Word
Association Issues:
Deaf
vs. Hearing Subjects and Signed vs. Spoken Language
By
Rebecca Orton
Psycholinguistics
Final Paper
Introduction
There
are four reactions to the question of whether people think differently or
not. I don’t mean different opinions on
a variety of issues. I mean the very act
of thinking itself. My reaction would
fall under the classification of being scared of the idea. “How can we ever communicate with people who
think differently?” (Lakoff, 1987, p. 306).
The second reaction is typified by the sentence “there should be a
universal language so we can minimize misunderstanding and conflicts.” (Lakoff,
1987, p. 306) Lakoff is trying to
demonstrate that language itself contributes to differences in thinking. Thinking and communicating in one language is
different than thinking and communicating in another language. The third reaction is generally a positive
reaction, showing appreciation for diversity.
For example “maybe I could learn to think differently, too, maybe it
would make my life richer and more interesting” (Lakoff, 1987, p. 306). The fourth reaction is that the idea that
people think differently is nonsense. These
people believe that “people are pretty much the same all around the world,
there may be difference here and there, but they don’t amount to very much”
(Lakoff, 1987, p. 306).
I dread
the day when we discover intelligent life other than our own and find out just
how different we think in comparison.
The fourth reaction may well be the predominant reaction among the human
population about the human species after such a discovery. To me, even small differences are important
if the differences are so unique that only a small segment of the population
has these differences, and these differences have a profound impact on the way
they think and interact with the world.
Small differences at the fundamental basic level of language
organization and thinking can affect increasing abstract layers of thought to
the point where people behave differently to the same situation.
One
fundamental and basic level of language organization is how words are organized
in the mind. Words are associated with
each other in different ways. According
to Reeves, Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff (1998, p. 168), there are several
different ways words are associated with each other. Some words are organized together because
they are opposite in meaning, for example, antonyms such as wet/dry and
dark/light. Some words have associated
words that complete a pair commonly used or understood as part of real life,
for example, salt/pepper and king/queen.
Words are most likely to be associated with other words within the same
grammatical class, for example, noun with noun (chair/table), verb with verb
(run/jump), and adjective with adjective (dark/light). Some words are associated with other words
because they are a subordinate or superordinate
class of those other words, for example, apple/fruit and
chair/furniture. Last and most
importantly, words are most likely to be associated by their meanings.
Incidentally,
perceptual similarity is not considered to be an organizational basis for word
associations for English. Long and thin
shapes are not categorized together, for example, needle/thread or needle/sew
rather than needle/nail or needle/poker (for the fireplace), both have long and
thin shapes. I believe that needle/pin
does show some perceptual similarity. In
addition, the classifier system in American Sign Language does seem to have
some basis on perceptual similarity. For
example, the number one handshape classifier is used to represent long and thin
shapes, most commonly a human.
According
to Reeves, Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff (1998, p. 168), “There is no reason in
principle why subjects in word associations tasks would not choose similar
sounding words (as in wheedle for needle), but they don’t.”
However,
I found, much to my surprise, that I have a phonological as well as a
semantically based organization of words that manifested itself when I took the
following word association test:
wet/bet, swift/stiff, petal/metal, apple/orange, shoot/hoot,
needle/poodle, salt/pepper, queen/king, chair/sofa, and dark/light. I did use semantically based word pairs
(salt/pepper and king/queen). I used
words that were the members of the same class (apple/orange, chair/sofa). However, most of my word associations were
not based on meaning, but on phonological similarity (wet/bet, swift/stiff,
petal/metal, shoot/hoot, and needle/poodle).
My whole psycholinguistics class noticed that my responses were
different from theirs. I was the only
deaf person in the class that took the word association test. The rest of the class that took the test was
hearing. The most obvious reason that
could be attributed to my fundamental difference was my deafness.
I
reasoned that since I am deaf, I needed to have a word organization based on
phonological similarity as well as semantic similarity. I could process words that I heard through my
hearing aid, and match them up with the visual lip-reading input that helped to
phonologically make the words distinctive enough to understand them. Most speech sounds are alike when heard with
only one-fifth of the normal frequency range of the human ear, which is what I
have. In addition, lip-reading adds
about thirty percent more clarity. The
necessity of perceiving words from two ineffective inputs would motivate a
phonological-semantically based system of word organization in order to
increase the effectiveness of language processing to the point where I could
understand what was being said, and thus interact with the world out there.
