This booklet is intended to assist the English-speaking tourist driving in a French-speaking country to communicate with service station attendants and to read road signs. The booklet is divided into three sections: (1) an English-French listing of parts of the car and useful expressions; (2) common European road signs; and (3) a French-English…

Interest is focused on the relationship between how old a person is when he or she first begins to learn a language and the fluency with which he or she can produce and understand that language in adulthood. The goal is to describe and measure the relationship between early experience and environment in language learning. In particular, the…

Recent sociolinguistic research is used to show that the American Sign Language (ASL)-English contact situation does not result in the emergence of a pidgin as supposed. Variation along the ASL-English continuum can be accounted for by interplay of foreigner talk, judgments of proficiency, and learners' attempts to master the target language.…

Two aspects of a study of the problems hearing people have in acquiring British Sign Language (BSL) are described: (1) the measurement of current skills in BSL of professionals in the field, and (2) current training programs in BSL in the United Kingdom and results of some controlled teaching situations. (Author/PJM)

Analysis of the performance of beginning American Sign Language students, who had only recently learned the manual alphabet, on a task in which proactive interference would build up rapidly on successive trials, supported the view that different languages have separate memory stores. (Author/CB)

A survey of teachers' and students' perceptions of the difficulty of learning American Sign Language (ASL) suggested that teachers generally rated the learning difficulty levels higher than students, and both groups cited such sociolinguistic and affective problems as cultural inhibitions, interacting with the deaf, and attitudes and motivations…

This article describes the key features of a Montreal bilingual program for children with deafness. The underpinnings of the program are outlined and then special attention is given to the considerations for the use of Quebec Sign Language and French as it relates to developing literacy in children with deafness. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

A discussion focusing on whether American Sign Language (ASL) should be accepted in fulfillment of university foreign language requirements attempts to dispel misconceptions about the language; and to show that ASL can provide the same benefits as the study of more traditional foreign languages, including the opportunity to communicate in another…

This is a selection of papers that have appeared in the journal "Sign Language Studies" between 1972 and 1979. The aim is to provide the reader with some knowledge of the world as signers see it. The book is for academic decision-makers, teachers and parents of deaf students, as well as the intellectually curious. Following an introductory essay,…

The feasibility of American Sign Language (ASL)/English bilingual education programs for deaf children is explored. After reviewing the linguistic input received by these children, language acquisition strategies and the importance of linguistic input in second language acquisition are reviewed. Implications are drawn for teachers instructing in…

Considers the acquisition of language by deaf children of deaf parents and by deaf children of hearing parents in the light of such linguistic theories as Andersen's "nativization-denativization" and Bickerton's "bioprograms." Findings both support the theories and bring to light complexities that the theories do not exactly explain. (SED)

Describes code shifting study in communicative behavior of hearing child interacting with deaf child and mother, both of whom signed. Hearing child knew signing, but did not sign at home. Although communication change occurred, code shifting was influenced more by motivational variables and by hearing child's own flexibility with language than by…

Some 76 hearing children in prekindergarten classes, half receiving sign instruction and half not, were tested on English vocabulary acquisition. Children who received the sign instruction scored significantly higher on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test than children receiving sign instruction. (Contains 15 references.) (Author/LB)

Spatial relations in American Sign Language (ASL) are often signed from the perspective of the signer and so involve a shift in perspective and mental rotation. This study examined developing knowledge of language used to refer to the spatial relations "front," "behind," "left," "right," "towards," "away," "above," and "below" by children learning…