A study of the relationship between American sign language and English literacy

This article presents the findings of a study of the relationship between American Sign Language (ASL) skills and English literacy among 160 deaf children. Using a specially designed test of ASL to determine three levels of ASL ability, we found that deaf children who attained the higher two levels significantly outperformed children in the lowest ASL ability level in English literacy, regardless of age and IQ. Furthermore, although deaf children with deaf mothers outperformed deaf children of hearing mothers in both ASL and English literacy, when ASL level was held constant, there was no difference between these two groups, except in the lowest level of ASL ability. The implication of this research is straightforward and powerful: Deaf children's learning of English appears to benefit from the acquisition of even a moderate fluency in ASL.     

第二语言习得与小学英语教育

本分析了小学英语教育中存在的师资素质不高、教学课时少、以及教学方式单一的现状，运用第二语言习得理论，提出了加强师资培训、创设习得环境、丰富教学活动等对策，力图提高我国小学英语教学水平。     

Developmental milestones: sign language acquisition and motor development

The sign language and motor development of 11 young children of deaf parents were studied across a 16-month period. The subjects showed accelerated early language development producing, on the average, their first recognizable sign at 8.5 months, their tenth sign at 13.2 months, and their first sign combination at 17.0 months. In contrast, children learning to speak typically do not attain the equivalent spoken language milestones until 2-3 months later. The structure and content of the subjects' 50-sign vocabularies closely resembled those for children at the same stage in previously published studies of spoken language acquisition. The pattern of synchrony between motor and language development previously reported by investigators of children learning to speak was found not to apply to the population of the present study: most of the subjects learning to sign did not slow down in their rate of language acquisition after achieving a new motor milestone, but rather continued to show a gradual increase in the size of their sign language vocabularies.     

二语习得与语料库英语教学

外语教学改革应遵循语言习得的规律,基于语料库的英语教学能促进学生LAD的发展实现语言的内化生成。     

省略结构的儿童语言获得研究

本文通过实验研究儿童省略结构的获得。本文所讨论的省略结构指的是"也是"结构、"也+情态动词"结构以及空宾结构。这三种结构在汉语生成语法有关的讨论中常常被笼统地称作VP省略结构。本文的研究发现,前两种结构的句法语义表现和英语等语言中的VP省略结构比较相似,因为其解读遵守平行原则,即要求省略部分与先行部分的句法和语义对等;而空宾结构的表现则不怎么像VP省略结构,因为其解读可以不受平行原则的制约。支持这一分析的证据来自我们的实验研究,实验结果显示4岁儿童和成人解读"也是"和"也+情态动词"结构遵守平行原则,而解读空宾结构不受该原则限制。该项研究还发现3岁儿童还不具备区分这三种结构的能力。本文认为这三种结构的解读涉及句法和语义的跨模组运算,而跨模组运算能力的成熟要受到年龄因素的限制,这一研究结果为语法发育论提供了证据。     

English language arts and the economy: discursive constructions of two fields

This article presents discourse analyses of two teachers’ statements about the economic payoff of studying English in the United States’ high schools. Specifically, the article examines how English teachers construe reading as an economic asset that can be developed in schools and used on the job. Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of field and capital are mobilized to explore how teachers (a) construe and relate the fields of English and the economy and (b) define the resources operative in and across both fields. The present study uses methods of discourse analysis to develop detailed pictures of teachers’ theories of the economic dimensions of English (as described in original interviews). The teachers’ views are read against widely circulating arguments about the economic value of English. The teachers involved in the study construe basic skills reading as being of less economic value than practices of reading driven by curiosity and enjoyment.     

中国英语学习者习得英语虚拟位移构式的实证研究

本文把各类英语虚拟位移表达式视为一种具有特定语用语义的语法构式,并从语言结构层面系统比较了英、汉虚拟位移构式的异同点。在此基础上,我们考察了不同英语水平的中国英语学习者习得英语虚拟位移构式的特点及潜在的习得困难。80名中国英语学习者以及15名英语母语者一起参加了本项实证研究。研究发现:(1)中国英语学习者按难易度顺序先后习得英语虚拟位移构式中的"移动主体"、"移动路径"、"移动方式"以及"移动时间"这四个虚拟位移构式建构要素的句法、语义特征。(2)英语水平的高低在很大程度上影响了受试习得英语虚拟位移的情况,也即英语水平愈高,习得情况愈好。(3)即使高水平的中国英语学习者在习得英语虚拟位移时仍存在一定困难,远未能达到母语者水平;(4)某些英语虚拟位移构式的次类型(如假设位移)对英语母语者也构成一定的挑战。     

屈折词素在教学中的习得过程研究

本文论述了屈折词素在基础英语中的重要性,教学中影响屈折词素习得的因素,屈折词素可通过教学过程而习得.     

