اياد الزوار
21/05/2008, 03:47 PM
Dear All
This is a useful article showing that the ideas of Noam Chomsky concerning language acquistion can be applicable not to oral languages only , but also they are applicable to sign languages . Read it and tell me your opinions , because it is me who wrote the article .
A Sign language is a language which uses manual communication, body language and lip patterns instead of sounds to convey meaning. Its users simultaneously combine hand shapes, movements of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to express thier thoughts. Sign languages are commonly developed in deaf communities, which can include interpreters , friends and families of deaf people as well as people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Wherever communities of deaf people exist, sign languages are developed. In fact, their complex grammars are markedly different from the grammars of spoken languages. Hundreds of sign languages are in use around the world and are at the cores of local deaf cultures.
It has been proved that sign languages undergo the same stages of development as oral languges do. " Deaf children who are exposed to sign languages learn it in stages parrellel to those of hearing children learning oral languages"( Fromkin,2003:20). Yet, deaf people can never understand sopken languages as normal people can even if they were taught to speak intelligibily . Thus , sign language is a proof of the idea saying that all humans are born with the ability to acquire language , whether it is oral or signal . It is activated according to the society in which the deaf child grows up . So, "If those deaf children grow up in American homes , they will typically acquire American Sign Language "(Yule,1996:202).
Sign language , as vocal language , is acquired within the critical age ." Deaf children with deaf parents start signing earlier , and quickly become more proficient than deaf children with hearing fathers "(Aitchison,1999:130). Thus , it would be a hard task to teach a child sign language after the age of 4 or 5 years . Evidence from neurology is also suggestive .Many children who have suffered damage to the left hemisphere are able to acquire a language by transferring language to the right hemisphere. Adults are not able to perform the same feat as easily. Once again it is obvious that there is a critical period for first language learning.
Recent studies have shown that sign languages are full languages, they have full lexical ranges, complex syntax, and complex systems of signs, whose relationship to referents is as arbitrary as is that of other languages , even when they seem most iconic. As hearing children develop their oral languages , deaf children have their own languages and they can develop these languages as their needs demand. A noticeable example of sign language is the American Sign Language ASL . ASL is a sign language of the American deaf people who have no ability to use the oral language . This language has a developed syntax and vocabulary which serve the needs of its 'speakers' . ASL is a clear evidence of the idea of universality of the faculty of language being within the human brain . Every human being has this faculty when he is born , he develops this faculty through exposing to the outsider environment . Thus , living in Britain , a child will acquire English and hence will speak English , unlike a child who lives in Iraq and who acquires Arabic . Thus , the faculty of language is universal among all human beings, wherever they are born. It is activated and motivated by the environment in which the child grows up . The same is applicable to sign language , a deaf child who has never heard a spoken word , and who lives with deaf parents , and plays with deaf children , will acquire a language which enables him to communicate with other deaf people . This language contains a set of signals which are agreed upon by the 'speech' community of the child and which are arranged by some rules which are systematic . What differentiates such a language from an oral language is that it is never spoken while the latter is spoken .
In a word , sign language is acquired in the same way oral language is . It is the faculty of language which is inherited within the human's brain . This faculty is activated with no consideration to whether the child is able to hear or not . Thus , Chomskian's universality is applicable to sign language as it is to oral language because it is proved that a deaf child can acquire sign language within the critical age and , then , he can develop this language as his needs demand . Sign language has its own grammar which is agreed upon by the members of the society who are using it . So , it is clear that what is applicable to oral languages , concerning the ideas of Chomsky , is applicable to the language of the deaf ,i.e. sign language .
Refrences
• Aitchison , Jean (1999). Linguistics . (5th edt) . USA , NTC/Contemporary Publishing.
• Fromkin , Victoria . (2003) . An Introduction to Language.
(7th edt.) . USA . Heinle , Thomson and the Thomson Logo Press.
• Yule , George . (1996) . The Study of Language . (2nd edt.) .Cambridge , Cambridge University Press .
