Expression of motion events in Deaf children with late acquisition of French Sign Language (LSF)
Résumé
Among Deaf children, only 5% are born into a Deaf family and receive a language input in sign language from birth (Humphries et al., 2019). Most are introduced to it late in childhood or adolescence, which impacts acquisition of several aspects of sign language grammar. Previous research highlights its effects on spatial language use, particularly in the use of classifier predicates, which are used less frequently due to their morphological complexity, since they are composed of two morphological elements (manual configuration and movement) to provide information on the motion event of the referent. In our study, we encode motion events in production by Deaf children who acquired LSF late (the majority of whom acquired it from the age of 5). Here we focused on the encoding of Path and Manner given that these elements require a mastery of iconic structures which are the result of cognitive transfer operations, anamorphosing real or imaginary experiences in the space of signing (Cuxac, 2000). To explore this question, we analyzed the productions of ten late signers children, divided into three age groups (7-8, 9-10, and 11-12 years). The youngest had an average of 2.5 years of exposure to LSF, a duration proportional to age in the other groups. In the absence of a control group, we ensured comparability by aligning our methodology with that of Schoder (Schoder, 2019), which enabled us to draw relevant parallels with her data on deaf children signers of deaf parents. Stimuli videos from the ESPACE project (Hickmann et al., 2009), illustrating motion events, served as elicitation support. Our results show that children mainly use two iconic structures to encode movement: Classifier Predicates (CP) and Constructed Actions (CA). CP are used for all target movements and is expressed more with a locative in older children, mainly used to encode Path. Then, CA often encode Path and Manner simultaneously to express motion. These structures are often realized in a proto-linguistic form, meaning that these structures are not produced with all the necessary parameters (often, the non-manual parameters are missing). But their presence in all age groups suggests that, despite a late acquisition context, children develop complex spatial strategies to express a motion event. Although their use of spatial structures is lower than deaf children of deaf parents in terms of frequency, they successfully use alternative strategies, including proto-linguistic forms, pointing, and tracing in space.
| Origine | Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s) |
|---|---|
| Licence |