Acquisition of Classifier Constructions in HKSL by Bimodal Bilingual Deaf Children of Hearing Parents.

Gladys W L Tang,Jia Li

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01148

Abstract

The current study focuses on the acquisition of classifier constructions in Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) by a group of Deaf children of hearing parents, aided or implanted. These children have been mainstreamed together since kindergarten; but their learning environment supports dual language input in Cantonese and HKSL on a daily basis. Classifier constructions were chosen because previous research suggested full mastery at a late age when compared with other verb types, due to their morphosyntactic complexity. Also, crosslinguistic comparison between HKSL and Cantonese reveals differences in verb morphology as well as word order of the structures under investigation. We predicted that verb root and word order were the two domains for crosslingusitic interaction to occur. At the general level, given the specific learning environment and dual input condition, we examined if these Deaf child learners could ultimately acquire classifier constructions. Fifteen Deaf children divided into four groups based on duration of exposure to HKSL participated in the study. Two Deaf children born to Deaf parents and three native HKSL signers served as controls. A picture description task was designed to elicit classifier constructions containing either a transitive, a locative existential or a motion directional predicate. The findings revealed Deaf children's gradual convergence on the adult grammar despite late exposure to HKSL. Evidence of crosslinguistic influence on word order came from the Deaf children's initial adoption of a Cantonese structure for locative existential and motion directional predicates. There was also a prolonged period of adherence to the SVO order across all grades. However, within this SVO structure, the verb revealed increasing morphological complexity as a function of longer duration of exposure. We interpreted the findings using Language Synthesis, arguing that it was the selection of morphosyntactic features in Numeration that triggered crosslinguistic interaction between Cantonese and HKSL with bimodal bilinguals.

Highlights

How deaf and hard-of-hearing children acquire language has always attracted attention among researchers in linguistics, speech and language pathology, and deaf education
This study focuses on this particular group of signing Deaf children whose parents enroll them into the Sign Bilingualism and Coenrollment Education Programme in Hong Kong, generally referred to as the “sign bilingual and co-enrollment (SLCO) Programme.”
This study focuses on another language pair, Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) and Cantonese, and investigates how Deaf bimodal bilinguals born to hearing parents acquire classifier constructions in HKSL

Summary

Introduction

How deaf and hard-of-hearing children acquire language has always attracted attention among researchers in linguistics, speech and language pathology, and deaf education. This study focuses on this particular group of signing Deaf children whose parents enroll them into the Sign Bilingualism and Coenrollment Education Programme in Hong Kong, generally referred to as the “SLCO Programme.” Through naturalistic interactions, these children receive Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) input consistently from 7 to 8 Deaf teachers and a critical mass of Deaf peers on a daily basis in the classroom/school setting (see section Participants), in addition to spoken language from their hearing teachers and peers. English and BP allow fronted and in-situ wh-questions only whereas ASL and Libras’s wh-questions allow more syntactic options: fronted, in-situ, and doubled (e.g., ASL: WHO JOHN SEE WHO “Who did John see?”) Speaking, they observed emergence of in-situ wh-questions earlier with bimodal bilinguals than monolinguals of either spoken language. While both the Kodas and DDs produced canonical SV and VO orders as early as 23 months, suggesting an early setting of Spec-Head and HeadComplement parameters, they showed little use of non-canonical OV and VS orders when compared with the Deaf controls as reported in Chen Pichler (2001)

Methods

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Discussion

Conclusion