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Part of
Studies in Chinese and Japanese Language Acquisition: In honor of Stephen Crain
Edited by Mineharu Nakayama, Yi-ching Su and Aijun Huang
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 60] 2017
► pp. 107–126

Chapter 5
Interpretation of bound pronouns by learners of Japanese Sign Language

| Keio University
| University of Connecticut

This study deals with the interpretation of bound pronouns by hearing learners of Japanese Sign Language (JSL). It is the first attempt to investigate JSL second language (L2) acquisition from a theoretical perspective. The Overt Pronoun Constraint (OPC) states that an overt pronoun can be bound by a referential NP, but not by an operator (including quantifiers and Wh-elements). JSL, as well as Japanese, allows an overt pronoun to corefer with a referential NP. However, (at least in some cases) the overt pronoun can be bound by a Wh-operator in JSL, but never in Japanese. A Truth-Value Judgment Task (TVJT) study was conducted, with different levels of Japanese-speaking learners of JSL, to observe if the OPC applies to a L1-L2 pair in different modalities, with different OPC status. The results showed that there was an anti-OPC effect among beginners, which lessened somewhat for intermediate learners.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Previous studies of L2 acquisition
  • 2.JSL and OPC
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Procedure
    • 3.3Material
  • 4.Results
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 24 August 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.60.06mat
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Su, Yi-ching, Ho-Yun Hsieh, Devin Tankersley & Chia-Hsing Chen
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