PSY274H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Manually Coded English, Arbitrariness, Principle Of Compositionality
Document Summary
In the last half of the 20th century, sign languages were not very well understood and were marginalized as rudimentary, primitive, unstructured, pantomime-like communication systems. Two hallmarks of human languages are the related notions of compositionality and duality of patterning, whereby linguistic messages are formed by contributing elements in a structured way. Sign languages have syntax (sentence structure) and morphology. The grammars of all long-standing sign languages appear to be composed of the same underlying components and organizational principles as the grammars of spoken languages. Deaf children who are exposed to a sign language early in their life will acquire it automatically and without explicit instruction. In expressive capacity sign language and spoken language simply do not differ. Sign languages are just as efficient at communicating information as spoken languages. Words in spoken language do not resemble in any way what they mean. Human capacity for language does not depend on speech, but rather is modality-independent.