The
idea that this system of phonological-semantically based word organization that
I have developed in response to the need for survival in the hearing world is
the very system that makes me so unique, so different, is scary. In hopes of relieving my fears, I decided to
investigate the possibility that other deaf people have the same kind of
phonological-semantic lexical organization.
I also included hearing people in my research as a comparison group.
Subjects
I
selected three pools of subjects to cross-validate my data. One pool was strictly a hearing group of six subjects
with hand-written responses to a test that was already given in my
psycholinguistics class prior to my collecting their tests. The second pool was mixed group of 65 hearing
and deaf subjects with typed responses to an email survey. The third pool of six subjects signed their
responses back to me to a revised test that I signed to them. I wrote down the corresponding English
glosses for their signed responses, each sign at a time.
The six
subjects in my psycholinguistics class were not familiar with sign language in
general except for one subject who knew a high school teacher with a daughter
that is a student at Gallaudet University.
Their first sign language exposure was my interpreter for the class. However, it was clear that the subjects were
not strictly monolingual English speakers.
The
subjects of the email survey were from diverse backgrounds. I received responses from 65 subjects, but
not all responded with data that I could use.
36 subjects indicated that they were deaf, 17 responded that they were
hard of hearing. Some subjects indicated
both deaf and hard of hearing, and both responses were included in the counts
of deaf and hard of hearing totals. 17
subjects were hearing. These totals are
not meant to add up to the 65 total.
The numbers in this paper are only meant to determine which populations
are represented.
54
subjects were native US citizens, two were immigrants, and one subject
indicated dual citizenship in USA and Canada.
Other countries represented by the subjects were Canada – 3, Malaysia –
1, Austria – 1, Denmark – 1, and Switzerland – 1.
49
subjects spoke English fluently and 62 wrote English fluently. 39 subjects signed ASL (American Sign
Language) fluently. 31 fluently signed
PSE (Pidgin Signed English), otherwise known as contact sign or sign supported
speech. One subject signed SEE, Signing
Exact English, which is a manually coded English system in visual form.
Other
languages represented by subjects in the email sample are Spanish – 18, French
– 13, German – 9, Hebrew – 3, Russian – 3, Chinese – 2, Danish – 2, Gestuno
(International Sign Language) – 2, gestures – 2, Italian – 2, Italian Sign
Language (LIS) – 2, Malay – 2, New Zealand Sign Language – 2, Norwegian – 2,
Ancient Greek – 1, Arabic – 1, Austrian Sign Language – 1, Chinese Sign
Language – 1, Costa Rica Sign Language (LESCO) – 1, Danish Sign Language – 1,
Danish Tactile Sign Language (for deaf-blind people) – 1, French Sign Language
– 1, German Sign Language – 1, Hebrew Sign Language – 1, Japanese – 1, Latin –
1, Malay Sign Language – 1, Norwegian Sign Language – 1, Romanian Sign Language
– 1, Swedish – 1, Swedish Sign Language – 1, Swiss – 1, Vietnamese – 1, and
Yiddish – 1.
As
shown above, email survey results are from both hearing and deaf subjects,
monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual Americans and non-Americans
alike. However, only one subject, a deaf
woman from Austria, shows this same heavily influenced
phonological-semantically based system of word association that I have. Her word results were: wet/wet, swift/sweet, petal/penis,
apple/apricot, shoot/shit, needle/pinpoint, salt/pepper, queen/king,
chair/sofa, and dark/light. Clearly, the reason for this difference is not
deafness in general. I needed to analyze
in more depth additional background data of this Austrian subject to discover
whether or not there are other reasons for this difference.
The six
subjects for the signed ASL association test were from the same pool of
subjects as the email survey except for one deaf man fluent in ASL. Using the same subjects from the email pool
for the signed test pool might influence the signed test results because the
subjects were already aware that I had given them a similar test before. But because the signed test was in a
different modality (signed, not written) and I was looking for phonological
influences in that modality, giving a similar association test to the same
subjects was not a concern.
