Does knowledge of language transfer across language modalities? For example, can speakers who have had no sign language experience spontaneously project grammatical principles of English to American Sign Language (ASL) "signs"? To address this question, here, we explore a grammatical illusion. Using spoken language, we first show that a…

This qualitative study delves into the innovative Bilingual Grammar Curriculum. The curriculum aims to enhance bilingualism and linguistic skills among deaf students by integrating American Sign Language instruction and written language grammatical structures. The researcher conducted in-depth interviews with 12 experienced educators of the deaf…

Signing systems that attempted to represent spoken language via manual signs -- some invented, and some borrowed from natural sign languages -- have historically been used in classrooms with deaf children. However, despite decades of research and use of these systems in the classroom, there is little evidence supporting their educational…

Factors influencing native and nonnative signers' syntactic judgment ability in American Sign Language (ASL) were explored for 421 deaf students aged 7;6-18;5. Predictors for syntactic knowledge were chronological age, age of entering a school for the deaf, gender, and additional learning disabilities. Mixed-effects linear modeling analysis…

Why should second and foreign language teachers tune into instructed second language acquisition (ISLA)? There are many reasons, several of which have already been addressed in this forum. This paper examines one important benefit of keeping abreast of the field, namely, the opportunity for classroom instructors to extract pedagogical insights…

Past studies have identified the function of SELF as a canonical reflexive pronoun in American Sign Language (ASL). This study examines the use of SELF with fifteen hours of naturalistic ASL discourse framed by the cognitive-functionalist approach. The analysis reveals that the category of SELF is expressed in three phonological forms and exhibits…

This dissertation examines six different types of noun phrases that commonly occur in American Sign Language. These noun phrases all include at least a head noun and one of four signs resembling a pronoun. Videos of natural ASL discourses are gathered, multiple instances of the six types of noun phrases are identified, and their meanings are…

Children typically acquire their native language naturally and spontaneously at a very young age. The emergence of early grammar can be predicted from children's vocabulary size and composition (Bates et al., 1994; Bates, Bretherton & Snyder, 1998; Bates & Goodman, 1997). One central question in language research is understanding what…

The American Sign Language construction commonly known as "role-shift" (referred to afterward as Constructed Action) superficially resembles mimic forms, however unlike mime, Constructed Action is a type of depicting construction in ASL discourse (Roy 1989). The signer may use eye gaze, head shift, facial expression, stylistic variation,…

This article presents an experimental investigation of kinematics of verb sign production in American Sign Language (ASL) using motion capture data. The results confirm that event structure differences in the meaning of the verbs are reflected in the kinematic formation: for example, in the telic verbs (throw, hit), the end-point of the event is…

Over the past 30-years linguists have been witnessing the birth and evolution of a language, Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua (ISN), in Nicaragua, and have initiated and documented the syntax and grammar of this new language. Research is only beginning to emerge on the implications of ISN on the education of deaf/hard of hearing children in Nicaragua.…

This article focuses on the syntactic level of the grammar of Saudi Arabian Sign Language by exploring some word orders that occur in personal narratives in the language. Word order is one of the main ways in which languages indicate the main syntactic roles of subjects, verbs, and objects; others are verbal agreement and nominal case morphology.…

The purpose of this study was to determine if the frequent use of a targeted, computer software grammar instruction program, used as an individualized classroom activity, would influence the comprehension of morphosyntax structures (determiners, tense, and complementizers) in deaf/hard-of-hearing (DHH) participants who use American Sign Language…

Handshape works differently in nouns versus a class of verbs in American Sign Language (ASL) and thus can serve as a cue to distinguish between these two word classes. Handshapes representing characteristics of the object itself ("object" handshapes) and handshapes representing how the object is handled ("handling" handshapes)…

Hearing native signers often learn sign language as their first language and acquire features that are characteristic of sign languages but are not present in equivalent ways in English (e.g., grammatical facial expressions and the structured use of space for setting up tokens and surrogates). Previous research has indicated that bimodal…