Research Areas
Acquisition of a sign language as a second language (L2)
One of the most interesting types of bilinguals are hearing adults who learned a spoken language as a first language and go on to learn a sign language as a second language (L2). This population is called bimodal bilinguals because they acquire a second language in a second modality (speech vs sign). In this strand of research we explore how iconicity and gesture influence in positive and negative ways sign learning.
Representative publication:
Ortega, G. & Morgan, G. (2015). Phonological development in hearing learners of a sign language: The role of sign complexity and iconicity. Language Learning. 65 (3), 660-668. doi:10.1111/lang.12123
Iconicity and first language (L1) acquisition
One of the most debated topics in the language sciences is whether iconicity plays any role in language development in deaf and hearing children. In this line of work, we investigate if signs that resemble the concept they represent aid the development of a manual lexicon. We also study whether iconic gestures supports the development of speech and how caregivers exploit them in child-parent interaction.
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Representative publication:
Ortega, G., Sümer, B. & Özyürek, A. (2017). Type of iconicity matters in the vocabulary development of signing children. Developmental Psychology, 53(1), 88-99. doi:10.1037/dev0000161
Language emergence
There are no physical records of the structure of the earliest forms of human language. As such, we have to resort to indirect methods that allow us to estimate how natural languages arose. In this line of work, we look at silent gesture and compare them to contemporary sign languages to make predictions about the processes that lead to linguistic structure.
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Representative publication:
Ortega, G. & Özyürek, A. (2019). Types of iconicity and combinatorial strategies distinguish semantic categories in the manual modality across cultures. Language and Cognition. 1-30. doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2019.28
Development of experimental materials
Sign and gesture research is significantly younger than spoken languages and as such there are limited resources to carry out psycholinguistic studies. As part of our research agenda we've developed databases which require the recording of video stimuli, description, and collecting of ratings. These resources are stored in an open access repository and are available for everyone's use.
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Representative publication:
Ortega, G. & Özyürek, A. (2019). Systematic mappings between semantic categories and types of iconic representations in the manual modality: A normed database of silent gesture. Behavior and Research Methods. doi.org/10.3758/s13428-019-01204-6.
Link to open access database
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