Erin Wilkinson | University of New Mexico (original) (raw)

Papers by Erin Wilkinson

Humanity & Society, 2021

In the growing field of colonial and anti-colonial research, many parallels have been drawn betwe... more In the growing field of colonial and anti-colonial research, many parallels have been drawn between Westernized countries including Australia and Canada. In both of these countries, there is considerable academic, community and governmental recognition of historic, and continuing, colonizing of Indigenous peoples and the subsequent impacts on Indigenous cultures. Terms such as transgenerational trauma and intergenerational trauma give language to the ongoing impact of colonization on communities, which in turn serves to legitimize the need for mental wellbeing supports and associated funding. However, there are other minority communities that are similarly oppressed and colonized but do not experience the same legitimization. One such community is the Deaf community. Deaf people continue to experience systemic oppression and colonization within our hearing centric society. Building on the work of Batterbury, Ladd and Gulliver (2007), we extend discussions on the parallels between In...

Cognition, 2021

Bilinguals, both hearing and deaf, activate multiple languages simultaneously even in contexts th... more Bilinguals, both hearing and deaf, activate multiple languages simultaneously even in contexts that require only one language. To date, the point in development at which bilingual signers experience cross-language activation of a signed and a spoken language remains unknown. We investigated the processing of written words by ASL-English bilingual deaf middle school students. Deaf bilinguals were faster to respond to English word pairs with phonologically related translations in ASL than to English word pairs with unrelated translations, but no difference was found for hearing controls with no knowledge of ASL. The results indicate that co-activation of signs and written words is not the outcome of years of bilingual experience, but instead characterizes bilingual language development.

Sign Language Studies, 2020

The Internet has become a space where many sign language users post, watch, and share videos and ... more The Internet has become a space where many sign language users post, watch, and share videos and video blogs (vlogs) through social media. This mass of videos produced by, for, and with deaf signers on the Internet has yielded a new language ecology that also offers new opportunities for sign language research. We demonstrate how sign language researchers can use the Internet for linguistic “fieldwork” by harnessing available, naturalistic sign language data from this online “corpus” of videos. We discuss a preliminary case study of first person pronouns based on two vlogs, as a way of offering some practical guidelines for researchers who want to conduct methodologically valid sign language Internet-based corpus studies. The case study opens up future directions for Internet-based research for potential to advance the field of sign language linguistics.

Heritage Language Journal, 2020

Maternal and Child Health Journal, 2020

The aim of this article is to increase awareness of language practices in the deaf community that... more The aim of this article is to increase awareness of language practices in the deaf community that affect communication needs and health outcomes, focusing particularly on the prevalence of bilingualism among deaf adults. Language deprivation and poor health outcomes in the deaf population are risks that cannot be addressed solely by hearing intervention. We propose that bilingualism acts as a protective measure to minimize the health risks faced by deaf individuals. Provision of culturally and linguistically appropriate services to deaf stakeholders, and particularly hearing families of deaf children, requires familiarity with the developmental and social ramifications of bilingualism.

The Canadian Modern Language Review, 2019

Résumé:Les auteures analysent certaines questions liées à la reconnaissance du langues des signes... more Résumé:Les auteures analysent certaines questions liées à la reconnaissance du langues des signes, à la lumière de la récente adoption par le gouvernement fédéral d'une Loi canadienne sur l'accessibilité et de l'activisme de la communauté sourde à cet égard. Les auteures mettent en évidence les lacunes des connaissances relatives à l'utilisation du langue des signes, notamment les pratiques de communication des sourds des populations indigènes, et relatent l'histoire de la lutte pour les droits des utilisateurs du langue des signes au Canada. Elles analysent les mesures existantes de protection des droits d'accès au langue des signes que contient la législation constitutionnelle canadienne et se demandent comment ces mesures peuvent exclure la nécessité de reconnaître le langue des signes dans le cadre de la législation relative aux handicaps. Les auteures proposent ensuite une loi concernant le langue des signes qui serait le pendant de la future Loi sur les langues autochtones et qui pourrait mieux encadrer les droits relatifs au langue des signes protégeant les Canadiens sourds.Abstract:This article discusses some issues in Canadian sign language recognition in light of the federal government's recent introduction of an Accessible Canada Act and related deaf community activism. We identify gaps in knowledge surrounding sign language use, including communicative practices of deaf Indigenous peoples, and outline the history of the struggle for sign language rights in Canada. We discuss existing protections for sign language access rights in Canadian constitutional legislation and how these may preclude the need for sign language recognition within the framework of disability legislation. Next, we propose a sign languages act to parallel the forthcoming Indigenous Languages Act that may better en-compass sign language rights for deaf Canadians.

