Sign Language Studies

Analysis of the communication skills of a nine-year-old deaf boy with only minimal schooling showed pantomiming and gesturing to be his major means of communication. He used most commonly the semantic pattern, Agent + Action + Object (+ optional Locative); or Agent + Action (+optional Locative) + Object. Topic comment analysis revealed that in the child’s narratives, one of his hands expressed the topic throughout; and in most cases when this topic was active, it was expressed by the (dominant) right hand serving as handshape for the verb of action. When the topic was being described or acted upon, it was expressed by the left hand, with the action or description enacted by the right hand. Analysis also showed the presence of both formal and idiosyncratic signs in his vocabulary.