Blind children can learn language too. Jim Bromer On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Mike Tintner <[email protected]>wrote:
> The road to language learning is iconicNovember 13th, 2012 in > Psychology & Psychiatry > > *Languages are highly complex systems and yet most children seem to > acquire language easily, even in the absence of formal instruction. New > research on young children's use of British Sign Language (BSL) sheds light > on one of the mechanisms - iconicity - that may endow children with this > amazing ability.* > > For spoken and written language, the arbitrary relationship between a > word's form – how it sounds or how it looks on paper – and its meaning is a > particularly challenging feature of language acquisition. But one of the > first things people notice about sign languages is that signs often > represent aspects of meaning in their form. For example, in BSL the sign > EAT involves bringing the hand to the mouth just as you would if you were > bringing food to the mouth to eat it. > > In fact, a high proportion of signs across the world's sign languages are > similarly iconic, connecting human experience to linguistic form. > > Robin Thompson and colleagues David Vison, Bencie Woll, and Gabriella > Vigliocco at the Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL) at > University College London in the United Kingdom wanted to examine whether > this kind of iconicity might provide a key to understanding how children > come to link words to their meaning. > > Their findings are published in *Psychological Science*, a journal of the > Association for Psychological Science. > > The researchers looked at data from 31 deaf children who were being raised > in deaf BSL signing families in the United Kingdom. Parents indicated the > number of words understood and produced by their children between the ages > of 8 and 30 months. The researchers decided to focus on 89 specific signs, > examining children's familiarity with the signs as well as the iconicity > and complexity of the signs. > > The findings reveal that younger (11-20 months) and older (21-30 months) > children comprehended and produced more BSL signs that were iconic than > those that were less iconic. And the benefit of iconicity seemed to be > greater for the older children. Importantly, this relationship did not seem > to depend on how familiar, complex or concrete the words were. > > Together, these findings suggest that iconicity could play an important > role in language acquisition. > > Thompson and colleagues hypothesize that iconic links between our > perceptual-motor experience of the world and the form of a sign may provide > an imitation-based mechanism that supports early sign acquisition. These > iconic links highlight motor and perceptual similarity between actions and > signs such as DRINK, which is produced by tipping a curved hand to the > mouth and represents the action of holding a cup and drinking from it. > > The researchers emphasize that these results can also be applied to spoken > languages, in which gestures, tone of voice, inflection, and face-to-face > communication can help make the link between words and their meanings less > arbitrary. > > "We suggest that iconicity provides scaffolding – a middle-ground – to > bridge the "great divide" between linguistic form and bodily experience for > both sign language and spoken language learners," says Thompson. > > Provided by Association for Psychological Science > > ** > > "The road to language learning is iconic." November 13th, 2012. > http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-road-language-iconic.html > *AGI* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> > <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/10561250-470149cf> | > Modify<https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;>Your Subscription > <http://www.listbox.com> > ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