Methodology
I
collected six written word association tests from my psycholinguistics class. The test was typed with two columns and the
responses were hand-written. The written
test is included at the end of the paper in Appendix A.
I sent
out an email survey with the same test words organized in one column. The email survey is included at the end of
the paper in Appendix B. English
responses were in lower caps and ASL responses were in upper caps. For the most part, the email subjects were
able to follow directions, but for some, the data needed to be interpreted more
flexibly.
I
designed a similar test with American Sign Language (ASL) as the language
medium. I signed a similar list of words
to six subjects fluent in ASL. The
subjects signed back to me and I wrote down the English glosses that
represented their signs. Here I capitalize
the English glosses to represent the ASL signs, as is the custom within the
linguistics program at Gallaudet University.
The test list is: WET, FAST, LAW,
APPLE, SHOOT, SEW, SALT, QUEEN, CHAIR, and DARK. You can find this test list in Appendix C as
well.
As I
was getting email responses and analyzing them on the fly, I also sent an email
to the Austrian subject asking for more background information and she
responded before I finished collecting all my data.
Analysis
One of
the first things I thought of was to ask this Austrian subject some pertinent
questions to see if I could track down what was common to both of us and yet
unique compared to other people. I was
able to do a preliminary analysis based on her email reply because her responses
were very revealing.
The
first thing I noticed in her reply was that she had slightly better hearing in
her left ear than she did in her right, about 10 dB better. She is still a deaf person, but has some
residual hearing. I can hear in my left ear
better than in my right ear. I
immediately thought of the right ear advantage as mentioned by Dingwall (1998,
pp. 79-80). The right ear advantage
occurs when speech stimuli is presented at the same time to both ears. The left hemisphere gets inputs from the
right ear directly and from the left ear indirectly through the commissures
(neural tissue connecting the two hemispheres).
With me, my left hemisphere is getting one or two inputs, one directly
from my left ear and, supposedly, one indirectly from my left ear through the
commissures. I hear monaurally. In
binaural hearing, the neural pathways from the ears to the hemispheres on the
same sides are suppressed, but not on the contralateral sides. The contralateral neural pathways from the
ears to the opposite hemispheres are never suppressed. In monaural hearing, the neural pathways from
the ear to the hemisphere on the same side are not suppressed (Dingwall, 1998,
pp. 79-80). It is possible that a
difference in hearing in the better left ear for the Austrian subject could
have had an effect on which neural inputs her left hemisphere has. She has two hearing aids, but her left ear is
stronger. The suppression effects of
binaural hearing may not be as strong or applicable with a difference in hearing
between both ears. The Austrian subject
could, in effect, be hearing with the neural inputs of monaural hearing, like
me. However, a small difference such as
10 dB makes it seem unlikely.
The
left hemisphere is where most of the linguistic processing functions are
normally located (Dingwall, 1998, pp. 81-83).
The problem with assuming that linguistics functions are located in the
left hemisphere is that this may not be true of the Austrian subject and me. We show tendencies to be more ambidextrous. For example, I can write with my left hand
even though I normally write with my right.
The Austrian subject prefers to sign with her left hand as the dominant
hand even though she can sign with her right hand as the dominant hand. This suggests a more bilateralization of
language functions within our brains.
Being
deaf from birth may affect lateralization of language functions as well. Both the Austrian subject and I were born
deaf. According to Corina’s fMRI study
(1998, pp. 42-45), for written English stimuli, hearing native signers and
hearing non-signers showed the same pattern of left-hemisphere activation. Deaf native signers had fewer areas of left
hemisphere activation for written English stimuli. For ASL stimuli, hearing native signers and
deaf native signers showed the same bilateral pattern of activation, all the
left areas associated with language, plus many right areas. The hearing non-signers had no significant
activation. Deaf native signers had more
right areas activated than hearing native signers, which may be due to their
deafness.
The
next thing I thought of was that the right hemisphere was where creativity and
prosody originates from. According to
Dingwall (1998, p. 80), musical stimuli and visual-spatial stimuli are processed
better with the right hemisphere than with the left. Being a poet or an amateur musician would be
suggestive of a more bilateral distribution of language functions. However, professional musicians process music
through the left hemisphere rather than the right because of their technical
knowledge and analytical approach to music (Ortega, 2000, personal
communication). I like to write poetry and sing. The Austrian subject indicated that she liked
to write poetry when she was inspired.
