Young Bimodal Bilingual Development of Referent Tracking in Signed Narratives Further Justification of Heritage Signer Status

• Published in: Sign language studies Vol. 18; no. 3; pp. 328 - 354
• Main Author: REYNOLDS, WANETTE
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington Gallaudet University Press 01.03.2018
• Subjects: American Sign Language; Bilingualism; Children; Code Switching (Language); Control Groups; Cultural heritage; Deafness; Discourse functions; Elementary School Students; Families & family life; Finger Spelling; Hearing Impairments; Heritage language; Language Acquisition; Language Dominance; Language instruction; Language Usage; Narratives; Native Language; Oral Language; Research methodology; Second Language Learning; Sign Language; Special Issue on Heritage Signers; Young Children; New Zealand
• ISSN: 0302-1475; 1533-6263; 1533-6263
• DOI: 10.1353/sls.2018.0006

A number of language acquisition patterns have been identified in the signing of a newly designated population of bimodal bilingual individuals—heritage signers. This article examines subject-referent tracking forms in the ASL (American Sign Language) narratives of six elementary-school-aged, native-signing, bimodal bilinguals made at different ages (5;02–6;09 and 6;07–8;02). These narratives are compared to those created by six Deaf counterparts (5;05–7;10) in a video-retelling task. The results show that, just as their Deaf peers, early bimodal bilinguals prefer nominal forms (for referent introduction and reintroduction) and null forms (for maintenance). However, the bimodal bilingual children increasingly diverge from their Deaf counterparts in the use of overt and fingerspelled forms. The increasing use of overt forms for maintenance and reintroduction is similar to patterns previously documented for heritage speakers, young unimodal bilinguals, and late bimodal bilinguals. Four of the six bimodal bilinguals showed an increased use of fingerspelled nominal forms for all discourse functions, yet these forms were rarely used by the Deaf children and instead were reserved for referent introduction. The greater prevalence of fingerspelled forms by the young bimodal bilinguals appears to resemble code switching, signaling both a shift in language dominance and an emergent literacy in their spoken language. The results suggest that early bimodal bilinguals are more similar to heritage speakers than to their Deaf-signing peers, providing further justification for reserving heritage signer status for Deaf-parented bimodal bilinguals who can hear.