Language specificity in lexical organization: evidence from deaf signers' lexical organization of American Sign Language and English.

Full Abstract

A sign decision task, in which deaf signers made a decision about the number of hands required to form a particular sign of American Sign Language (ASL), revealed significant facilitation by repetition among signs that share a base morpheme. A lexical decision task on English words revealed facilitation by repetition among words that share a base morpheme in both English and ASL, but not among those that share a base morpheme in ASL only. This outcome occurred for both deaf and hearing subjects. The results are interpreted as evidence that the morphological principles of lexical organization observed in ASL do not extend to the organization of English for skilled deaf readers.

Author information

Author/s: Hanson, V L (VL); Feldman, L B (LB);

Grants: HD-01994 (Agency:NICHD NIH HHS) ; NS-18010 (Agency:NINDS NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Journal: Memory & cognition (Mem Cognit), published in UNITED STATES. (Language: eng)

Reference: 1989-May; vol 17 (issue 3) : pp 292-301

Dates: Created 1989/06/23; Completed 1989/06/23; Revised 2007/11/14;

PMID: 2725266, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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