She believes that she is creative when she wants to be as well. She can also talk.
Another
subject that I found both ASL and English phonological influence on his email
survey results is a famous deaf man that writes books about new and creative
words describing aspects of deaf culture.
His word associations were in ASL but reflected English associations as
well: wet/WATER, swift/FAST,
petal/PEDAL, apple/FRUIT, shoot/SHUCKS, needle/OUCH, salt/PEPPER, queen/KING,
chair/SIT, dark/BRIGHT.
Having
a creative bent may indeed explain why my word associations were so heavily
influenced by phonology instead of being purely semantic. Fortunately, there is a more plausible
explanation that was evident after I had collected all my data and analyzed the
results I received in more depth.
Results
Data Validation
I
looked at what kinds of semantic associations result from this new ASL
association test to see if they are similar to the kinds of word associations
found from the first test as discussed by Reeves, Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff
(1998, p. 168). I found that the
salt/pepper association pair was common among the results of all three methods
of testing. The written test had five
entries of the salt/pepper word pair.
The email survey had 24 English salt/pepper entries and four ASL
SALT/PEPPER entries. The signed data had
two entries of SALT/PEPPER. This
similarity of data across the three methods is assurance that the data is
indeed valid and analyzable.
I found
basic level, subordinate level and superordinate level categorical associations
among the results of all three methods except for the written test in the
basic/superordinate category. See Table
1 starting on next page. I also included
a count of how many entries were found if there were more than one entry for an
association pair. These associations are
not the same associations like with salt and pepper mentioned above, although
there are many association pairs that are common between English and ASL. This hypernymic/hyponymic/same membership
grouping is further reassurance that the data is valid and analyzable across
the three methods.
Table
1. Semantic associations by
hypernymity/hyponymity/same membership
Basic/superordinate
categorical pairs are: Signed
Data: APPLE/FOOD
SEW/C-R-A-F-T
(see note about P-E-A-C-H) Email
Data: apple/fruit
(English, 10 entries found) apple/FRUIT
(ASL, 3 entries found) Written
Data: None
found applicable |
Basic/subordinate
categorical pairs are: Signed
Data: CHAIR/HIGH
CHAIR (also included as phonological-semantic pair) Email
Data: chair/throne
(this entry was semantically influenced by previous word queen in the list) Written
Data: chair/throne
(Again, this entry was semantically influenced by the previous word queen in
the list) |
Same
categorical pairs are: Signed
Data: APPLE/P-E-A-C-H
(fingerspelled semantic association only, no phonetic association possible
within ASL) CHAIR/D-E-S-K
(see note about P-E-A-C-H above) Email
Data: apple/orange
(English, 3 entries found) apple/ORANGE
(ASL) apple/peach
(English, 2 entries found) apple/pear
(English, 2 entries found) chair/table
(English, 9 entries found) chair/desk
(English) chair/couch
(English) chair/sofa
(English) needle/pin
(English, 2 entries found. This
grouping has a visual similarity as well as a categorical similarity, both
needles and pins are long and thin objects. Perhaps an image schema of long
and thin objects was at work here in this word association.) petal/leaf
(English) petal/LEAF
(ASL) petal/stem
(English) Written
Data: needle/pin
(see note above about same entry) chair/table
(2 entries found) |
I also
found opposite association pairs and complementary association pairs among the
results of all three methods as shown in Tables 2 and 3, respectively. Again, these groupings are more evidence that
the data is valid and analyzable.
Table
2. Opposite pair associations
Signed
Data: FAST/SLOW LAW/O-U-T
LAW (This is also a phonological-semantically opposite pair. The sign LAW is common to both, with O-U-T
fingerspelled. The sign pair is
semantically related to each other.
For example, an outlaw breaks the law.) |
Email
Data: dark/BRIGHT
(ASL, 2 entries found, this entry is also an phonological-semantically
opposite pair. Only an orientation
change within the hands occurs.
