Cover not available
Article published In:
Sign Language & Linguistics
Vol. 25:2 (2022) ► pp.205–234

Learning to introduce referents in narration is resilient to the effects of late sign language exposure

ORCID logo | Atatürk University
| University of Amsterdam
The present study investigates the effects of late sign language exposure on narrative development in Turkish Sign Language (TİD) by focusing on the introductions of main characters and the linguistic strategies used in these introductions. We study these domains by comparing narrations produced by native and late signers in TİD. The results of our study reveal that late sign language exposure does not hinder the acquisition of linguistic devices to introduce main characters in narrations. Thus, their acquisition seems to be resilient to the effects of late language exposure. Our study further suggests that a two-year exposure to sign language facilitates the acquisition of these skills in signing children even in the case of late language exposure, thus providing further support for the importance of sign language exposure to develop linguistic skills for signing children.
Keywords: late sign language exposure, narrative development, native signers, late signers, main character introduction, linguistic strategies, Turkish sign language
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Narrating events in sign languages
    • 1.2Narrative development in sign languages
      • 1.2.1Narrative development in the case of early sign language exposure
      • 1.2.2Narrative development in the case of late sign language exposure
  • 2.The present study
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Material and procedure
    • 2.3Data coding
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Introducing main characters: Frequency
    • 3.2Introducing main characters: Linguistic devices
      • 3.2.1Qualitative findings
      • 3.2.2Quantitative findings
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1Acquisition of referent introduction in sign language is resilient to the effects of late language exposure
    • 4.2Constructed action as a referent introduction devices in signing children’s narratives
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 11 November 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.21004.gur
References (79)
References
Ariel, Mira. 1990. Accessing noun-phrase antecedents. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bahtiyar, Sevda & Aylin C. Küntay. 2009. Integration of communicative partner’s visual perspective in patterns of referential requests. Journal of Child Language 36(3). 529–555. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bamberg, Michael G. 1987. The acquisition of narratives: Learning to use language. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bates, Douglas, Martin Mächler, Ben Bolker & Steven Walker. 2015. Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software 67(1). 1–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Becker, Claudia. 2009. Narrative competences of deaf children in German Sign Language. Sign Language & Linguistics 12(2). 113–160. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berk, Stephanie & Diane Lillo-Martin. 2012. The two-word stage: Motivated by linguistic or cognitive constraints? Cognitive Psychology 65(1). 118–140. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berman, Ruth A. 1995. Narrative competence and storytelling performance: How children tell stories in different contexts. Journal of Narrative and Life History 51. 285–314. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2001. Setting the narrative scene: How children begin to tell a story. In Keith E. Nelson, Ayhan Aksu-Koç & Carolyn E. Johnson (eds.), Children’s Language 101, 1–27. London: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Boudreault, Patrick & Rachel I. Mayberry. 2006. Grammatical processing in American Sign Language: Age of first-language acquisition effects in relation to syntactic structure. Language and Cognitive Processes 21(5). 608–635. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chafe, Wallace. 1976. Givenness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and points of view. In Charles N. Li (ed.), Subject and topic, 25–55. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cheng, Qi & Rachel I. Mayberry. 2019. Acquiring a first language in adolescence: The case of basic word order in American Sign Language. Journal of Child Language 46(2). 214–240. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cormier, Kearsy, Adam Schembri, David Vinson & Eleni Orfanidou. 2012. First language acquisition differs from second language acquisition in prelingually deaf signers: Evidence from sensitivity to grammaticality judgement in British Sign Language. Cognition 124(1). 50–65. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cormier, Kearsy & Sandra Smith. 2008. Acquisition of perspective and role shift in Deaf children: Evidence from British Sign Language. Presentation at the Workshop on pragmatics and social cognition. Centre for Human Communication, University College London, 25–26 April.
