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Title:
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"Agreement" in Gestures and Signed Languages: The use of directionality to indicate referents involved in actions
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Author:
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Shannon Casey
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Degree Awarded:
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University of California, San Diego
, Linguistics Department
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Degree Date:
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2003
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Language Acquisition
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Subject Language(s):
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American Sign Language
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Director(s):
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Carol Padden
Robert Kluender
Karen Emmorey
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Abstract:
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The use of movement and spatial displacement (i.e. directionality) to indicate referents involved in actions is investigated in manual gestures and signs of deaf children acquiring American Sign Language (ASL) and hearing adults with no exposure to a signed language. This use of directionality in gestures resembles verb agreement morphology in signed languages in both its use and form.
Six deaf children acquiring ASL from their deaf parents are studied longitudinally ranging in age from 0;8 – 2;11. Analyses find that they not only produce directionality in gestures, but also produce directionality in signs at younger ages and to a greater extent than previous research has claimed. Directionality occurs with gestures prior to signs, and is used more often and at a younger age when referents are present in the environment, as opposed to when they are absent. Additionally, directionality occurs with verbs denoting literal, iconic movement prior to those denoting metaphorical movement.
In an experiment to elicit directionality from forty-six hearing adults with no exposure to a signed language, subjects are asked to watch videotaped scenes involving interactions between two people, and then to describe the scenes using both speech and gesture without speech. These subjects are found to produce more directional gestures when not permitted to speak and when photographs of referents are present in the environment, as opposed to when they are absent.
Evidence from the directional gestural productions of these deaf children and hearing adults is argued to support a gestural origin of verb agreement morphology in signed languages both phylogenetically and ontogenetically. The developmental path of directionality is proposed to proceed from use with present referents to absent referents and from use with verbs denoting literal movement to those denoting metaphorical movement. Similarities in the use of directionality in gesture and sign are claimed to support a domain-general view of the relationship between language and gesture, as opposed to a modular, domain-specific view. Although verb agreement morphology is argued to originate from gesture, its late acquisition and the production of reversal errors suggest that directionality has become grammaticized in ASL and is no longer gestural.
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