Semantically, dark is the opposite of bright.) dark/bright
(English), dark/light
(English, 20 entries found), dark/LIGHT
(ASL 3 entries found) swift/slow
(English, 4 entries found) wet/dry
(English, 9 entries found) wet/DRY
(ASL) |
Written
Data: dark/light
(2 entries found) |
Table
3. Complementary pair associations
Signed
Data: DARK/SLEEP
DARK/NIGHT
SHOOT/KILL
(two entries found) LAW/BOOK
LAW/COP APPLE/PIE
APPLE/TREE
|
Email
Data: queen/king
(English, 23 entries found), queen/KING
(ASL, 2 entries found), dark/night
(English, 9 entries found), dark/NIGHT
(ASL) needle/thread
(English, 10 entries found) needle/THREAD
(ASL, 2 entries found) petal/flower
(English, 27 entries found) petal/FLOWER
(ASL, 6 entries found) petal/rose
(English, 3 entries found) petal/ROSE
(ASL, 2 entries found) shoot/gun
(English, 19 entries found) shoot/GUN
(ASL, 7 entries found) |
Written
Data: queen/king
(4 entries found) petal/flower
(3 entries found) petal/rose
shoot/gun
(4 entries found) |
Phonological-Influenced Data
Now
that I am convinced that the data is valid and worth analyzing, I looked for
any phonologically-semantically based associations regardless of modality. Please see Table 4 below. Again, as before, I included a count of how
many entries were found if there were more than one entry for an association
pair. Please note that all six ASL
subjects contributed to the data in the Signed Data section in Table 4. As is evident in Table 4, a lot of English
and ASL subjects contributed to the data in the Email Data section. Between four and five English subjects
contributed to the data in the Written Data section in Table 4.
Table
4. Phonological-Semantic pair
associations
Signed
Data: CHAIR/SIT
(two entries found, movement change only) CHAIR/HIGH
CHAIR (phonetically, one sign in common, also within basic
category/subordinate category) DARK/SAD
(movement and handshape change only) LAW/RULES
(handshape change only) SHOOT/HUNTING
(handshape change only) SHOOT/GUN
(two entries found, a change from a two-handed
to one-handed sign) WET/SEX
(This entry is a phonetic-semantic pair based
only on English rhyme, not a signed phonetic-semantic
pair even though this entry is
signed ASL data, the associations themselves appear
to be based on English phonology.) |
Email
Data: apple/apricot
(English, both words have initial syllables that sound the same
phonetically. The concept of apple is
in the same basic level category as the concept of apricot semantically.) chair/SIT
(ASL, 10 entries found, only a movement change would be involved phonetically
if chair was associated with the ASL sign CHAIR first and then associated
with the ASL sign SIT. The concepts of
chair and sit are semantically similar.
There was one entry where both the English word sit and the ASL sign
CHAIR were entered.) chair/SWING
(ASL, only a movement change would be involved phonetically if chair was
associated with the ASL sign CHAIR first and then associated with the ASL
sign SWING. The concept of swing is
within a subcategory of the concept of chair, which is a basic level item.) dark/dim
(English, both start with the same letter, and is semantically similar as
well) queen/KING
(ASL, 2 entries found, again, only a handshape change from a Q-handshape to a
K-handshape would be involved phonetically if queen was associated with the
ASL sign QUEEN first and then associated with the ASL sign KING. The concepts of queen and king are
semantically similar. There was one
entry where both the English word king and the ASL sign KING were entered.) queen/ROYALITY
(ASL, R-handshape, see note above about queen/KING) queen/PRINCE
(ASL, P-handshape, see note above about queen/KING) queen/PRINCESS
(ASL, only a handshape change to a P-handshape and an additional movement to
another similar location on the chest would be involved phonetically if queen
was associated with the ASL sign QUEEN first and then associated with the ASL
sign PRINCESS. The concepts of queen
and princess are semantically similar.)
