Abstract:

Attitudes towards deaf people and sign languages (SLs) have changed for the better over the last decades, recognizing the latter as fully fledged linguistic systems, on par with spoken languages (Stokoe, 1978, Emmorey, 2002, Liddel, 2003). As a result the number of learners of SLs as a second language (L2), has risen dramatically. On the other hand there is still an urgent need for revisiting SL teaching and assessment methods based on research findings. Recent theoretical linguistics bibliography (Baker, Bogaerde, Pfau & Schermer, 2016) reports on the spatial-visual modality of SLs versus the oral-aural modality of spoken languages, which involves the process of expressing linguistic meaning through movement of hands, face and torso in the three-dimensional space in front of the signer, and perceiving through vision, thus making use of non-linear mechanisms with multiple physical articulators active at any given instance. In this light the learner of a SL is not only a learner of a different language (L2), but of a different modality (M2) of linguistic expression and perception, hence a different learning path needs to be explored for L2-M2 teaching and learning methodologies, compared these developed for spoken language teaching and learning. The present paper proposes an error analysis model for SLs as L2-M2, based on experimental research on linguistic productions of young adult M2-L2 non-native users of Greek Sign Language (GSL) in the upper-intermediate levels, estimated as CEFR-L proficiency level B. Through the analysis and grouping of their errors compared to linguistic productions of a group of native GSL users the present paper aims to shorten the gap between the two linguistic modalities as systems that reflect different cultural viewpoints, and shift the focus from the physiology of deafness, or of learning another language, to the added value of the visual-mental representation of concepts into meaning in a linguistic way.

Participants’ linguistic productions were video-recorded signing after two different types of stimuli,
a) a still picture-story and
b) an animated 1-minute video. Their errors were grouped and coded using the psycholinguistic tool ELAN. SPSS v.23 and Excel were used for the statistical analysis of results.

Our findings deal with relations between learning levels (B1 or B2), number,frequency, grammatical type of errors, type of stimulus preceding production and relations between productions and demographics. Research findings highlighted areas of no particular problems of expression and others where native users would either use a visual language mechanism correctly, or would use an altogether different one. The most persistent type of errors was found to be depiction and lexico-semantic, pointing to the particular 3-dimensional modality of SLs and to semantic differences between signed vs spoken language of the same geographical area and suggest that different stimuli tend to trigger different types of errors.

References:
[1] Baker, A., Bogaerde, B., Pfau, R. & Schermer, G. (2016). The linguistics of sign languages: an introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
[2] Emmorey, K. (2002). Language, cognition, and the brain: Insights from sign language research. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
[3] Liddell, S. K. (2003). Grammar, Gesture and Meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
Stokoe, W. (1978). Sign Language Structure. (Revised Ed.). Linstok: Silver Spring.

Keywords:

Sign language learning, sign language applied linguistics.