SPONTANEOUS SIGN SYSTEMS CREATED BY DEAF-CHILDREN IN 2 CULTURES

Deaf children whose access to usable conventional linguistic input, si gned or spoken, is severely limited nevertheless use gesture to commun icate(1-3). These gestures resemble natural language in that they are structured at the level both of sentence(4) and of word(5). Although t he inclination Ito use gesture maybe traceable to the fact that the de af children's]tearing parents, like all speakers, gesture as they talk (6), the children themselves are responsible for introducing language- like structure into their gestures(7). We have explored the robustness of this phenomenon by observing deaf children of hearing parents in t wo cultures, an American and a Chinese culture, that differ in their c hild-rearing practices(8-12) and in the way gesture is used in relatio n to speech(13). The spontaneous sign systems developed in these cultu res shared a number of structural similarities: patterned production a nd deletion of semantic elements ii the surface structure of a sentenc e; patterned ordering of those elements within the sentence; and conca tenation of propositions within a sentence. These striking similaritie s offer critical empirical input towards resolving the ongoing debate about the 'innateness' of language in human infants(14-16).