Structural biases that children bring to language learning: A cross-cultural look at gestural input to homesign.

ABSTRACT: Linguistic input has an immediate effect on child language, making it difficult to discern whatever biases children may bring to language-learning. To discover these biases, we turn to deaf children who cannot acquire spoken language and are not exposed to sign language. These children nevertheless produce gestures, called homesigns, which have structural properties found in natural language. We ask whether these properties can be traced to gestures produced by hearing speakers in Nicaragua, a gesture-rich culture, and in the USA, a culture where speakers rarely gesture without speech. We studied 7 homesigning children and hearing family members in Nicaragua, and 4 in the USA. As expected, family members produced more gestures without speech, and longer gesture strings, in Nicaragua than i

SUBMITTER: Flaherty M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8058290 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature