ABSTRACT

Parent input during interaction with young children varies across languages and contexts with regard to the relative number of words from different lexical categories, particularly nouns and verbs. Previous work has focused on spoken language input. Little is known about the lexical composition of parent input in American Sign Language (ASL). We investigated parent input in ASL in a sample of deaf mothers interacting with their young deaf children (n = 7) in a free play setting. Children ranged in age from 21 to 39 months (M = 31 months). A 20-minute portion of each interaction was transcribed and coded for a range of linguistic features in maternal input including utterance length, sign types and tokens, proportion of nouns and verbs, and functions of points. We found evidence for a significant verb bias in maternal input; mothers produced more verb tokens and unique verb types than any other word class. Verbs were produced more than twice as often as nouns (36% vs 17% of all tokens) and appeared in a higher proportion of utterances than nouns (57% vs. 31% of all utterances). Points were frequent in the input, often serving as pronouns replacing common or proper nouns. Maternal noun and verb tokens increased in frequency with child age and vocabulary. These findings provide an initial step in understanding the lexical properties of maternal input during free play interactions in ASL.

摘要

与来自不同词汇类别的单词（尤其是名词和动词）的相对数量有关，在与幼儿互动期间，家长的输入会因语言和上下文而异。先前的工作集中在口头语言输入上。关于美国手语（ASL）中父母输入的词法构成知之甚少。我们在一个自由玩耍的环境中，对一个聋哑母亲与他们的年幼聋哑儿童（n = 7）互动的样本进行了调查，调查了ASL中的父母投入。儿童的年龄从21到39个月不等（M = 31个月）。每次互动的20分钟部分都被转录并编码为母亲输入中的一系列语言特征，包括话语长度，符号类型和标记，名词和动词的比例以及点的功能。我们发现证据表明母亲的输入中存在明显的动词偏向。母亲产生的动词记号和独特的动词类型比任何其他词类都要多。动词的产生频率是名词的两倍多（36％vs.所有标记的17％），并且出现频率高于名词（57％vs. 31％）。输入中的点很频繁，经常用作代词，代替普通或专有名词。产妇名词和动词标记的出现频率随着儿童年龄和词汇的增加而增加。这些发现为理解ASL中自由发挥互动过程中母体输入的词汇特性提供了一个初步的步骤。通常作为代名词代替普通或专有名词。产妇名词和动词标记的出现频率随着儿童年龄和词汇的增加而增加。这些发现为理解ASL中自由发挥互动过程中母体输入的词汇特性提供了一个初步的步骤。通常作为代名词代替普通或专有名词。产妇名词和动词标记的出现频率随着儿童年龄和词汇的增加而增加。这些发现为理解ASL中自由发挥互动过程中母体输入的词汇特性提供了一个初步的步骤。