Cover not available
Part of
The Acquisition of Turkish in Childhood
Edited by Belma Haznedar and F. Nihan Ketrez
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 20] 2016
► pp. 193–220

Scene-setting and referent introduction in sign and spoken languages

What does modality tell us?

 | Radboud University & Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, the Netherlands
Previous studies show that children do not become adult-like in learning to set the scene and introduce referents in their narrations until 9 years of age and even beyond. However, they investigated spoken languages, thus we do not know much about how these skills are acquired in sign languages, where events are expressed in visually similar ways to the real world events, unlike in spoken languages. The results of the current study demonstrate that deaf children (3;5–9;10 years) acquiring Turkish Sign Language, and hearing children (3;8–9;11 years) acquiring spoken Turkish both acquire scene-setting and referent introduction skills at similar ages. Thus the modality of the language being acquired does not have facilitating or hindering effects in the development of these skills.
Keywords: language acquisition, narrative, Turkish Sign Language, Turkish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Scene setting and referent introduction in narrative discourse
    • 2.1Learning to set the scene and introduce referents in spoken languages
    • 2.2Learning to set the scene and introduce referents in sign languages
  • 3.Present study
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Stimulus material and procedure
    • 3.3Data coding and analysis
      • 3.3.1Coding decisions for the analysis of scene-setting
      • 3.3.2Coding decisions for the analysis of referent introduction
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1The presence/absence of the scene-setting elements in Turkish and TİD
    • 4.2How explicitly the referents are introduced in Turkish and TİD narrations
  • 5.Summary and discussion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 18 November 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.20.09sum
References (58)
References
Anthony, M. 2002. The Role of American Sign Language and “Conceptual Wholes” in Facilitating Language, Cognition, and Literacy. PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Bamberg, M.G.W. 1986. A functional approach to the acquisition of anaphoric relations. Linguistics 24: 227–284. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bavin, E.L. 1987. Anaphora in children’s Warlpiri. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 10: 1–11. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1999. Ellipsis in Warlpiri children’s narratives: An analysis of frog stories. Paper presented at the 7th International Congress for the Study of Child Language, San Sebastian, Spain.
Berman, R.A. 1995. Narrative competence and storytelling performance: How children tell stories in different contexts. Journal of Narrative and Life History 5: 285–314. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2001. Setting the narrative scene: How children begin to tell a story. In Children’s Language, K.E. Nelson, A. Aksu-Koc & C.E. Johnson (eds), 1–27. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Berman, R.A. & Slobin, D.I. 1994. Relating Events in Narrative: A Crosslinguistic Developmental Study. Hillsdale NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Brown, R. 1973. A First Language: The Early Stages. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chafe, W.L. 1976. Givenness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and points of view. In Subject and Topic, C.N. Li (ed.), 25–55. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Clancy, P. 1992. Referential strategies in the narratives of Japanese children. Discourse Processes 15: 441–467. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cormier, K., Smith, S. & Sevcikova, Z. 2015. Rethinking constructed action. Sign Language and Linguistics 18:2, 167-204. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dasinger, L. 1995. The Development of Discourse Competence in Native Finnish-speaking Children: A Study of the Expression of Definiteness. PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Emmorey, K. 2002. Language, Cognition and the Brain: Insights from Sign Language Research. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Givón, T. 1984. Universals of discourse structure and second language acquisition. In Language Universals and Second Language Acquisition [Typological Studies in Language 5], W.E. Rutherford (ed.), 109–136. Amsterdam: John Benjamins DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hickmann, M. 1980. Creating referents in discourse: A developmental analysis of linguistic cohesion. In Papers from the Parasession on Pronouns and Anaphora, J. Kreiman & A.E. Odeja (eds), 192–203. Chicago IL: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
1982. The Development of Narrative Skills: Pragmatic and Metapragmatic Aspects of Discourse Cohesion. PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, Illinois.Google Scholar
1995. Discourse organization and the development of reference to person, space, and time. In The Handbook of Child Language, P. Fletcher & B. MacWhinney (eds), 194–218. Cambridge MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hickmann, M. & Liang, J. 1990. Clause-structure variation in Chinese narrative discourse: A developmental analysis. Linguistics 28: 1167–1200. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hickmann, M., Hendriks, H., Roland, F. & Liang, J. 1996. The marking of new information in children’s narratives: A comparison of English, French, German, and Mandarin Chinese. Journal of Child Language 3: 591–610. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kail, M. & Hickmann, M. 1992. French children’s ability to introduce referents in narratives as function of mutual knowledge. First Language 12: 73–94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, A. 1979. A Functional Approach to Language: A Study of Determiners and Reference. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
1981. The grammatical marking of thematic structure in the development of language production. In The Child’s Construction of Language, W. Deutsch (ed.), 121–147. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
1983. Language development as a problem-solving process. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development 22: 1–22.Google Scholar
