Native Deaf and Hearing Second Language (M2L2) Signers’ Lexical
Structure: Fingerspelling
Language: English
Abstract
Motivation: Recently there has been an explosion on the focus of how Deaf
individuals learn to read in terms of codes and underlying mechanisms. One emerging
theory is that Deaf readers recruit fingerspelling codes to aid in overcoming a degraded
phoneme-grapheme mapping between their L1 and their L2 (see: Emmorey et al.,
2011ab, Haptonstall-Kykaza & Schick 2007, Padden 1991, Hirsh-Pasek 1987). This
study attempts to answer a more basic question in regards to fingerspelling: can
fingerspelling contain semantic and form information in order to aid in bridging the gap
between modalities to facilitate literacy? Another question is how might this differ across
Deaf native signers and hearing M2L2 signers. More specifically, does access to a soundbased phonological system interact with the retrieval of a fingerspelling code? It is
hypothesized that just as phonology and orthography create a facilitated interaction (Van
Orden & Kloos, 2005), phonology and fingerspelling might create facilitation in M2L2
signers as well.
Method: 8 hearing subjects learning American Sign Language and 2 native Deaf
signers were tested. A lexical decision task was performed, where the participants were
asked to respond to a target video as to whether it was a word or pseudoword as quickly
as possible. These videos were fingerspelled by a native signer, which had prime-target
pairs that were in semantics or form. In each condition there were 16 related primetarget pairs, 16 unrelated prime-target pairs, and 32 pseudoword prime-target pairs.
Response times and accuracy were measured. Refer to Appendix for screenshots of the
stimuli.
Results: The Deaf signers produced semantic priming effects where the mean
RT for the related pairs (2063 ms) was faster than that of the unrelated pairs (2562 ms).
The Deaf signers also produced form priming effects where the mean RT for the related
pairs (2324 ms) was faster than that of the unrelated pairs (2771 ms).
M2L2 signers also produced semantic priming effects where the mean RT for the
related pairs (3577 ms) was faster than that of the unrelated pairs (3860 ms). They were
also significantly (p= 0.004) less erroneous. The L2 learners did not produce form
effects where the mean RT for the related pairs (3930 ms) was faster than that of the
unrelated pairs (3847 ms) and there were significantly (p = 0.048) more errors in the
related pair type (24) than in the unrelated pair type (12).
Conclusions: Fingerspelling contains both semantic and form information. Deaf
participants can use both semantic and form during lexical access. However, L2 learners
can utilize semantic but are inhibited when their L1 phonology overlaps with their L2
form. This study has provided a foundation to study interactions between handshape,
phonology, and orthography cross-linguistically, cross-modally, and across populations
within the lexicon to better understand how a Deaf reader might access words while
reading.
References:
Emmorey, Karen, McCullough, Steve, Petrich, Jennifer, & Weisberg, Jill (2011a).
“Mapping word reading circuitry for skilled deaf readers.” Poster, Laboratory for
Language & Cognitive Neuroscience, San Diego State University
Emmorey, Karen and Petrich, Jennifer (2011b). “Processing Orthographic Structure:
Associations Between Print and Fingerspelling.” Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf
Education, 17:2, 194-204.
Haptonstall-Kykaza and Schick (2007) “The Transition from Fingerspelling to English
Print: Facilitating English Decoding.” Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 12:2,
172-182.
Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy (1987). “The Metalinguistics of Fingerspelling: An Alternate Way to
Increase Reading Vocabulary in Congenitally Deaf Readers.” Reading Research
Quarterly, 22, 4, 455-474.
Padden, Carol A. (1991). “The acquisition of fingerspelling by deaf children.” In P. Siple
& S. Fischer (eds.), Theoretical issues in sign language research, psychology, pp. 191210. Chicago: The University Chicago Press.
Van Orden, Guy C. and Heidi Kloos. "The Question of Phonology and Reading." The
Science of Reading: A Handbook. Snowling, Margaret J. and Charles Hulme (eds).
Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
Appendix 1
Prime: LOAD Target: PLEA