Learning Sign Language as a Second Language

Abstract

Sign languages are learned as second languages across a variety of conditions. Infants sometimes learn sign languages as one of two languages acquired from birth, and children often learn sign languages as second languages in school after having learned a first language, either signed or spoken, in infancy. Sign language bilingualism can be unimodal, as in knowing two sign languages, or bimodal, as in knowing a sign language and a spoken language. A key difference between adult and infant learning is that adults rely on iconicity to remember signs during the initial stage of learning, but infants do not. Individuals whose first experience with language is highly delayed show low levels of second language learning.