Phonological Development in Hearing Learners of a Sign Language: The Influence of Phonological Parameters, Sign Complexity, and Iconicity

Abstract

The present study implemented a sign-repetition task at two points in time to hearing adult learners of British Sign Language and explored how each phonological parameter, sign complexity, and iconicity affected sign production over an 11-week (22-hour) instructional period. The results show that training improves articulation accuracy and that some sign components are produced more accurately than others: Handshape was the most difficult, followed by movement, then orientation, and finally location. Iconic signs were articulated less accurately than arbitrary signs because the direct sign-referent mappings and perhaps their similarity with iconic co-speech gestures prevented learners from focusing on the exact phonological structure of the sign. This study shows that multiple phonological features pose greater demand on the production of the parameters of signs and that iconicity interferes in the exact articulation of their constituents.

Sign language interpreter aptitude: The trials and tribulations of a longitudinal study

“…a visual, rather than auditory modality as there had been no studies on this prior to our study (since our study there have been other researchers exploring this for recreational language learners, e.g. Ortega and Morgan (2015)). Carroll (1967) identified four components of spoken language learning aptitude:…”

Iconic gestures serve as manual cognates in hearing second language learners of a sign language: An ERP study.

“…In the training phase, participants imitated signs immediately after observing them on the screen, so this resulted in high degree of accuracy under our coding scheme. Participants occasionally produced some of the errors that have been reported in the literature, such as inaccurate hand configuration (Ortega & Morgan, 2015) and production of the mirror image of signs (Rosen, 2004), but these renditions were still intelligible. Analysis of the renditions produced during the testing phase showed that, in general, having observed each sign five times during the experiment led to successful sign learning.…”

postprint - Predicting Sign Learning in Hearing Adults

“…In support of the latter view, participants in our study were not instructed on whether they should rehearse any of the movements and few spontaneously chose to do so. Moreover, research on the perception and production of signs by adult signers and nonsigners typically finds that the movement parameter is the most error prone; followed by handshape and orientation; and finally location (Bochner et al, 2011;Bochner et al, 2015;Mann et al, 2010;Ortega & Morgan, 2015;. Importantly, handshape, orientation, and location are features that can be represented in static visual imagery.…”