Rice University
Linguistics Colloquium

Feb. 14, 2008
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Negation in American Home Sign Systems

Amy Franklin, Rice University

Abstract

Deaf children whose hearing losses are so severe that they cannot acquire spoken language and whose hearing parents have not exposed them to sign language develop gesture systems to communicate despite their lack of a language model. These gesture systems, known as home signs, have many of the properties of natural language (Goldin-Meadow, 2003). The current project maps the developmental trajectory of negation in home signing children.