative competences of most of the tested non-native signing children have not developed as would be appropriate for their age. From an interactive perspective, deaf adults cooperate with the children in telling their stories by using different strategies.

scholarly journals The importance of being modular

2004 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 593-635 ◽  
Author(s):  
PIETER A. M. SEUREN
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Large Majority ◽  
Syntactic Theory ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
The One ◽  
Radical Construction

William Croft,Radical Construction Grammar: syntactic theory in typological perspective. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. xxviii+416.My reason for writing this review article is that I want to highlight a particular basic opposition in linguistic theory and methodology. On the one hand, we have what is usually called COGNITIVISM, represented in the book under review by the new theory of Radical Construction Grammar, henceforth RCG. On the other hand, there is a variety of schools, together forming a large majority in the field, whose theoretical overlap may be characterized by the term MODULARITY. I argue against cognitivism and in favour of the modularity view, and I am using the book under review as an opportunity to define the issue and put forward the arguments.

scholarly journals Adoption of the sign language with deaf and hard of hearing preschool children

Bastina ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 513-535
Author(s):  
Tamara Kovačević ◽  
Ljubica Isaković
Keyword(s):  
Preschool Children ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Hard Of Hearing ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
The Family ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
Hearing Children

This study analyses the process of adopting of the sign language with deaf and hard of hearing preschool children in the context of the result of linguistic and psycholinguistic research. The importance of the sign language is emphasized and its historical development is analyzed. It is pointed to the significance of the critical period for the adoption and the learning of the sign and spoken language with deaf and hard of hearing preschool children. The sign language is natural and primary linguistic expression of deaf children. Deaf and hard of hearing children are exposed to the sign and spoken language, they have better understanding and linguistic production than the children who are only exposed to the spoken language. Bilingualism involves the knowledge and the regular use of the sign language, which is used by the deaf community, and of the spoken language, which is used by the hearing majority. Children at the preschool age should be enabled to continue to adopt the language they started to adopt within the family (the sign language or the spoken language). Children will adopt the best both linguistic modalities through the interaction with other fluent speakers (the adults and children).

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