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This first linguistic study of British Sign Language is written for
students of linguistics, for deaf and hearing sign language
researchers, for teachers and social workers for the deaf. The
author cross-refers to American Sign Language, which has usually
been more extensively studied by linguists, and compares the two
languages.
First published in 1984. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor &
Francis, an informa company.
This book presents the findings of a case study in bilingual
acquisition and explores their implications for theories of first-
and second-language acquisition. The authors focus on the emergence
of two languages - Spanish and English - during one child's second
year of life, and examine the process of language learning from the
perspectives of phonology, lexicon, syntax, and language choice.
The theoretical questions addressed by the authors include whether
phonological distinctions can be acquired on acoustic evidence
alone; whether lexical acquisition involves an avoidance of
synonymy (not necessarily, the authors suggest); whether all words
in early two-word utterances can be assigned to lexical categories;
and how early children are able to make appropriate language
choices. They also consider the implications of their research for
bilingual acquisition, including the questions of whether a
bilingual child has one or two linguistic systems; the criteria
which should be used in identifying one versus two systems; and the
most important determinants of language choice - the identity of
the interlocutor, for example, or the location and context of the
conversation? This is an original contribution to the field of
early bilingual acquisition and to theoretical work in language
acquisition. The authors' finely observed results and the
implications they draw from them will be of interest to those
working in linguistics, psychology, and related fields, both
theoretical and applied, concerned to understand the human ability
to acquire language and the evolution of a young child's mind.
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