Cormier, Kearsy, Sandra Smith & Zed Sevcikova. 2013a. Predicate structures, gesture, and simultaneity in the representation of action in British Sign Language: Evidence from deaf children and adults. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 18(3). 370–390. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cormier, Kearsy, Sandra Smith & Zed Sevcikova-Sehyr. 2015. Rethinking constructed action. Sign Language & Linguistics 18(2). 167–204. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cormier, Kearsy, Sandra Smith & Martine Zwets. 2013b. Framing constructed action in British Sign Language narratives. Journal of Pragmatics 551. 119–139. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frederiksen, Anne Therese & Rachel I. Mayberry. 2016. Who’s on first? Investigating the referential hierarchy in simple native ASL narratives. Lingua 1801. 49–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Girbau, Dolors. 2001. Children’s referential communication failure: The ambiguity and abbreviation of message. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 20(1/2). 81–89. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Givon, Talmy. 1984. Universals of discourse structure and second language acquisition. In William E. Rutherford (ed.), Language universals and second language acquisition, 109–136. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gleason, Jean B. & Richard Ely. 2002. Gender differences in language development. In Ann McGillicuddy-De Lisi & Richard De Lisi (eds.), Biology, society and behaviour, 127–154. Westport, CT: Ablex.Google Scholar
Henner, Jon, Catherine L. Caldwell-Harris, Rama Novogrodsky & Robert Hoffmeister. 2016. American Sign Language syntax and analogical reasoning skills are influenced by early acquisition and age of entry to signing schools for the deaf. Frontiers in Psychology 71. 1982. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Herman, Rosalind, Nicola Grove, Sallie Holmes, Gary Morgan, Hilary Sutherland & Bencie Woll. 2004. Assessing BSL development: Production test (narrative skills). London: City University Publication.Google Scholar
Hickmann, Maya. 1982. The development of narrative skills: Pragmatic and metapragmatic aspects of discourse cohesion. Chicago: The University of Chicago PhD dissertation.
. 1995. Discourse organization and the development of reference to person, time, and space. In Paul Fletcher & Brian MacWhinney (eds.), Handbook of child language, 194–218. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hodge, Gabrielle, Lindsay N. Ferrara, & Benjamin D. Anible. 2019. The semiotic diversity of doing reference in a deaf signed language. Journal of Pragmatics 1431. 33–53. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hudson, Judith A. & Lauren R. Shapiro. 1991. From knowing to telling: The development of children’s scripts, stories and personal narratives. In Allyssa McCabe & Carole Peterson (eds.), Developing narrative structure, 89–136. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
İlkbaşaran, Deniz. 2015. Literacies, mobilities and agencies of Deaf youth in Turkey: Constraints and opportunities in the 21st century. San Diego, CA: University of California PhD dissertation.
Jaeger, T. Florian. 2008. Categorical data analysis: Away from ANOVAs (transformation or not) and towards logit mixed models. Journal of Memory and Language 59(4). 434–446. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnston, Trevor & Adam Schembri. 2007. Australian Sign Language (Auslan): An introduction to sign language linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jones, Anna C., E. Toscano, Nicola Botting, Joanna R. Atkinson, Tanya Denmark, Ros Herman & Gary Morgan. 2016. Narrative skills in deaf children who use spoken English: Dissociations between macro- and microstructural devices. Research in Developmental Disabilities 591. 268–282. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kail, Michele & Maya Hickmann. 1992. French children’s ability to introduce referents in narratives as a function of mutual knowledge. First Language 12(34). 73–94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Karadöller, Dilay Z., Beyza Sümer & Aslı Özyürek. 2021. Effects and non-effects of late language exposure on spatial language development: Evidence from deaf adults and children. Language Learning and Development 17(1). 1–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. Under Review. Signing children’s spatial expressions are more informative than speaking children’s speech and gestures combined.
