Dr. Amy Franklin
Gesture as a Language: Home Sign Systems
In most instances children effortless acquire the language around them.
Children born to English speaking parents will learn to speak English, Urdu
speaking families will teach their children Urdu and children born to
families will learn to sign (even if they are hearing!). However, 90%
of deaf children are born to hearing families. In these circumstances,
the children do not have access to the language spoken around them.
When the parents of deaf children chose to educate their children in
an oral method emphasizing speech, the children use gestures to communicate.
The gesture systems the children develop are called home sign systems.
These home sign systems have many of the features of full languages
including a stable word order, a system of negation, and morphology.
Projects involving this data include exploring what language-like
features are or are not present in the children’s systems as well
as looking at the gestures the parents produce in conjunction with
speech as a form of input. One possible project is looking at the
use headshakes in Turkish home signing families – Turkish
communities use both a side-to-side headshake and a quick
tilt back (sort of like a nod). It would be interesting to
determine how homesigners use these two forms and the degree
to which their use fits with the hearing community. Other projects
include looking at question development and the role of input.
Students interested in linguistics, sign languages and/or
language development would be appropriate for these projects.
Language Acquisition in Cochlear Implanted Childrens
As with the other projects in the Franklin lab, this study looks
at language use and development considering what happens in both speech
and gesture. This project focuses on language development in deaf children
who have regained the ability to hear with a cochlear implant. For
these children, language acquisition begins not at birth (or before)
but when the audiologist turns on their cochlear implant. What this
means from a language development standpoint is that these cochlear
implanted kids may be learning language at an older age, with different
input, and potentially a prior system of gesture for communication.
Working with a pediatric cochlear implant surgeon, Dana Suskind at
the University of Chicago, we are looking at what happens between
parents and children when a kid shifts from being deaf to hearing.
Our studies include looking at changes in the parents’ behavior and
language as well as the language development of the children.
Students involved with this project may chose to code/analyze data
from linguistic areas or social behaviors. Some parental surveys
are also being collected. Students interested in linguistics,
language development or child development may be interested in these projects.
Gesture and Speech
Gesture and speech have a complicated relationship in which information in one channel
is not always present in the other. Sometimes the information is exactly the same (saying
yes while nodding) and sometimes the information is contradictory (think about people who
say ‘yes this seat is available’ while shaking their head no). Using gesture as a window
into people’s underlying mental representation of a scene, we are able to see more of what
a person is thinking than just the words they speak. I have several ongoing projects
that capitalize on what additional information gesture may provide. The first study
explores how small children learn to tell stories. Looking at 18 month olds to 3 year
olds, gesture provides the first picture of what a child is attempting to talk about
but may lack the words to say. A second project explores how gesture may give away
what people are trying to hide. Here we look at how gesture and speech diverge when
people are lying. Finally, gestures like the words we speak are influenced by our
language and culture. In collaboration with researchers at the University of Chicago
and University of Arizona, we are exploring cross-cultural and cross-linguistic
differences in gesturing. Any of these projects would provide opportunities for
students interested in linguistics, psychology or child development.
Contact Information
|
