Bellugi and Klima’s (1972) study ‘Pola’ can be used to demonstrate. Pola was a deaf infant born to deaf parents and therefore exposed to sign language from Birth. Bellugi and Klima discovered that before the age of 3 Pola used the signs: name, stay, tomorrow, will, where, who, what how, dead, know, understand, none, nothing, don’t know and had the same amount of ‘signs’ to her exposal as would a hearing child with words. Pola had already learned the hand alphabet and could sign this clearly. Bellugi and Klima also found early combinations of signs which contained the full range of semantic relations expressed by hearing children
In studying Pola’s signs it was discovered that the increase in the length of her signed sequences matched the increase found in hearing children and found errors in her grammar also made by hearing children. One such error was the presence of over-generalisation. Pola appeared to extract the common component of a certain negative sign and use that as a negative indicator in the period when negative forms such as not, don’t want, don’t know, nothing and can’t were first appearing in her language. She also sometimes changed the direction of movements of a sign to mean “You do something to me” when the sign was one of a set that did not change in the sign language of adults. This is analogous to the hearing child’s use of ‘holded’ or ‘bringed’. The child may have discovered the general possibility in sign for changing the direction of a sign to indicate subject and object relations and extended this to cases where an adult signer would not.
From their study Bellugi and Klima provided evidence that Sign Language is a real language and the acquisition of it occurs in the same way as speech in hearing children. They concluded that “It does seem that, in spite the change in modality; the milestones of language development may be the same” (1974: 64).
There are many untruths surrounding sign language. It can be seen as a ‘gesture language’ or ‘pantomimic’ which, with its complex grammar must be seen as falsehoods. A native signer is able to reproduce any phrase produced by the English Language just as fully and quickly as a speaker of the language. These facts alone contribute towards understanding ‘sign’ as a real language, highlighting the theory that language is not modality specific. The study by Bellugi and Klima illustrates that Infants who learn Sign Language as a first language with exposure from birth can develop full language system without delay or impairment.
Further evidence from Bonvillain, Orlansky and Novak (1983) showed that infants actually develop sign ahead of speech. They studied a group of hearing children acquiring ASL as a first language from deaf parents who were native signers. Bonvillain, Orlansky and Novak discovered that the children produced their first signs at an average age of 8.6 months whereas children do not produce speech until they are approximately 11months. They also discovered that the children produced combinations of signs at 17 months compared with the period of 18-20 months in children acquiring oral language. From their study they concluded that children with native signers as an input model developed sign language quicker that oral language. However, there were some limitations on their theory. Hearing children also gesture, producing the problem of what is a gesture and what is an actual sign. The problems here are similar to how parents often interpret infants’ reduplicative babbling, such as /dadadada/ or /mamamama/ as their first words (daddy and mummy respectively). Children also develop manual dexterity before they can use the speech organs to produce the specific and correct phonemes they require for speech.
Atypical language development enables us to assess possible pre-requisites for the normal acquisition process. In this case the need for input model and interaction for speech acquisition. Children who aren’t exposed to a language model cannot be expected to develop a full language. Development of a full language can only occur where children are provided with some input. 90% deaf children born to hearing parents and therefore not exposed to sign language in their early lives. The ‘Oralist’ approach was often implemented, and it was thought by exposing deaf children to an oral language model they would be forced to develop some form of ‘normal’ communication such as lip reading. This was however, usually unsuccessful and leaves the child isolated and without a language system.
Susan Goldin-Meadow and Carolyn Mylander (1982) carried out research to discover how children without a language input model began to communicate. They studied a selection of deaf children born to hearing parents who were not exposed to any language other than a crude gesture system used by the parents in an attempt to communicate. They found that the children created their own ‘home signs’, distinct from the gestures of the parents, yet lacked the sophistication present in the sign language used by native signers. “Research comparing adult signers from deaf and hearing families has shown that their signing differs significantly. Deaf signers from deaf families use features of BSL such as syntactic space, mouth patterns and proforms very differently from signers from hearing families” (Sutton-Spence 1994: 216)
This study provides evidence for Chomsky’s theory of innateness in language (Pinker 1995) given that humans possess a ‘blue-print’ for language and that language is not modality specific. Language has a robust quality and can be learned by all humans however, specific language isn’t in the genes of a child. Language develops because of input around them. Children would not learn language through watching television or listening to the radio, Language is a two-way communication model, in which social interaction is very important.
Maesteas y Moores (1980) conducted a study to highlight the importance of parental input in the development of an infant’s language. Maestes and Moore found evidence of ‘parentese’ displayed towards the child. They discovered how deaf parents used a form of ‘motherese’ as a means of social interaction with child. The children studied were in fact too young to be signing, but it was apparent that ‘motherese’ was being used and deliberate shaping of signing was found. Kinaesthetic information was provided to the child, both directly by the parent signing on the child’s body, and by having the child in contact (e.g. on the lap) while signing to other people. They concluded that although children do bring innate capabilities to language learning the role of parental input is required for those capabilities to flourish.
Children of deaf parents often have very little exposure to language until they reach schooling age, or develop relationships with other members of the deaf community. Deaf children are therefore isolated from their parents. This delay and Isolation has Implications for critical age hypothesis as the deaf may be only neurological normal adults that reach adulthood without a full language system. I am however limited by word count but expect this would be an interesting area of further study.
To conclude, I hope to have demonstrated a number of points in this essay. Firstly, the differences between signed and spoken languages are only superficial. Therefore we can conclude that language is modality independent and can exist in both the auditory-vocal and manual-visual channels. Deaf children are able to acquire ‘language’ despite change in modality. However, the development of language can only occur where children are provided with some input. Yet despite this, the need to communicate and attempts made my children to sign indicate ‘innate’ and robust qualities of language. The studies above, and indeed the large amount of studies on Deaf children can only suggest that the studies in the area of sign language can inform us, not only about sign language, but theories of oral language too.
References
Berko-Gleason, Jean ed (2001). The development of language. Boss; Mass; London. Allyn and Bacon.
Bellugi, & Klima (1972) The Roots of language in the sign talk of the deaf. Psychology Today 6.
Bonvillain, Orlansky & Novak (1983) in Kyle and Woll (1983) Language in sign: an international perspective on sign language. London. Croom Helm
Goldin-Meadow, S & Mylander, Carolyn, (1982) Gestural Communication in deaf children: Non-effect of Parental Input on language: Science Vol 221 p372
Kyle and Woll. (1983) Language in sign: an international perspective on sign language. London. Croom Helm.
Maestes and Moores (1980) in Kyle and Woll (1983) Language in sign: an international perspective on sign language. London. Croom Helm
Pinker, S (1995) The Language Instinct. London: Allan Lane.
Sutton-Spence, Rachel (1994) The linguistics of British Sign Language: an introduction. Cambridge. CUP