This is a useful article showing that the ideas of Noam Chomsky concerning language acquistion can be applicable not to oral languages only , but also they are applicable to sign languages . Read it and tell me your opinions , because it is me who wrote the article .
A Sign language is a language which uses manual communication, body language and lip patterns instead of sounds to convey meaning. Its users simultaneously combine hand shapes, movements of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to express thier thoughts. Sign languages are commonly developed in deaf communities, which can include interpreters , friends and families of deaf people as well as people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Wherever communities of deaf people exist, sign languages are developed. In fact, their complex grammars are markedly different from the grammars of spoken languages. Hundreds of sign languages are in use around the world and are at the cores of local deaf cultures.
It has been proved that sign languages undergo the same stages of development as oral languges do. " Deaf children who are exposed to sign languages learn it in stages parrellel to those of hearing children learning oral languages"( Fromkin,2003:20). Yet, deaf people can never understand sopken languages as normal people can even if they were taught to speak intelligibily . Thus , sign language is a proof of the idea saying that all humans are born with the ability to acquire language , whether it is oral or signal . It is activated according to the society in which the deaf child grows up . So, "If those deaf children grow up in American homes , they will typically acquire American Sign Language "(Yule,1996:202).
Sign language , as vocal language , is acquired within the critical age ." Deaf children with deaf parents start signing earlier , and quickly become more proficient than deaf children with hearing fathers "(Aitchison,1999:130). Thus , it would be a hard task to teach a child sign language after the age of 4 or 5 years . Evidence from neurology is also suggestive .Many children who have suffered damage to the left hemisphere are able to acquire a language by transferring language to the right hemisphere. Adults are not able to perform the same feat as easily. Once again it is obvious that there is a critical period for first language learning.
Recent studies have shown that sign languages are full languages, they have full lexical ranges, complex syntax, and complex systems of signs, whose relationship to referents is as arbitrary as is that of other languages , even when they seem most iconic. As hearing children develop their oral languages , deaf children have their own languages and they can develop these languages as their needs demand. A noticeable example of sign language is the American Sign Language ASL . ASL is a sign language of the American deaf people who have no ability to use the oral language . This language has a developed syntax and vocabulary which serve the needs of its 'speakers' . ASL is a clear evidence of the idea of universality of the faculty of language being within the human brain . Every human being has this faculty when he is born , he develops this faculty through exposing to the outsider environment . Thus , living in Britain , a child will acquire English and hence will speak English , unlike a child who lives in Iraq and who acquires Arabic . Thus , the faculty of language is universal among all human beings, wherever they are born. It is activated and motivated by the environment in which the child grows up . The same is applicable to sign language , a deaf child who has never heard a spoken word , and who lives with deaf parents , and plays with deaf children , will acquire a language which enables him to communicate with other deaf people . This language contains a set of signals which are agreed upon by the 'speech' community of the child and which are arranged by some rules which are systematic . What differentiates such a language from an oral language is that it is never spoken while the latter is spoken .
In a word , sign language is acquired in the same way oral language is . It is the faculty of language which is inherited within the human's brain . This faculty is activated with no consideration to whether the child is able to hear or not . Thus , Chomskian's universality is applicable to sign language as it is to oral language because it is proved that a deaf child can acquire sign language within the critical age and , then , he can develop this language as his needs demand . Sign language has its own grammar which is agreed upon by the members of the society who are using it . So , it is clear that what is applicable to oral languages , concerning the ideas of Chomsky , is applicable to the language of the deaf ,i.e. sign language .
Refrences
• Aitchison , Jean (1999). Linguistics . (5th edt) . USA , NTC/Contemporary Publishing.
• Fromkin , Victoria . (2003) . An Introduction to Language.
(7th edt.) . USA . Heinle , Thomson and the Thomson Logo Press.
• Yule , George . (1996) . The Study of Language . (2nd edt.) .Cambridge , Cambridge University Press .