James.Womack@f14.n300.z1.fidonet.org (James Womack) (04/11/91)
Index Number: 14731
[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]
My argument as to why deaf children separate bound morphemes is that I
think they see them as two separate signs. It is not because of
teacher input. The students see the bound morphemes and the root words
as two units of meaning. The mind seems to process them individually
as two signs rather than one unit.
The research that I conducted supported this idea ( S. Supalla, 1986
S. Supalla & Newort forthcoming). I did some research in a mainstream
program with about 30 elementary aged (10-12) deaf students who had
never been exposed to ASL. They had only been exposed to SEE 2. They
had never had any contact with ASL or other natural sign language.
When I signed with them, I used a pidgin rather than ASL because I
didn't want them to copy me. When I asked the teacher about how the
students signed, she responded that she didn't feel they signed SEE 2.
As I watched them, I found that they weren't signing SEE 2 but they
were not signing ASL either.
I found it interesting that the deaf children didn't understand what
it meant to be deaf. When the teacher introduced me as deaf like them,
I discovered that they didn't know what that meant. For example, one
boy said that his parents were deaf. As it turned out, he thought
anyone who knew sign was "deaf."
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