The Alphabetic Principle & Fingerspelling

Abstract

Examination of a profoundly deaf child’s fingerspelling in more than 100 hours of interaction videotaped at intervals over six years reveals a gradual acquisition of the rules for fingerspelling and knowledge of the relation of fingerspelling to signs and to printed and spoken words. Some similarity is found to the (written) spelling of pre-school children who develop their own orthography (Read 1975). This case study of finger-spelling development may provide clues to the role of hearing in language and to the acquisition of a spoken-written language by those who cannot hear it.

The difficulties of learning fingerspelling: an experimental investigation with hearing adult learners

“…This advice should not be confused with that frequently given to learners to operate at the level of 'visual envelopes' rather than letters (Maxwell, 1988;Miles, 1988). Although this also avoids the difficulties presented by irregular words, the presence of regularity effects in the present data suggest that adult hearing learners cannot readily achieve it.…”

“…The most striking demonstration of this 'whole word' approach is in cases where children use fingerspelling before acquiring the reading and spelling skills necessary to use the 'letter by letter' approach (Maxwell, 1988). These illustrate the nature of the proficient use of fingerspelling and suggest that its acquisition may be achieved without resort to a stage where words are translated letter by letter into finger positions.…”

“…Despite these applications, opinions differ as to the importance of fingerspelling. Mow1 (1981) and Maxwell (1988) believe that it makes an important contribution to manual communication but Miles (1988) sees it as only a minor feature of BSL. For those learning signing, however, it has the additional function of providing a means of communicating words whose signs are unknown.…”

“…This contrasts with the probable process of acquisition in adult hearing learners who may first learn to 'fingerspell', then face the challenge of achieving greater proficiency by the whole word approach. With this in mind, several authors (see, for example, Maxwell, 1988;Miles, 1988) have advised learners consciously to adopt the whole word approach at an early stage.…”

A prelingvális siketek nyelvelsajátítása – kitekintés

“…12 Early attempts at fingerspelling appear around 13 months of age 13,14,15,16,17,18,19 with the first fingerspelled word appearing as young as two years of age. 15,17,18 Young deaf children do not pay attention to the execution of each individual handshape in the given fingerspelled word. Instead they perceive fingerspelled words as whole units or signs.…”