Sign Language Research, Uses and Practices, 2013

Sign Language Studies, 2013

Past studies have identified the function of self </small&... more Past studies have identified the function of self as a canonical reflexive pronoun in American Sign Language (ASL). This study examines the use of self with fifteen hours of naturalistic ASL discourse framed by the cognitive-functionalist approach. The analysis reveals that the category of self is expressed in three phonological forms and exhibits a number of other functions beside the canonical reflexive. In contradiction to previous analyses, this study finds that the use of self as a canonical reflexive is minimal whereas the distribution shows 80 percent of self tokens as an emphatic. Genres appear to play a role in the SELF usage where the study reports that self is frequently expressed in vlogs compared to narratives and two-person conversations. self is not best analyzed as a reflexive pronoun as previously claimed but instead can be viewed as a morpheme marking emphatic functions.

Sign Language & Linguistics, 2010

Journal Of Deaf Studies And Deaf Education, 2019

When deaf bilinguals are asked to make semantic similarity judgments of two written words, their ... more When deaf bilinguals are asked to make semantic similarity judgments of two written words, their responses are influenced by the sublexical relationship of the signed language translations of the target words. This study investigated whether the observed effects of American Sign Language (ASL) activation on English print depend on (a) an overlap in syllabic structure of the signed translations or (b) on initialization, an effect of contact between ASL and English that has resulted in a direct representation of English orthographic features in ASL sublexical form. Results demonstrate that neither of these conditions is required or enhances effects of cross-language activation. The experimental outcomes indicate that deaf bilinguals discover the optimal mapping between their two languages in a manner that is not constrained by privileged sublexical associations.

This paper explores typological, presumably modality-specific features affecting deixis and anaph... more This paper explores typological, presumably modality-specific features affecting deixis and anaphora in signed languages (hereafter SL). Simplifying greatly for the sake of the present exposition, we define deictic-anaphoric structures as text cohesion devices which allow speakers or signers to introduce referents in discourse (deixis) and, subsequently, to refer back to them at later

… and unraveling the …, 2008

Vulnerabilities, Challenges and Risks in Applied Linguistics

Cognition, 2011

Deaf bilinguals for whom American Sign Language (ASL) is the first language and English is the se... more Deaf bilinguals for whom American Sign Language (ASL) is the first language and English is the second language judged the semantic relatedness of word pairs in English. Critically, a subset of both the semantically related and unrelated word pairs were selected such that the translations of the two English words also had related forms in ASL. Word pairs that were semantically related were judged more quickly when the form of the ASL translation was also similar whereas word pairs that were semantically unrelated were judged more slowly when the form of the ASL translation was similar. A control group of hearing bilinguals without any knowledge of ASL produced an entirely different pattern of results. Taken together, these results constitute the first demonstration that deaf readers activate the ASL translations of written words under conditions in which the translation is neither present perceptually nor required to perform the task.

Poster presented at the 20th annual CUNY Conference …, 2007

This paper examines whether American Sign Language (ASL) users exhibit frequency effects on two-s... more This paper examines whether American Sign Language (ASL) users exhibit frequency effects on two-sign combinations as observed in spoken languages. Evidence in spoken language studies demonstrates that frequency of usage is a factor influencing the ...

Humanity and Society, 2021

Gesture

A renewed interest in understanding the role of iconicity in the structure and processing of sign... more A renewed interest in understanding the role of iconicity in the structure and processing of signed languages is hampered by the conflation of iconicity and transparency in the definition and operationalization of iconicity as a variable. We hypothesize that iconicity is fundamentally different than transparency since it arises from individuals’ experience with the world and their language, and is subjectively mediated by the signers’ construal of form and meaning. We test this hypothesis by asking American Sign Language (ASL) signers and German Sign Language (DGS) signers to rate iconicity of ASL and DGS signs. Native signers consistently rate signs in their own language as more iconic than foreign language signs. The results demonstrate that the perception of iconicity is intimately related to language-specific experience. Discovering the full ramifications of iconicity for the structure and processing of signed languages requires operationalizing this construct in a manner that i...

