The emergence of a language is rarely directly observed in a natural environment. Similar to a phenomenon previously observed in Nicaragua, deaf Dominican children appear to have created a rudimentary form of manual communication in absence of comprehensible linguistic input. The evolution of this communication system over the course of five years (2007-2012) is documented as part of a cross-cultural and cross-generational study in which sign complexity is analyzed. The role of innate and environmental components of language creation and acquisition are discussed using data from hearing children and parents, including the parents of the deaf Dominican children cited above.
Results confirm that a new communication system is indeed slowly emerging in the Dominican Republic, and that this system shows signs of evolution in the period extending from 2007 to 2012. Signs produced by the deaf Dominican children meet the minimal requirements for a communicative symbol, show signs of mutual intelligibility, and differ from the signs of the other implemented Sign Languages in the Dominican Republic. Two cohorts of manual communicators appear to be present, and younger signers seem to have more advanced linguistic competencies in comparison to older signers within the community. The signs that are part of the observed Dominican manual communication system also appear to differ in complexity from those produced by hearing adults and children, supporting the presence of innate abilities for language creation. Specifically, the deaf Dominican children are generally found to have more diversified sign repertoires and to display faster signing rates over time, in comparison to hearing adults and children. Qualitative data and quantitative trends further support a more complex understanding by deaf children of the use of signs as an independent communication system from speech.
Analyses looking at the impact of input on language creation provides some support for the existence of infant-directed signing in a way similar to what is observed with infant-directed speech. The use of repetitions by hearing adults using infant-directed silent gestures could provide support for usage-based theories of language development. That being said, young hearing children with no prior exposure to Sign Language and with minimal relative linguistic experience were found to produce signs equivalent in complexity to those of hearing adults, therefore potentially providing further support for an innate understanding of complex linguistic rules. Deaf Dominican children were further found to surpass the input received by hearing adults over time. In all, this research is consistent with previous studies attesting for children’s natural ability for language creation and development.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/40440 |
| Date | 30 April 2020 |
| Creators | Drouin, Annie |
| Contributors | Fennell, Christopher |
| Publisher | Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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