Sign-speech bilingualism: A pathway to untangling bilingualism effects
Research has shown that both languages of a bilingual remain activated irrespective of which is
of them is being used (Kroll et al. 2008). This finding has two implications: (a) an increased
cognitive load associated with constant inhibition of one of the languages, and related to the
choice-making between competing stimuli (Bialystok 2008); and (b) a possibility of language
interaction. Effects related to one but not the other of these implications have been proven
difficult to untangle. We demonstrate that examination of linguistic patterns of sign-speech
(bimodal) bilinguals allows this untangling to take place.
The question of how/why language interaction occurs is largely subsumed by the study of
cross-linguistic influence, which we argued in previous work to be deducible from a Minimalist
view of code-switching (1). Yet, not all possible cases of (1) may be observed. E.g., it has been
suggested that in the domain of argument omission, the two characteristics of bilingualism
interact, one trumping the other: irrespective of whether null arguments (NAs) could ‘transfer’
into the non-NA language, the increase in the cognitive load due to inhibition forces overt
elements to appear in anaphora resolution tasks (Sorace 2011). Consequently, bilinguals
acquiring a null- and a non-NA argument language simultaneously do not exhibit the relevant
language-synthesis effects. This view suggests that a language combination which allows coarticulation—i.e. dispenses with/‘relaxes’ the otherwise necessary inhibition—may also allow
for observing language-synthesis in the domain of argument omission. ASL-English is such
combination (Emmorey et al. 2008, Lillo-Martin et al. 2009).
In monolingual English, null subjects (NSs) of an embedded clause are ungrammatical
and non-existent in the corpus data (Valian 1991). In ASL, embedded NSs are allowed (cf. LilloMartin 1991) (2). A corpus-based investigation has shown that ASL-English bilinguals also
allow embedded NSs in their English (Author 2011) up to age 5 (3). Here, we test this finding
experimentally.
A grammaticality judgment test was administered to seven balanced bimodal bilingual
children (ages 6;02-7;4, mean=6;6) with normal or above verbal/nonverbal intelligence scores:
five typically hearing (KODAs) and two congenitally deaf with cochlear implants (CIs) (received
at young ages). Consistent two-language input was provided from the early age: ASL by Deaf
parents and English by hearing family members and teachers.
In the study, two toys performed some action; the experimenter spoke for one of the toys.
A cat described the situation, omitting subjects in 50% of the test trials. Children were asked to
judge and correct the cat’s sentences (4). 50% of fillers were also ungrammatical in adult
English (agreement/tense errors). The children’s performance was compared with a monolingual
English (age 6;02) and a unimodal multilingual (English/Croatian/Taiwanese, age 8;06) controls.
Results indicate that overall, both KODAs and CIs perform differently from controls:
they (i) are less accurate in rejecting ungrammatical sentences in English (5); (ii) accept
significantly more embedded NSs than the controls (6) (z-= 4.37, p>.0003).
The data support previous conclusions: ASL-English bilinguals exhibit effects languageinteraction effects where unimodal bilinguals do not. Thus, they offer an opportunity for
studying various bilingualism effects independently.
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Sign-speech bilingualism: A pathway to untangling bilingualism effects
(1) Figure 1. Bilingual language synthesis
(2) ARTHUR WORRY Ø WILL FALL ‘Arthur is worried
that he will fall’
(3) TOM: He is fast (talking about a car)
Inv: &=imit:car
TOM: Ø have to build this
TOM: It says Ø have to build a king of the king horsies
(4) Context: Arthur is riding a skateboard; Max is riding a
motorcycle.
Exp: Arthur’s like: “Wow, that’s a steep hill!”
Cat (target): Arthur is worried that Ø fall.
Exp: Did that cat say it right?
(5)
(6)
Correct rejection of embedded NS
Overall accuracy
100 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 94 94 82 100 100 88 53 53 Participants ordered by age at testing 100 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 100 100 100 89 89 78 44 22 Participants ordered by age at testing Selected References
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