How the Hands Cue the Mind: The Effects of Iconicity and Enactment on Sign Language Acquisition

How the Hands Cue the Mind: The Effects of Iconicity and Enactment on Sign Language Acquisition Laura M. Morett (morett@pitt.edu) Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh 210 S. Bouquet Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 USA Abstract embodied cognition posit that representations of language are inherently perceptual, and are encoded and retrieved via the body’s sensorimotor system (Barsalou, 1999). 4Thus, these theories would predict that enacting signs—especially those that are iconic—allows sign language learners to tap directly into these perceptually-based representations, thereby facilitating their recall and comprehension. If the motor system does contribute significantly to sign language acquisition, learners should recall iconic signs better than non-iconic signs due to the isomorphism between the visuospatial properties of motor representations of signs and their referents. Iconicity is a powerful cue to symbolic meaning. However, it is unclear from previous research whether language learners benefit from iconicity. Prior research indicates that the motor system supports language acquisition, suggesting that iconicity expressed via this modality may be particularly salient. The present study investigates the effects of iconicity and enactment on the acquisition of American Sign Language by hearing adults. The results reveal that enactment enhances sign learning in general, but fail to show that iconic signs are learned more effectively than non-iconic signs. As such, they indicate that the motor system—but not iconicity—plays a key role in sign language acquisition. Iconicity and Language Acquisition Keywords: Second language acquisition, sign language, mental imagery, embodied cognition. Introduction Sign language is the only type of natural language that is comprehended and produced exclusively in the visuospatial modality. Given that the visuospatial modality allows for greater isomorphism between symbols and their referents than the auditory modality, it follows that sign language should be more iconic than spoken language, and there is evidence that this is indeed the case (McNeill, 2005; O’Brien, 1999). Thus, although hearing speakers are accustomed to processing language in the auditory modality, they may be able to take advantage of this iconicity to expedite their learning of sign language. If iconicity plays a pivotal role in sign language acquisition, learners should be able to acquire sign languages more quickly and effectively than they learn spoken languages. Moreover, learners should be able to learn iconic signs and expressions more efficiently than lexical items that are not iconic. Unlike spoken language, which is articulated primarily with the mouth and vocal tract, sign language is articulated with the hands and body. As such, another factor that may play an integral role in the acquisition of sign language is the engagement of the motor system. Theories of Meaningful hand movements, including gestures and signs, vary on the basis of several qualities, including conventionalization, semiosis, and relationship to speech. In order to show how different types of hand movements relate to one another on the basis of these characteristics, Adam Kendon and David McNeill (1992) developed a continuum, which is illustrated below in Figure 1. At one extreme of the continuum lies sign language, which is highly conventionalized, segmented and analytic, and occurs in lieu of speech. At the opposite extreme lies gesticulation, which is unconventionalized, global and synthetic, and occurs concurrently with speech. Although iconicity is not plotted on this continuum, it can be inferred that, due to its global and synthetic (i.e., holistic) nature, gesticulation is highly iconic, whereas sign is the least iconic of the hand motions. It is important to note that iconicity varies within and between sign languages. Much of this variation can be explained by ontogenetic development. There is evidence that the home sign of individual deaf children as well as pidgin sign languages created by communities of deaf children are generally more iconic than conventionalized sign languages (Kendon, 1980; Senghas, Kita, & Ozyurek, 2004). Moreover, even within highly-conventionalized sign Figure 1: Kendon’s continuum, as characterized by McNeill (2005).