TY - JOUR
T1 - Temporal reference marking in narrative and expository text written by deaf children and adults
T2 - A bimodal bilingual perspective
AU - Van Beijsterveldt, Liesbeth M.
AU - Van Hell, Janet G.
N1 - Funding Information:
* The first author was supported by grant 015-001-036 from the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (NWO), awarded to the second author. This research was also supported by a grant from the Mgr. van Overbeekstichting, awarded to the second author. We thank Judith Stofmeel for her help in collecting the data, and we thank anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. The database on hearing participants in this study constitutes part of a large-scale cross-linguistic project supported by a grant from the Spencer Foundation, Chicago, Developing Literacy in Different Languages and Different Contexts (Ruth Berman PI; Verhoeven co-PI on Dutch part).
PY - 2012/1
Y1 - 2012/1
N2 - This study examined temporal reference marking in texts written by Dutch deaf children and adults who differed in sign language proficiency. The temporal reference marking systems in Dutch and Sign Language of the Netherlands (SLN) differ substantially, with Dutch having a wide range of lexical and morphological markers of temporal reference, and SLN relying on lexical marking of temporal reference. The results showed that the youngest proficient signers had difficulties with tense morphology: they avoided the marked past tense form in narratives and omitted verbs, but showed no problems with lexical marking of temporal reference. In the older proficient signing writers, verb morphology emerged, and in proficient signing adults temporal reference marking resembled that of the hearing adults. This study shows that in order to gain more insight into deaf people's writing, it is important to adopt a bilingual perspective and take variations in sign language proficiency into account.
AB - This study examined temporal reference marking in texts written by Dutch deaf children and adults who differed in sign language proficiency. The temporal reference marking systems in Dutch and Sign Language of the Netherlands (SLN) differ substantially, with Dutch having a wide range of lexical and morphological markers of temporal reference, and SLN relying on lexical marking of temporal reference. The results showed that the youngest proficient signers had difficulties with tense morphology: they avoided the marked past tense form in narratives and omitted verbs, but showed no problems with lexical marking of temporal reference. In the older proficient signing writers, verb morphology emerged, and in proficient signing adults temporal reference marking resembled that of the hearing adults. This study shows that in order to gain more insight into deaf people's writing, it is important to adopt a bilingual perspective and take variations in sign language proficiency into account.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/82955174724
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/82955174724#tab=citedBy
U2 - 10.1017/S1366728910000465
DO - 10.1017/S1366728910000465
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:82955174724
SN - 1366-7289
VL - 15
SP - 128
EP - 144
JO - Bilingualism
JF - Bilingualism
IS - 1
ER -