Karadöller, Dilay Z., Beyza Sümer, Ercenur Ünal & Aslı Özyürek. 2022. Late sign language exposure does not modulate the relation between spatial language and spatial memory in deaf children and adults. Memory & Cognition 501. 1–19. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, Annette. 1981. The grammatical marking of thematic structure in the development of language production. In Werner Deutsch (ed.), The child’s construction of language, 121–147. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Küntay, Aylin C. 1999. How do Turkish preschoolers anchor referents in conversational extended discourse? Psychology of Language and Communication 3(1). 83–92.Google Scholar
2002. Development of the expression of indefiniteness: Presenting new referents in Turkish picture-series stories. Discourse Processes 33(1). 77–101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuznetsova, Alexandra, Per B. Brockhoff & Rune H. B. Christensen. 2017. lmerTest Package: Tests in Linear Mixed Effects Models. Journal of Statistical Software 82(13), 1–26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lillo-Martin, Diane & Jonathan Henner. 2021. Acquisition of sign languages. Annual Review of Linguistics 71. 395–419. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Loew, Ruth Carolyn. 1984. Roles and reference in American Sign Language: A developmental perspective. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota PhD dissertation.
Makaroğlu, Bahtiyar & Hasan Dikyuva. (eds.). 2017. The contemporary Turkish Sign Language dictionary. Ankara: The Turkish Ministry of Family and Social Policy. Retrieved from [URL]
Mayberry, Rachel I. 1993. First-language acquisition after childhood differs from second-language acquisition: The case of American Sign Language. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 36(6). 1258–1270. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1998. The critical period for language acquisition and the deaf child’s language comprehension: A psycholinguistic approach. Bulletin D Audiophonologie 141. 349–360.Google Scholar
2007. When timing is everything: Age of first-language acquisition effects on second-language learning. Applied Psycholinguistics 28(3). 537–549. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mayberry, Rachel I. & Ellen B. Eichen. 1991. The long-lasting advantage of learning sign language in childhood: Another look at the critical period for language acquisition. Journal of Memory and Language 301. 486–512. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mayberry, Rachel I. & Susan D. Fischer. 1989. Looking through phonological shape to lexical meaning: The bottleneck of nonnative sign language processing. Memory and Cognition 171. 740–754. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mayberry, Rachel I. & Elizabeth Lock. 2003. Age constraints on first versus second language acquisition: Evidence for linguistic plasticity and epigenesis. Brain and Language 87(3). 369–384. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCabe, Allyssa & Carole Peterson. 1990. What makes a narrative memorable? Applied Psycholinguistics 11(1). 73–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McKee, Rachel, Adam Schembri, David McKee & Trevor Johnston. 2011. Variable “subject” presence in Australian Sign Language and New Zealand Sign Language. Language Variation and Change 23(3). 375–398. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Morford, Jill P. 2003. Grammatical development in adolescent first-language learners. Linguistics 411. 681–721. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Morgan, Gary. 1998. The development of discourse cohesion in British Sign Language. Bristol: University of Bristol PhD dissertation.