1985. Language and cognitive processes from a developmental perspective. Language and Cognitive Processes 1: 61–85. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kegl, J. 2003[1976]. Pronominalization in American Sign language. Sign Language and Linguistics 6(2): 245–265. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kubuş, O. 2008. An Analysis of Turkish Sign Language (TİD) Phonology and Morphology. MA thesis, Middle East Technical University, Turkey.Google Scholar
Küntay, A. 2002. Development of the expression of indefiniteness: Presenting new referents in Turkish picture-series stories. Discourse Processes 33: 77–101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1999. How do Turkish preschoolers anchor referents in conversational extended discourse? Psychology of Language and Communication 3(1): 83–92.Google Scholar
MacLaughlin, D. 1997. The Structure of Determiner Phrases: Evidence from American Sign Language. PhD dissertation, Boston University.Google Scholar
Maratsos, M.P. 1976. The Use of Definite and Indefinite Reference in Young Children. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Mayer, M. 1969. Frog, Where Are You? New York NY: Dial Press.Google Scholar
Menig-Peterson, P. & McCabe, A. 1978. Children’s orientation of a listener to the context of their narratives. Developmental Psychology 14: 582–592. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Metzger, M. 1995. Constructed dialogue and constructed action in American Sign Language. In Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities , Sign, C. Lucas (ed.), 255–271. Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Miu, R.F. 1994. The Acquisition of Referring Expressions by Young Chinese Children: A Longitudinal Study of the Forms and Functions of Early Noun Phrases. PhD dissertation, Radboud University Nijmegen.Google Scholar
Morgan, G. 2000. Discourse cohesion in sign and speech. International Journal of Bilingualism 4(3): 279–300. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2002. The encoding of simultaneity in children’s BSL narratives. Journal of Sign Language and Linguistics 5(2): 127–161.Google Scholar
Morgan, G. & Woll, B. 2003. The development of reference switching encoded through body classifiers in British Sign Language. In Perspectives on Classifier Constructions in Sign Languages, K. Emmorey (ed.), 297–310. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Nakamura, K. 1993. Referential structure in Japanese children’s narratives: The acquisition of wa and ga . In Japanese/Korean Linguistics, S. Choi (ed.), 84–99. Standford CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Niederberger, N. 2004. Capacites langagieres en langue des signes francaise et en francais ecrit chez l’enfant sourd bilingue: Quelles relations? PhD dissertation, University of Geneva.Google Scholar
Perniss, P. 2007. Space and Iconicity in German Sign Language (DGS). PhD dissertation, Nijmegen. MPI Series in Psycholinguistics.Google Scholar
Peterson, C. 1990. The who, when, and where of early narratives. Journal of Child Language 17: 433–456. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peterson, C. & McCabe, A. 1983. Developmental Psycholinguistics: Three ways of Looking at a Child’s Narrative. New York NY: Plenum. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rathmann, C., Mann, W. & Morgan, G. 2007. Narrative structure and narrative development in Deaf children. Deafness and Educational International 9(4): 187–196. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reilly, J.S. 1992. How to tell a good story: The intersection of language and affect in children’s narratives. Journal of Narrative and Life History 2: 355–377. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sandler, W. & Lillo-Martin, D. 2006. Sign Language and Linguistic Universals. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schembri, A. 2003. Rethinking classifiers in signed languages. In Perspectives on Classifier Constructions in Sign Languages, K. Emmorey (ed.), 3–34. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Schick, B. 1990. The effects of morphosyntactic structures on the acquisition of classifier predicates in ASL. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, C. Lucas (ed.), 1595–1600. Austin TX: Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Supalla, T.R. 1982. Structure and Acquisition of Verbs of Motion and Location in American Sign Language. PhD dissertation, UCSD.Google Scholar
Umiker-Sebeok, D.J. 1979. Preschool children’s intraconversational narratives. Journal of Child Language 6: 91–109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vercaingne-Menard, A., Godard, L. & Labelle, M. 2001. The emergence of narrative discourse in two young children. In Sign Languages: Discoveries from International Research, V. Dively (ed.), 120–132. Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Warden, D.A. 1981. Learning to identify referents. British Journal of Psychology 72: 93–99. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wigglesworth, G. 1990. Children’s narrative acquisition: A study of some aspects of reference and anaphora. First Language 10: 105–125. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilbur, R. 1979. American Sign Language and Sign Systems: Research and Application. Baltimore MD: University Park Press.Google Scholar
Wittenburg, P., Brugman, H., Russel, A., Klassmann, A., & Sloetjes, H. 2006. ELAN: A Professional Framework for Multimodality Research. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), 1556–1559. Genoa, Italy: ELRA. <[URL]>
Zimmer, J. & Patschke, C. 1990. A class of determiners in ASL. In Sign Language Research: Theoretical Issues, C. Lucas (ed.), 201–210. Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Zwitserlood, I. 2003. Classifying Hand Configurations in Nederlandse Gebarentaal (Sign Language of the Netherlands). PhD dissertation, University of Utrecht.Google Scholar
Zwitserlood, I., Perniss, P.M. & Özyürek, A. 2012. An empirical investigation of expression of multiple entities in Turkish Sign Language (TİD): Considering the effects of modality. Lingua 122: 1636–1667. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

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
Karadöller, Dilay Z., Beyza Sümer & Aslı Özyürek
2024. First-language acquisition in a multimodal language framework: Insights from speech, gesture, and sign. First Language DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 december 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.