Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject American Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,3, University of Bonn, language: English, abstract: Giving a first impression of how the system of sign language works, this term paper starts off with the formal and grammatical structure of American Sign Language. Subsequently, a comparison with the structure of British Sign Language gives insights into similarities and differences between those two sign languages. In its main part, the term paper focuses on the acquisition of sign language in the deaf child. The development of “speech” is presented chronologically and compared to the linguistic development of hearing children. The vocabulary of hearing and deaf children is compared and different scientific opinions on the issue are being discussed. The last chapter tries to answer the central questions of this term paper: How does the acquisition of sign language differ from language acquisition of hearing children? Are deaf children therefore handicapped? And if yes, to what extent?

How children acquire a sign language and the stages of sign language development are extremely important topics in sign linguistics and deaf education, with studies in this field enabling assessment of an individual child’s communicative skills in comparison to others. In order to do research in this area it is important to use the right methodological tools. The contributions to this volume address issues covering the basics of doing sign acquisition research, the use of assessment tools, problems of transcription, analyzing narratives and carrying out interaction studies. It serves as an ideal reference source for any researcher or student of sign languages who is planning to do such work. This volume was originally published as a Special Issue of Sign Language & Linguistics 8:1/2 (2005)

This is the second volume in the series 'Trends in language acquisition research'. The unusual combination in one volume of reports on various different sign languages in acquisition makes this book quite unique.

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Other, grade: 1,7, Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald (Anglistik/Amerikanistik), language: English, abstract: Language is the most important device in means of communication between human beings all over the world. We use it to ask something, to complain or explain and to tell what we think about things that come into our mind. But what if everything around you is silent? If you are deaf. You need to take advantage of one of your other organs, the eyes. Take advantage of facial expressions and gesticulation performed by others. In this term paper we have a look on language acquisition by deaf children in comparison with the acquisition by hearing children. First of all I will give information about deafness in general followed by an introduction to sign language. I will concentrate on American Sign Language (ASL) because of the small amount of information available about the other kinds of sign language. Within the comparison we need to differentiate between children growing up with hearing or deaf parents because of the impact the social environment has on language acquisition. This is also relevant to state because only 10% of the deaf children actually have deaf parents. Further I would like to introduce bilingualism in connection with deafness. In my conclusion I will state why studies on the subject of language acquisition by deaf children are important to understand language in his whole complexity.

The use of sign language has a long history. Indeed, humans' first languages may have been expressed through sign. Sign languages have been found around the world, even in communities without access to formal education. In addition to serving as a primary means of communication for Deaf communities, sign languages have become one of hearing students' most popular choices for second-language study. Sign languages are now accepted as complex and complete languages that are the linguistic equals of spoken languages. Sign-language research is a relatively young field, having begun fewer than 50 years ago. Since then, interest in the field has blossomed and research has become much more rigorous as demand for empirically verifiable results have increased. In the same way that cross-linguistic research has led to a better understanding of how language affects development, cross-modal research has led to a better understanding of how language is acquired. It has also provided valuable evidence on the cognitive and social development of both deaf and hearing children, excellent theoretical insights into how the human brain acquires and structures sign and spoken languages, and important information on how to promote the development of deaf children. This volume brings together the leading scholars on the acquisition and development of sign languages to present the latest theory and research on these topics. They address theoretical as well as applied questions and provide cogent summaries of what is known about early gestural development, interactive processes adapted to visual communication, linguisic structures, modality effects, and semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic development in sign. Along with its companion volume, Advances in the Spoken Language Development of Deaf and Hard-of Hearing Children, this book will provide a deep and broad picture about what is known about deaf children's language development in a variety of situations and contexts. From this base of information, progress in research and its application will accelerate, and barriers to deaf children's full participation in the world around them will continue to be overcome.

The authors provide cogent summaries of what is known about early gestural development, interactive processes adapted to visual communication, & the processes of semantic, syntactic, & pragmatic development in sign.

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,7, Ruhr-University of Bochum (English Department), course: Child Language Acquisition, language: English, abstract: Language acquisition has been studied for a long time, but it is not completely understood yet. Charles Darwin may have been the first to examine the development of a first language and he assumed that humans have an instinct to learn language. Later on this idea was replaced by the notion that the acquisition of language is a sociocultural phenomenon. In the early 1960s the linguist Chomsky presented a new explanation: he said that children learn a language in the same way, for example, as they learn to walk upright, because it is part of their nature and not because it is a form of their culture. Thus language acquisition has a natural course of development.1If this theory is absolutely right or not is still being argued but shall not be the prior topic of this paper. This work shall examine what happens if children are hearing impaired. Are they able to follow the usual process of language acquisition or not. In order to assess the consequences of language acquisition affected by physical disability, one has to consider a ‘general’ process of language development first. There are various factors which have an influence on a child’s process of language acquisition. How large the impact of a specific factor is varies from theory to theory. Nevertheless, linguists agree that the “grammatical structure, the possible innate language acquisition mechanisms or biases as well as the biological or cognitive maturational factors and the nature of the language input to the child and the social context in which it takes place” influence a child’s language development. No matter which factor has the most impressive impact on a child’s speech progress, by the age of four years he or she usually has a good command of the basic vocabulary, syntax and phonology. This language proficiency is found in all healthy children all over the world.