. 2002. Children’s encoding of simultaneity in British Sign Language narratives. Sign Language & Linguistics 5(2). 131–165. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2006. The development of narrative skills in British Sign Language. In Brenda Schick, Marc Marschark & Patricia E. Spencer (eds.), Advances in the sign language development of deaf children, 314–343. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, Gary & Bencie Woll. 2003. The development of reference switching encoded through body classifiers in British Sign Language. In Karen Emmorey (ed.), Perspectives on classifier constructions in sign languages, 297–310. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Newport, Elissa L. 1988. Constraints on learning and their role in language acquisition: Studies of the acquisition of American Sign Language. Language Sciences 10(1). 147–172. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1990. Maturational constraints on language learning. Cognitive Science 141. 11–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Newport, Elissa & Ted Supalla. 2000. Sign language research at the millennium. In Karen Emmorey & Harlan L. Lane (eds.), The signs of language revisited: An anthology to honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima, 94–103. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
O’Neil, Daniela K. & Francesca G. Happe. 2000. Noticing and commenting on what’s new: differences and similarities among 22-month-old typically developing children, children with Down Syndrome, and children with autism. Developmental Science 31. 457–478. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ortega, Gerardo, Beyza Sümer & Aslı Özyürek. 2017. Type of iconicity matters in the vocabulary development of signing children. Developmental Psychology 53(1). 89–99. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Padden, Carol. 1986. Verbs and role shifting in American Sign Language. In Carol Padden (ed.), Proceedings of the Fourth National Symposium on Sign Language Research and Teaching, 44–57. Silver Spring, MD: National Association of the Deaf.Google Scholar
Papafragou, Anna & Myrto Grigoroglou. 2019. The role of conceptualization during language production: evidence from event encoding. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 34(9). 1117–1128. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Perniss, Pamela & Aslı Özyürek. 2015. Visible cohesion: A comparison of reference tracking in sign, speech, and co-speech gesture. Topics in Cognitive Science 71. 36–60. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peterson, Carole. 1990. The who, when, and where of early narratives. Journal of Child Language 17(2). 433–456. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peterson, Carole & Allyssa McCabe. 1983. Developmental psycholinguistics: Three ways of looking at a narrative. New York: Plenum. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
R Core Team. 2020. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved from [URL]
Ramirez, Naja F., Amy Lieberman & Rachel I. Mayberry. 2013. The initial stages of language acquisition begun in adolescence: When late looks early. Journal of Child Language 40(2). 391–414. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rathmann, Christian, Wolfgang Mann & Gary Morgan. 2007. Narrative structure and narrative development in deaf children. Deafness & Education International 9(4). 187–196. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reilly, Judy. 2000. Bringing affective expression into the service of language: Acquiring perspective marking in narratives. In Karen Emmorey & Harlan L. Lane (eds.), The signs of language revisited: An anthology to honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima, 415–433. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Schaeffer, Jeannette & Lisa Matthewson. 2005. Grammar and pragmatics in the acquisition of article systems. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 23(1). 53–101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Slobin, Dan I., Nini Hoiting, Marlon Kuntze, Reyna Lindert, Amy Weinberg, Jennie Pyers, Michelle Anthony, Yael Biederman & Helen Thumann. 2003. A cognitive/functional perspective on the acquisition of “classifiers”. In Karen Emmorey (ed.), Perspectives on classifier constructions in signed languages, 271–296. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Sümer, Beyza. 2015. Scene-setting and referent introduction in Turkish and Turkish Sign Language (Türk İşaret Dili– TİD): What does modality tell us? İstanbul: Boğaziçi University Master’s thesis.
Sümer, Beyza & Aslı Özyürek. 2022. Cross-modal investigation of event component omissions in language development: a comparison of signing and speaking children. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 371. 1–17. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Supalla, Ted R. 1982. Structure and acquisition of verbs of motion and location in American Sign Language. San Diego, CA: University of California PhD dissertation.
Swabey, Laurie A. 2011. Referring expressions in ASL discourse. In Cynthia B. Roy (ed.), Discourse in signed languages, 96–120. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Talmy, Leonard. 2003. The representation of spatial structure in spoken and signed language. In Karen Emmorey (ed.), Perspectives on classifier constructions in sign language, 169–195. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Umiker-Sebeok, D. Jean. 1979. Preschool children’s intra-conversational narratives. Journal of Child Language 6(1). 91–109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wigglesworth, Gillian. 1990. Children’s narrative acquisition: A study of some aspects of reference and anaphora. First Language 10(29). 105–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wittenburg, Peter, Hennie Brugman, Albert Russel, Alex Klassmann & Han Sloetjes. 2006. ELAN: A professional framework for multimodality research. Proceedings of LREC 2006. Fifth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation. [URL]
Wulf, Alyssa, Paul Dudis, Robert Bayley & Ceil Lucas. 2002. Variable subject presence in ASL narratives. Sign Language Studies 3(1). 54–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Gür, Cansu
2024. Investigating the effects of late sign language acquisition on referent introduction: a follow-up study. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 60:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.