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Acquiring a first language in adolescence: the case of basic word order in American Sign Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2018

Qi CHENG  and
Rachel I. MAYBERRY
Qi CHENG*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of California San Diego, USA
Rachel I. MAYBERRY
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of California San Diego, USA
*
*Corresponding author: Qi Cheng, Department of Linguistics, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gillman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0108. E-mail: qcheng@ucsd.edu
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Abstract

Previous studies suggest that age of acquisition affects the outcomes of learning, especially at the morphosyntactic level. Unknown is how syntactic development is affected by increased cognitive maturity and delayed language onset. The current paper studied the early syntactic development of adolescent first language learners by examining word order patterns in American Sign Language (ASL). ASL uses a basic Subject–Verb–Object order, but also employs multiple word order variations. Child learners produce variable word order at the initial stage of acquisition, but later primarily produce canonical word order. We asked whether adolescent first language learners acquire ASL word order in a fashion parallel to child learners. We analyzed word order preference in spontaneous language samples from four adolescent L1 learners collected longitudinally from 12 months to six years of ASL exposure. Our results suggest that adolescent L1 learners go through stages similar to child native learners, although this process also appears to be prolonged.

Keywords

American Sign Languageword orderage of acquisitionlanguage deprivation
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , March 2019 , pp. 214 - 240
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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