The challenges of viewpoint-taking when learning a sign language

Data from the ‘frog story’ in British Sign Language

Bibliographic Data

ID11655829
AuthorsSannah Gulamani (Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre, University College London, UK), Cynthia Marshall (0000-0003-2405-1999, Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre, and Institute of Education, University College London, UK, corresponding author), Gareth Morgan (0000-0002-9495-1274, City, University of London), Gary Morgan (Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre, University College London, and Division of Language and Communication Science, City University of London, UK)
Year2020
Volume38
Issue1
Pages55-87
Publication date2020-02-28
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSecond language Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0267-6583 • E-ISSN: 1477-0326
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0267658320906855
OpenAlexW3008618393
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited37

Little is known about how hearing adults learn sign languages. Our objective in this study was to investigate how learners of British Sign Language (BSL) produce narratives, and we focused in particular on viewpoint-taking. Twenty-three intermediate-level learners of BSL and 10 deaf native/early signers produced a narrative in BSL using the wordless picture book Frog, where are you? (Mayer, 1969). We selected specific episodes from part of the book that provided rich opportunities for shifting between different characters and taking on different viewpoints. We coded for details of story content, the frequency with which different viewpoints were used and how long those viewpoints were used for, and the numbers of articulators that were used simultaneously. We found that even though learners’ and deaf signers’ narratives did not differ in overall duration, learners’ narratives had less content. Learners used character viewpoint less frequently than deaf signers. Although learners spent just as long as deaf signers in character viewpoint, they spent longer than deaf signers in observer viewpoint. Together, these findings suggest that character viewpoint was harder than observer viewpoint for learners. Furthermore, learners were less skilled than deaf signers in using multiple articulators simultaneously. We conclude that challenges for learners of sign include taking character viewpoint when narrating a story and encoding information across multiple articulators simultaneously

Art · Character (mathematics · Deaf education · Linguistics · Narrative · Sign (mathematics · Sign language · Viewpoints · Visual arts · Hand Gesture Recognition Systems · Hearing Impairment and Communication · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Psychology

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access