克拉申二语习得理论在大学英语听力教学中的应用

我国的大学英语听力教学一直存在着诸多问题,教材缺乏时代性,听力课缺乏互动,学生学的聋子英语,哑巴英语。本文从克拉申的输入假设与情感过滤假设理论出发,联系听力课堂教学实践,加大语言输入,降低情感过滤从而提高大学英语听力。     

母语对二语习得在英语教学方面的影响

英语作为一门第二外语在习得的过程当中会受到诸多因素的影响,其中母语是一个重要的影响因子。本文从母语对二语习得的影响入手,探讨其影响的具体方面及今后英语教学的应对策略。     

英语思维中的职业期待——英语语言习得自创生机制基础分析

文章阐述了英语思维的构成要素中的自创生要素,指出此种自创生机制的两个基础,即语法、文化和行为规则系统及期望理论,通过分析职业期望在自创生机制各种表现形式中的作用体现,提出英语思维自创生基础是职业期望;将英语思维立足于职业思维的基石上,反驳了自我创生机制的客观不可塑学说,指出在大学英语教学中不可盲目引入交际法教学,应当引入职业期望概念,呼唤教师为学生英语学习动机缺乏提供解决方案.     

The development and psychometric properties of the American sign language proficiency assessment (ASL-PA)

We describe the procedures for constructing an instrument designed to evaluate children's proficiency in American Sign Language (ASL). The American Sign Language Proficiency Assessment (ASL-PA) is a much-needed tool that potentially could be used by researchers, language specialists, and qualified school personnel. A half-hour ASL sample is collected on video from a target child (between ages 6 and 12) across three separate discourse settings and is later analyzed and scored by an assessor who is highly proficient in ASL. After the child's language sample is scored, he or she can be assigned an ASL proficiency rating of Level 1, 2, or 3. At this phase in its development, substantial evidence of reliability and validity has been obtained for the ASL-PA using a sample of 80 profoundly deaf children (ages 6-12) of varying ASL skill levels. The article first explains the item development and administration of the ASL-PA instrument, then describes the empirical item analysis, standard setting procedures, and evidence of reliability and validity. The ASL-PA is a promising instrument for assessing elementary school-age children's ASL proficiency. Plans for further development are also discussed.     

英美文学作品中英语语言的应用研究

如果将文学作品比作一幅精妙的画,那么语言就是构成这幅画的每一个笔触,没有这些笔触也就不会有精妙的画,所以必须要加强对英美文学作品中的语言应用的研究。     

Enhanced facial discrimination: effects of experience with American sign language

On-line comprehension of American Sign Language (ASL) requires rapid discrimination of linguistic facial expressions. We hypothesized that ASL signers' experience discriminating linguistic facial expressions might lead to enhanced performance for discriminating among different faces. Five experiments are reported that investigate signers' and non-signers' ability to discriminate human faces photographed under different conditions of orientation and lighting (the Benton Test of Facial Recognition). The results showed that deaf signers performed significantly better than hearing non-signers. Hearing native signers (born to deaf parents) also performed better than hearing nonsigners, suggesting that the enhanced performance of deaf signers is linked to experience with ASL rather than to auditory deprivation. Deaf signers who acquired ASL in early adulthood did not differ from native signers, which suggests that there is no 'critical period' during which signers must be exposed to ASL in order to exhibit enhanced face discrimination abilities. When the faces were inverted, signing and nonsigning groups did not differ in performance. This pattern of results suggests that experience with sign language affects mechanisms specific to face processing and does not produce a general enhancement of visual discrimination. Finally, a similar pattern of results was found with signing and nonsigning children, 6-9 years old. Overall, the results suggest that the brain mechanisms responsible for face processing are somewhat plastic and can be affected by experience. We discuss implications of these results for the relation between language and cognition.     

The psychotherapist and the sign language interpreter

Specialized psychotherapy for deaf people in the Dutch and Western European mental health systems is still a rather young specialism. A key policy principle in Dutch mental health care for the deaf is that they should receive treatment in the language most accessible to them, which is usually Dutch Sign Language (Nederlandse Gebarentaal or NGT). Although psychotherapists for the deaf are trained to use sign language, situations will always arise in which a sign language interpreter is needed. Most psychotherapists have the opinion that working with a sign language interpreter in therapy sessions can be a valuable alternative option but also see it as a second-best solution because of its impact on the therapeutic process. This paper describes our years of collaborationship as a therapist and a sign language interpreter. If this collaborationship is optimal, it can generate a certain "therapeutic power" in the therapy sessions. Achieving this depends largely on the interplay between the therapist and the interpreter, which in our case is the result of literature research and our experiences during the last 17 years. We analyze this special collaborative relationship, which has several dimensions and recurrent themes like, the role conception of the interpreter, situational interpreting, organizing the interpretation setting, or managing therapeutic phenomena during therapy sessions.