Brentari Diane, Ergin Rabia, Senghas Ann, Coppola Marie
Department of Linguistics, and the co-director of the Center for Gesture, Sign, and Language at the University of Chicago.
independent researcher who has been working on the CTSL community for more than ten years.
Sign Lang Stud. 2024 Fall;25(1):8-52. doi: 10.1353/sls.2024.a950716.
In this article, we compare two languages that are approximately fifty years old-Central Taurus Sign Language (CTSL) and Lengua de Señas Nicaragüense (LSN)-by employing two studies. Study 1 analyzes emerging , specifically the size and complexity of the handshape inventories of the two languages, and Study 2 analyzes emerging in complex predicates, specifically for agency and number. In both studies, we compare data across three groups of CTSL signers and three groups of Nicaraguan signers. The results of both studies show variation across languages and cohorts; the patterns of variation, we argue, are grounded in factors of community size, contact among signers, and the sociocultural makeup of the community, factors that are used in large typological studies on spoken languages. The main findings are as follows: (1) The patterns observed across the Nicaraguan groups display more variation than those across the CTSL groups and (2) The variation among Nicaraguan groups demonstrate that homesigns exhibit a wide range of forms that were pared down in the first decade of LSN and developed and reorganized during LSN's second decade. We suggest that a more precise and nuanced manner of describing sign language communities that considers the following is needed: (1) the degree to which the cultural practices are shared; (2) the size of the deaf community; (3) the ratio of deaf signers to hearing L2 signers; and (4) the rate that new child learners are added. We also call for more comparative work on new sign languages that will assist in determining the effects and interactions of factors of interest to researchers of signed and spoken languages.
在本文中，我们通过两项研究对两种大约有五十年历史的语言——中金牛座手语（CTSL）和尼加拉瓜手语（LSN）进行了比较。研究1分析了新兴特征，具体而言是这两种语言手势库的规模和复杂性，研究2分析了复杂谓语中的新兴特征，特别是关于施事和数量方面的。在这两项研究中，我们比较了三组CTSL手语使用者和三组尼加拉瓜手语使用者的数据。两项研究的结果都显示了不同语言和群体之间的差异；我们认为，这些差异模式基于社区规模、手语使用者之间的交流以及社区的社会文化构成等因素，而这些因素也用于对口语的大型类型学研究。主要研究结果如下：（1）在尼加拉瓜群体中观察到的模式比在CTSL群体中的模式表现出更多的差异；（2）尼加拉瓜群体之间的差异表明，家庭手语呈现出广泛的形式，这些形式在LSN发展的第一个十年中被简化，并在LSN的第二个十年中得到发展和重新组织。我们建议需要一种更精确、细致入微的方式来描述手语社区，这种方式应考虑以下几点：（1）文化实践的共享程度；（2）聋人社区的规模；（3）聋人手语使用者与听力正常的第二语言手语使用者的比例；（4）新儿童学习者的增加速度。我们还呼吁对手语进行更多的比较研究，这将有助于确定对手语和口语研究者感兴趣的因素的影响和相互作用。
