Sensitivity to Visual Prosodic Cues in Signers and Nonsigners

Brentari, Diane; González, Carolina; Seidl, Amanda; Wilbur, Ronnie Β.

doi:10.1177/0023830910388011

Cited by 54 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Because the participants were unfamiliar with the meaning of the signs in the language, the only cues they could use to make boundary decisions were the prosodic cues, which they were able to utilize reasonably well. Brentari et al (2011) found similar results for hearing non-signers. Thus, there may be pressures on both the perception and production sides that would lead a homesigner to treat the ends of his sentences differently from other positions.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

Prosody in a communication system developed without a language model

Applebaum

Coppola²,

Goldin‐Meadow³

2014

SL&L

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Prosody, he “music” of language, is an important aspect of all natural languages, spoken and signed. We ask here whether prosody is also robust across learning conditions. If a child were not exposed to a conventional language and had to construct his own communication system, would that system contain prosodic structure? We address this question by observing a deaf child who received no sign language input and whose hearing loss prevented him from acquiring spoken language. Despite his lack of a conventional language model, this child developed his own gestural system. In this system, features known to mark phrase and utterance boundaries in established sign languages were used to consistently mark the ends of utterances, but not to mark phrase or utterance internal boundaries. A single child can thus develop the seeds of a prosodic system, but full elaboration may require more time, more users, or even more generations to blossom.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

Prosody in a communication system developed without a language model

Applebaum

Coppola²,

Goldin‐Meadow³

2014

SL&L

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“…There are reasons to assume that the use of non-NGT signers is indeed a reasonable approach. Research has shown (Brentari, Gonzalez, Seidl, & Wilbur, 2011) that non-signers have a high degree of sensitivity to visual prosodic cues of a sign language. However, future work could include NGT signing participants in the perception experiment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do repeated references result in sign reduction?

Hoetjes¹,

Krahmer²,

Swerts³

2014

SL&L

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Previous research has shown that repeated references are often reduced compared to initial references. The present study looks at the production of repeated references by signers of Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT). Participants had to describe figures to an addressee, who had to pick the correct figure from a large group of figures. Several figures had to be described several times. The question was whether there would be reduction in the signed repeated references, as has been found previously for speech and gesture. We found systematic effects of repetition, in that repeated references are shorter, contain fewer signs, and shorter signs than initial references. Moreover, a perception experiment showed that signs produced during repeated references were also considered to be less precise than the signs produced during initial references.

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“…There is also some evidence that signers are sensitive to phonotactic legality (Orfanidou et al, 2010) and the number of syllables in novel signs (Brentari et al, 2011)—phonological units distinct from morphemes (Berent et al, 2013). Nonetheless, it is uncertain whether such knowledge reflects algebraic rules, or the statistical structure of the lexicon—a factor to which signers are acutely sensitive (Carreiras et al, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phonological reduplication in sign language: Rules rule

2014

Self Cite

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Productivity—the hallmark of linguistic competence—is typically attributed to algebraic rules that support broad generalizations. Past research on spoken language has documented such generalizations in both adults and infants. But whether algebraic rules form part of the linguistic competence of signers remains unknown. To address this question, here we gauge the generalization afforded by American Sign Language (ASL). As a case study, we examine reduplication (X→XX)—a rule that, inter alia, generates ASL nouns from verbs. If signers encode this rule, then they should freely extend it to novel syllables, including ones with features that are unattested in ASL. And since reduplicated disyllables are preferred in ASL, such a rule should favor novel reduplicated signs. Novel reduplicated signs should thus be preferred to nonreduplicative controls (in rating), and consequently, such stimuli should also be harder to classify as nonsigns (in the lexical decision task). The results of four experiments support this prediction. These findings suggest that the phonological knowledge of signers includes powerful algebraic rules. The convergence between these conclusions and previous evidence for phonological rules in spoken language suggests that the architecture of the phonological mind is partly amodal.

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Sensitivity to Visual Prosodic Cues in Signers and Nonsigners

Cited by 54 publications

References 58 publications

Prosody in a communication system developed without a language model

Prosody in a communication system developed without a language model

Do repeated references result in sign reduction?

Phonological reduplication in sign language: Rules rule

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