salt/spice
(English, both words phonetically start with the same s sound and are
semantically similar as well.) shoot/GUN
(ASL, 7 entries found, again, only a weak hand drop and a movement change
would be involved phonetically if the English word shoot was associated with
the ASL sign SHOOT first and then associated with the ASL sign GUN. The concepts of shoot and gun are
semantically similar. There was one
entry where both the English word gun and the ASL sign GUN were entered.) shoot/shot
(English, this entry is a very good example of an English
phonological-semantic association, with only one phonetic change in the
vowel, similar to the more common ASL phonological-semantic entries found
above. There
may also be an orthographic-semantic association
as well since the letter o was dropped in the second word.) shoot/shit
(English slang, 2 entries found, both start with the same sh phonetic sound
and can be a semantic expression of disappointment. There is also an entry similar to this one,
shoot/SHIT in ASL. This entry could be a case of first the English word
phonetic-semantic associations of shoot/shit and then the semantic
association of the ASL sign occurring.) shoot/shucks
(English slang, again, this entry is similar to the entry shoot/shit above as
well) shoot/straight
(English, This entry is more heavily influenced by phonology than by
semantics. The beginning and ending of
the word pair are similar. There is a
semantic relatedness as well. You
shoot straight, for example, in order to hit a target.) swift/quick
(English, 4 entries found, both have the same phonetically rhyming vowel
sound and mean the same thing semantically.) wet/water
(English, 14 entries found, this word pair is closely related both
phonetically and semantically. Both
initial syllables start with w and end with t, and water is certainly wet.) wet/willy
(English, this word pair is not as closely related as wet/water above, but
does start phonetically with w, and semantically means putting a wet finger
in someone's ear as a gag.) wet/STICKY
(ASL, only a handshape change would be involved phonetically if the English
word wet was associated with the ASL sign WET first and then associated with
the ASL sign STICKY. The concepts of
wet and sticky are semantically similar.) |
Written
Data: swift/quick
(see note for same entry) wet/water
(4 entries found, see note for same
entry) |
I
looked for phonological-orthographical association pairs and found them only
within the email data. See Table 5
below. Three English subjects
contributed to this data in Table 5 below.
Table
5. Phonological-Orthographical pair
associations
Email
Data: swift/sweet
(English, both words start with sw and end in t phonetically and
orthographically. There is no semantic
similarity between the two words.) petal/penis
(English, both words start with pe orthographically. The p is phonetically the same sound, but
not the initial vowel. There is no semantic similarity between the two
words.) petal/pedal
(English, both words sound the same except for the voicing feature. The t is voiceless and the d is
voiced. Both words look the same
orthographically, except for the middle letter. There is no semantic similarity between
the two words.) petal/metal
(English, both words sound/look the same except for the first
sound/letter. There is no semantic
similarity between the two words.) |
I also
found within the email data cross modal phonological-semantic
associations. See Table 6 below. Please note that five different ASL subjects
contributed to this data in Table 6 below.
Table
6. Cross-Modal Phonological-Semantic
pair associations:
Email
Data: chair/SALT
(ASL, the English word chair could be associated with the ASL sign CHAIR
first, and then associated with the ASL sign SALT. The only phonetic change would be in
movements of the signs. There is no
semantic similarity between the concept of chair and salt.) salt/CHAIR
(ASL, The English word salt could be associated with the ASL sign SALT first,
and then associated with the ASL sign CHAIR.
The only phonetic
change would be in movements of the signs.
There is no semantic similarity between the concept of salt and
chair.) petal/PEDAL
(ASL, The English word petal could be associated with the English word petal
phonologically, and then associated with the ASL sign PEDAL. There is no semantic similarity between the
concept of petal and pedal.) wet/AND
(ASL, the English word wet could be associated with the ASL sign WET first,
and then associated with the ASL sign AND.
Phonetically, WET and AND are similar.
Changes in orientation, movement, and from a two handed to a one
handed sign would be involved.) wet/SOFT
(ASL, the English word wet could be associated with the ASL sign WET first,
and then associated with the ASL sign SOFT.
Phonetically, only a movement change would be necessary. There is no semantic similarity between the
concepts of wet and soft.) |
Phonologically or Semantically Influenced
Data Based on Word Order
Finally,
I also looked for phonological or semantic influence on associations that may
appear because of the way the word association tests are ordered. There may be either semantic or phonological
influence from prior or anticipated words or signs. However, I did not find any in my signed
data. Perhaps because I paused the test
after each ASL sign response in order to write down the English gloss, the
results were affected. If a camera were
used to record the ASL responses on videotape, there would be no need to write down
the English glosses. The videotape
itself could be used for transcription later into English glosses. The test timing would also be the same as
that of the written test and email survey.
