Measuring language dominance in bilinguals with two sign languages

Abstract

This study examines whether a multi-faceted construct of language dominance developed for spoken languages applies to signed language bilinguals. Sign languages have been described as highly iconic and relatively similar to each other compared to spoken languages. Attaining fluency in the signed modality might well require considerably less effort, and balanced bilingualism may be more prevalent in the signed modality. Language dominance constructs, as currently understood, might differ in the spoken and signed modality. Forty bilinguals with two sign languages responded to a language dominance questionnaire developed for spoken languages and performed a phonological fluency (sign generation) task. Language dominance levels were found to vary in the signed modality. The correlation between reported dominance levels and the number of signs generated in each sign language was significant, suggesting that the construct of language dominance tested is robust and independent of modality.

The Role of Modality in L2 Learning: The Importance of Learners Acquiring a Second Sign Language (M2L2 and M1L2 Learners)

“…Lindeberg (2022) proposes that instances of patterns like (3) may indicate that the signer is operating in bilingual mode (Grosjean, 2010), echoing similar proposals from the literature on language synthesis (Lillo‐Martin et al., 2016): Language inhibition is disabled, allowing both English and ASL to contribute freely to the utterance. In fact, Lindeberg suggests that ASL may be used almost exclusively in this mode, given that ASL signers (deaf and hearing) typically also know and utilize English.…”

“…We know of only two studies that explicitly investigate iconicity with respect to M1L2 signers. Lindeberg (2023) tested the hypothesis that pervasive iconicity of lexical items across sign languages might make it comparably easy for M1L2 learners to attain fluency in a new sign language, as measured by a phonological fluency task (participants produce as many signs as possible that use a target handshape). Facilitation did not occur for deaf L2 learners of ASL who already know a previous sign language, despite a high potential for cognate items across the two signed vocabularies.…”

“…Those that do analyze not only switching between two community sign languages (e.g., Mexican Sign Language/LSM and ASL) but also between a community sign language and a signed form of a written/spoken language (e.g., ASL and Signed English or English‐like signing). Given that deaf signers are almost always bilingual users of at least one spoken/written language, which they may represent manually (Lindeberg, 2022), we extend our discussion to unimodal bilingual signers.…”

“…Accordingly, ASL and other sign languages “may be better understood as communicative contexts than communication systems with distinctive sets of syntactic constructions. Signers may access syntactic structures common in ASL or English and assign signs to the selected structures in ASL discourses” (Lindeberg, 2022, p. 8). Selection of these structures is modulated by language dominance as well as context.…”

“…Lindeberg (2022) advises caution when analyzing sign language switches using frameworks developed for spoken languages. He argues that application of spoken‐language models (e.g., Myers‐Scotton, 1997) is challenging for cases like (1) where multiple signs (those labeled with “S”) occur in both sign languages.…”