Young bimodal bilingual narrative acquisition: Overt lexical sequence marking in ASL
video-retellings – ASL
The literature shows that spoken (Hickmann, 1995; Peterson & McCabe, 1983) and signed
(Morgan, 2006; Reilly, 2006) language narrative development is protracted, emerging around
preschool age and continuing to develop until age 10. However, narrative development by
bimodal bilinguals is limited to one study by Morgan (2000) tracking referential devices in two
young children (ages 7;01 & 09;10) in British Sign Language (BSL) and British English. Child
narratives offer a unique context for studying changes in function of specific forms throughout
acquisition; where old forms take on new functions or new forms taking on old functions (Slobin,
1973). Bilingual narrative development studies of young bimodals may provide insight to the
robust interaction between two langauges in two modalities.
This study contributes to the burgeoning bimodal bilingual acquisition field by examining two
lexical sequence markers (AND and THEN, signed equivalents of English and and then) in the
signed narratives of four young bimodal bilingual children acquiring ASL and English (ages
range 5;11-6:09). The acquisition of the coordinating conjunction and in spoken child narratives
has been studied in Hewbrew (Berman, 1996), French (Jisa, 1985), and English (Peterson &
McCabe, 1988). At about 5-7 years and sometimes beyond, and is overused, as an overt marker
of sequentiality (as seen example 1). Finally, the connector becomes adult-like and is only used
ocassionally to link clauses, since events in adult narratives are inherently sequential.
This study shows the overuse of lexical markers to indicate sequentiality by all four bimodal
bilingual children in their ASL narratives in a video-retelling task. Although the literature lexical
marking (NOW & NOW-THAT) in ASL on this area is limited to a lecture setting (Roy, 2001), it
seems reasonable to assume that Deaf adults frame sequential events much like hearing adults,
noting that it is not modality specific. Moreover, preliminary analysis of an adult ASL narrative
elicited using the same video confirms that the signer did not use the overt lexical markers that
the children did. This is not surprising, as AND THEN are typically considered English
borrowings. Instead, he marked sequential events through prosodic means, repetition of events
through different depictive perspectives. We may expect the observed adult sequential devices to
develop later, and indeed some of those aspects do appear the child renditions.
Table 1 displays the most frequent lexical markers of sequentality produced by the children. Each
child seems to prefer one lexical marker over another with GIA & BEN preferring THEN (see
figure 1), while VAL prefers AND (see figure 2). TOM prefers his own idiosyncratic form of
BUT-G followed by the indexical sign, IX(event) seen in figure 3. For an example of both AND
and THEN in use to connect two sequence of events, see example 2. A casual observer might
attribute the prevelance of AND THEN to English influence and the underdevelopment of ASL.
However, a more sophisiticated analysis reveals a systematic use of these connectors functioning
as sequence markers. This follows the same description of the changing functions of specific
forms posited by Slobin.
500 Words
Young bimodal bilingual narrative acquisition: Overt lexical sequence marking in ASL
video-retellings – ASL
Table 1: Most Frequent Lexical Markers of Sequentiality
Participant
Age
AND
THEN
AND THEN
Total
BEN
06;09
1
10
0
11
GIA
06;04
4
12
2
19
THEN AND
TOM
06;09
3
2
7
(BUT-G)
BUT-G
12
IX(event) n=5;
IX(event) BUT-G n=2
VAL
Adult Control
05;11
8
4
1
13
0
0
0
0
(1) Ten year old boy, from Berman, 2009, p. 360: There’s a boy who has a pet frog and a pet dog, and one
night after he goes to bed, the frog sneaks out. And he wakes up and its gone
(2) GIA: AND THEN FS(a) BUG STILL FS(on) FS(it). AND THEN DV(path-dwn) FAST DV(fast-pathdwn)
Figure 1: BEN, THEN
Figure 2: GIA, AND
Figure 3: TOM, BUT-G IX(event)
Selected References
Berman, R.A. (2009). Beyond the sentence: Language development in narrative contexts. In E. Bavin, ed. Handbook of Child
Language. Cambridge University Press, 354-375.
Morgan, G. (2006). The development of narrative Skills in British Sign Language In, B. Schick; M. Marschark & P. Spencer (eds).
Advances in Sign Language Development in Deaf Children. Oxford University Press.
Morgan, G. (2000). Discourse Cohesion in Sign and Speech. International Journal of Bilingualism, 4, 279-300.
Reilly, J. (2006). Development of Nonmanual Morphology. In: Schick, B., Marschark, M, & Spencer, P.E. (eds.), Advances in Sign
Language Development by Deaf Children. New York: Oxford University Press, 262-290.
Roy C. Features of discourse in an American Sign Language lecture. In: C. Lucas (Ed.) The Sociolinguistics of the Deaf communitiy.
San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1989: 231–252.
Slobin, D. (1973). Cognitive requisites for the development of grammar. In, C.A. Ferguson & D. Slobin (eds). Studies of child
language development. New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston. 175-208.