As was mentioned previously in our psycholinguistics class, I found
semantically influenced word associations in the written data based on word
order. I also found both semantically
influenced and phonologically influenced associations in the email data based
on word order. Three English subjects
contributed data to the Email Data in Table 7.
As is evident, only one English subject contributed to the data in the
Written Data section in Table 7.
Table
7. Word-Order-Influenced pair
associations:
Email
Data: chair/back
then dark/black (English, phonologically-influenced) chair/brown
then dark/wood (English,
semantically-influenced) queen/…
then chair/throne (English, semantically-influenced) swift/pedal
then petal/flower (English, phonologically-influenced) |
Written
Data: queen/…
then chair/throne (English, semantically-influenced) |
Conclusions
In the
case of the famous deaf man, his associations showed strong evidence for
cross-modal transfer or in other words, intersensory integration as mentioned
by Wolf, Vellutino and Gleason (1998, p. 418).
That is, if connecting spoken and written representations of the same
concept is one type of cross-modal transfer, then so is connecting written and
signed representations of the same concept.
Because
of the evidence I have presented here, I am inclined to believe Fromkin and
Ratner (1998, p. 323) when they say that the lexicon is organized both
semantically and phonologically, not strictly semantically as Reeves,
Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff (1998, p. 168) seem to suggest. Fromkin and Ratner based their conclusions on
word substitution errors and word blends.
The “words involved are semantically or phonologically similar or both”
(Fromkin & Ratner, 1998, p. 323).
Their table listing different kinds of errors is shown below in Table 8.
Table
8. English Semantic/Phonological Errors
1. That’s a horse of another color - …
a horse of another race (semantic substitution)
2. Too many irons in the fire – too
many irons in the smoke (semantic substitution)
3. White Anglo-Saxon Protestant - … prostitute
(phonological substitution)
4. Grab/reach – greech (semantic
blend)
5. Gin and tonic – gin and topic
(phonological)
6. Arrested and prosecuted – arrested
and persecuted (phonological/semantic)
7. At 4:30 we’re adjourning the
meeting – we’re adjoining the meeting (phonological)
8. stiffer/tougher – stougher or
stuffer (semantic/phonological blend)
9. Edited/annotated – editated
(semantic blend)
The
same phenomena can be found in ASL as well.
I have experienced it myself.
With the ASL signs FRUSTRATED and WRONG, I mistakenly switched the hand
orientation between the two signs. With
SMALL WORLD, I mistakenly switched the handshapes. There are some found in the research
literature as well. Fromkin and Ratner
found one with SICK and BORED with the location switched (1998, pp.
316-317). Poizner et al’s (1987, p. 199)
paraphasic subject KL substituted an inappropriate W handshape for a K
handshape in CAREFUL, and substituted an inappropriate up and down movement for
a circling movement in ENJOY. Corina’s
(1998, pp. 38-39) subject WL switched the inappropriate Y handshape for the 1
handshape in TOOTHBRUSH, and switched the inappropriate A handshape for the H
handshape in SCREWDRIVER. WL also
switched the inappropriate Y handshape for the 5 handshape in FINE. According to Corina (1998, p. 38), the most
frequent errors are in handshape substitution, but substitution errors were
found in all four major parameters, handshape, location, movement, and hand
orientation. See Table 9 below for a
recap of these ASL phonological errors below.
Table
9. ASL Phonological Errors
1. FRUSTRATED/WRONG (hand orientation
switch)
2. SMALL/WORLD (handshape switch)
3. SICK/BORED (location switch)
4. CAREFUL (*W handshape substitution
for K handshape)
5. ENJOY (*up and down movement
substitution for circling movement)
6. TOOTHBRUSH (*Y handshape
substitution for 1 handshape)
7. SCREWDRIVER (*A handshape
substitution for H handshape)
8. FINE (*Y handshape substitution for
5 handshape)
According
to Fromkin and Ratner, “the choice of inappropriate lexical items may occur
because synonyms, antonyms, and similar sounding words are stored in close
proximity to a given target word, and thus may be retrieved in error” (1998, p.
323).
