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Two strong hypotheses bridge between typological studies of the frequency of different marking patterns and psychological studies of how these patterns are acquired. The word-order hypothesis proposes that order is a cognitively-salient cue, available to children before linguistic cues and thus appears early in language emergence. The agent-first hypothesis proposes that agents hold a privileged role in event representations and shape emerging languages. A recent study of Lengua de Señas Nicaragüense (LSN) found no preference for consistent or agent-initial word order. Instead LSN-signers used other linguistic devices. We looked at homesigners, each representing a different origin point for language emergence. We found no support for the agent-first hypothesis: most homesigners produced more patient-initial responses than agent-initial responses. We found no support for the word-order hypothesis: only one homesigner produced the same order on more than half the trials. Instead homesigners used a variety of other devices for marking participant roles.
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Pragmatic Usage and Event Representation in Nicaraguan Homesign Systems
Language plays a large role in our lives and influences many mental processes. But does every mental process require language? This dissertation investigates how language experience influences the development of thematic roles and pragmatic knowledge, specifically looking at deaf homesigners who have limited to no exposure to spoken or signed language and innovate their own homesign language systems in order to communicate with the people around them. I address methodological questions such as Will these novel tasks work with homesigners? as well as theoretical questions such as Is language required to develop concepts of agents and patients? and Can pragmatic knowledge exist without exposure to typical discourse? I used novel tasks (i.e., referential communication pragmatics tasks and an eye tracking paradigm) in order to investigate homesigners’ pragmatic knowledge and event representation. I found that homesigners will often use pragmatic knowledge and produce necessary relevant information (e.g., modifiers with nouns, or agents and patients with actions). Regarding event representation, homesigners did not appear to use systematic conventionalized strategies (e.g., word order, use of space) to distinguish between agents and patients, although I did observe some preliminary strategies. I also did not find evidence that homesigners used nonlinguistic agent-patient concepts on the eye tracking task. The findings of this dissertation suggest that basic pragmatic knowledge may not require full access to language, but concepts of agent and patient may require more language to fully develop than previously expected. In the absence of early language exposure, lifelong communicative experience may help homesigners to develop pragmatic skills, which then might guide later linguistic structure formation.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2116180
- PAR ID:
- 10663215
- Publisher / Repository:
- UConn Electronic Theses & Dissertations Collection
- Date Published:
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- homesign sign language language emergence pragmatics thematic roles agent patient modifiers eye tracking
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Institution:
- University of Connecticut
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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