Phonological similarity judgments in ASL

Abstract

We created a novel paradigm to investigate phonological processing in sign and asked how age of acquisition (AoA) may affect it. Participants indicated which of two signs was more phonologically similar to a target, and estimated the strength of the resemblance with a mouse click along a continuous scale. We manipulated AoA by testing deaf native and non-native signers, and hearing L2 signers and sign-naïve participants. Consistent with previous research, judgments by the native and L2 signers reflected similarity based on shared phonological features between signs. By contrast, judgments by the non-native signers and sign-naïve participants were influenced by other (potentially visual or somatosensory) properties of signs that native and L2 signers ignored. These results suggest that early exposure to language helps a learner discern which aspects of a linguistic signal are most likely to matter for language learning, even if that language belongs to a different modality.

Rethinking the critical period for language: New insights into an old question from American Sign Language

“…In another study, native deaf and L2 hearing signers did not differ in their phonological similarity judgments for pairs of ASL signs. However, non-native deaf signers showed phonological similarity ratings that differed from those of both the native deaf and L2 hearing ASL learners, but not from those made by sign-naïve hearing participants (Hall, Ferreira & Mayberry, 2012). In a third study, native deaf and L2 hearing signers performed similarly on a gated sign recognition task (Morford and Carlson, 2011).…”

Knowledge of Language Transfers From Speech to Sign: Evidence From Doubling

“…The pioneering research of Rachel Mayberry and her colleagues has shown that language experience with a sign language facilitates the acquisition of spoken language (Hall, Ferreira, & Mayberry, 2012;Mayberry, Lock, & Kazmi, 2002). The pioneering research of Rachel Mayberry and her colleagues has shown that language experience with a sign language facilitates the acquisition of spoken language (Hall, Ferreira, & Mayberry, 2012;Mayberry, Lock, & Kazmi, 2002).…”

“…The pioneering research of Rachel Mayberry and her colleagues has shown that language experience with a sign language facilitates the acquisition of spoken language (Hall, Ferreira, & Mayberry, 2012;Mayberry, Lock, & Kazmi, 2002). Indeed, early exposure to a sign language (in Hall et al, 2012;Mayberry et al, 2002) can offer social and cognitive benefits, and the constraints on the interpretation of signs (Strickland et al, 2015) could be explained not by grammatical principles but by iconicity. These results, however, do not directly establish whether cross-modal transfer is due to the projection of grammatical principles, specifically.…”

“…The possibility that knowledge of language transfers across modalities is in line with several studies. The pioneering research of Rachel Mayberry and her colleagues has shown that language experience with a sign language facilitates the acquisition of spoken language (Hall, Ferreira, & Mayberry, 2012;Mayberry, Lock, & Kazmi, 2002). Another study has shown that speakers spontaneously constrain the semantic interpretation of signs (specifically, their telicity, Strickland et al, 2015).…”

“…These results, however, do not directly establish whether cross-modal transfer is due to the projection of grammatical principles, specifically. Indeed, early exposure to a sign language (in Hall et al, 2012;Mayberry et al, 2002) can offer social and cognitive benefits, and the constraints on the interpretation of signs (Strickland et al, 2015) could be explained not by grammatical principles but by iconicity. The case of doubling allows us to address the role of grammatical transfer specifically.…”