Word
associations seem to work the same way, although not meant to be in error, of
course. In retrospect, I would expect
such phonological influence to show up in English and ASL. For example, in English, we have words like
glimmer, glitter, gleam, etc. that are semantically and phonologically
similar. Another example is twirl, whirl,
swirl, etc. In ASL, there are groupings
of signs that operate on the same iconic principle. For example, the ASL signs associated with
thinking are usually located at the temple:
THINK, KNOW, WONDER, etc. Another
example is the ASL signs signifying some sort of group: CLASS, FAMILY, TEAM,
etc. This kind of iconicity is evident in the word association data presented
here as well.
It is a
relief to find that my mind is not so different as I initially thought. That being bilingual in ASL and English as
well as having a creative inclination may well explain why my test results were
so heavily influenced by phonology.
Perhaps that day I took the word association test, I was feeling
particularly inspired. I do know that
when I took another word association test for my classmate in psycholinguistics class, the
phonological influence was not as heavy.
The second time, I was also aware of the purpose of the word association
test as well, which probably affected the test results. So, my fears of being too unique have been
put to rest.
References:
Corina, D.P., (1998).
Studies of Neural Processing in Deaf Signers: Toward a Neurocognitive
Model of Language Processing in the Deaf.
In Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education (Vol. 3, #1, pp.
35-48). Seattle, WA: Oxford University
Press.
Dingwall, W.O., (1998). The Biological Bases of Human
Communicative Behavior. In J.B. Gleason
& N.B. Ratner (Eds.), Psycholinguistics (pp. 51-105). Fort Worth,
TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
Fromkin, V.A., Ratner, N.B., (1998). Speech Production. In J.B. Gleason & N.B. Ratner (Eds.), Psycholinguistics
(pp. 309-346). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
Lakoff, G., (1987). Women,
Fire and Dangerous Things What
Categories Reveal about the Mind.
Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Poizner, H., Klima, E.S., & Bellugi, U. (1987). What the Hands Reveal about the Brain
(Ch. 8, pp. 193-212). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Reeves, L.M., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R., (1998). Words
and Meanings: From Primitives To Complex Organization. In J.B. Gleason & N.B. Ratner (Eds.), Psycholinguistics
(pp. 157-226). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
Wolf, M., Vellutino, F., & Gleason, J.B. (1998). A
Psycholinguistic Account of Reading. In
J.B. Gleason & N.B. Ratner (Eds.), Psycholinguistics (pp. 408-451).
Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
Appendix A: Written Test
As fast
as you can, write down the first word that comes to your mind after each word:
wet-- needle--
swift-- salt--
petal-- queen--
apple-- chair--
shoot-- dark--
Appendix B: Email Survey
Hi
Everyone,
I'm
doing some research for a paper for my psycholinguistics class at Georgetown
University (I'm still a Gallaudet student until I graduate this May). I would like you to fill out this quick quiz
and send it back to me. The deadline is
March 22 for gathering this data. Could
you also pass this email along to your distribution lists if appropriate. Thanks!
Are you
deaf?
(y/n) -
hard of
hearing? (y/n) -
other?
(please explain) -
Are you
a
native
USA citizen? (y/n) -
USA
immigrant? (y/n) -
citizen
of other country?
(please
explain) -
Do you
speak
English fluently? (y/n) -
write
English fluently? (y/n) -
Other?
(please explain) -
Do you
sign
American Sign Language fluently? (y/n) -
sign
PSE fluently? (y/n) -
(PSE =
contact sign or sign supported speech)
other?
(please explain) -
Do you
know other languages (signed or spoken)?
(please
explain) -
As fast
as you can, write down the first English word (or English gloss in CAPS for an ASL
sign) that comes to your mind after each word:
wet -
swift -
petal -
apple -
shoot -
needle
-
salt -
queen -
chair -
dark -
That's
it! Thanks for your help!
If I
find that I need face to face research, I may contact some of you who are local
to my area to meet with me, but other than that, there's no further commitment.
I will
post my paper when it is finished on my web page at http://www.geocities.ws/rebaorton Again, thanks for your help!
Reba
Appendix C: Signed Test
English
glosses are listed below for the corresponding ASL signs:
WET
FAST
LAW
APPLE
SHOOT
SEW
SALT
QUEEN
CHAIR
DARK