Monographs in Human Genetics, 2000

This chapter presents a cross-disciplinary overview of genetics and deafness from the perspective... more This chapter presents a cross-disciplinary overview of genetics and deafness from the perspective of 3 deaf academics employed in tenured or tenure-track positions at American and Canadian universities. We present a collective examination of the science of genetics and deafness using perspectives gained through disciplinary-specific research in bioethics, deaf and disability studies, education, linguistics, and philosophy. Specifically, we analyze the relationship between genetic patterning and language diversity, and then move to an analysis of bioethical issues related to deaf people and social policy.

Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2015

What is the time course of cross-language activation in deaf sign–print bilinguals? Prior studies... more What is the time course of cross-language activation in deaf sign–print bilinguals? Prior studies demonstrating cross-language activation in deaf bilinguals used paradigms that would allow strategic or conscious translation. This study investigates whether cross-language activation can be eliminated by reducing the time available for lexical processing. Deaf ASL–English bilinguals and hearing English monolinguals viewed pairs of English words and judged their semantic similarity. Half of the stimuli had phonologically related translations in ASL, but participants saw only English words. We replicated prior findings of cross-language activation despite the introduction of a much faster rate of presentation. Further, the deaf bilinguals were as fast or faster than hearing monolinguals despite the fact that the task was in their second language. The results allow us to rule out the possibility that deaf ASL–English bilinguals only activate ASL phonological forms when given ample time f...

Humanity & Society, 2021

Cognition, 2021

Sign Language Studies, 2020

Heritage Language Journal, 2020

Maternal and Child Health Journal, 2020

The Canadian Modern Language Review, 2019

Sign Language Research, Uses and Practices, 2013

Sign Language Studies, 2013

Sign Language & Linguistics, 2010

Journal Of Deaf Studies And Deaf Education, 2019

… and unraveling the …, 2008

Vulnerabilities, Challenges and Risks in Applied Linguistics

Cognition, 2011

Poster presented at the 20th annual CUNY Conference …, 2007

Humanity and Society, 2021

Gesture

Monographs in Human Genetics, 2000

Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2015

Does Language Experience affect Perceived Iconicity? When operationalizing ‘iconicity’ in sig... more Does Language Experience affect Perceived Iconicity?

When operationalizing ‘iconicity’ in signed languages, researchers often conflate iconicity with transparency. Instructions to raters generally include definitions such as, “iconic signs look like what they mean”, and include examples of transparent signs as ‘good examples’ of iconicity (1)(4). As a result, it has become standard practice to utilize non-signers to provide sign iconicity ratings, since transparent mappings should be easily accessible to anyone. Recent research on signers’ evaluation of iconicity across languages has suggested however, that signers
rate signs in their native language as more iconic than signs, matched across a variety of measures, in a foreign signed language (3). This suggests that iconicity is subjectively constructed in the minds of language users, and that experience with one’s own language influences perceptions of iconic mappings. One possible explanation of why signers consider signs from their own language to be more iconic than signs from another signed language is that signers’ iconicity judgements are sensitive to language-internal mappings, such as construing the
fist with thumb pointing upward as a human body, as opposed to construing the same handshape as an upward pointer indicating positive valence. While any one signed language may include both construals, the extent that one construal is widely prevalent within the language may
influence signers’ judgements of iconicity.
To investigate this hypothesis, non-signers from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk rated images of 32 ASL signs (with glosses) for iconicity, using a Likert scale given the standard instructions: “how much does the sign look like what it means?” Subsequently, L1-ASL expert signers (14) and English-ASL L2 novice signers (14) viewed ASL sentences containing the same 32 ASL signs and responded with a keypress when they detected target handshapes. ASL proficiency was assessed using the ASL Sentence Reproduction Test (2). Using a mixed linear regression, we found reaction times were significantly modulated by non-signer iconicity ratings for novices, but not for experts. Handshapes in signs with higher iconicity ratings were more quickly identified by signers with lower proficiency, but identified at equal speeds by signers with higher proficiency (β = 1.02, t = 1.87, p = .06).
Without taking into account both language internal and language external motivations,
investigations of iconicity effects in signed languages run the risk of skewing results toward behaviors that are primarily present early in the second language acquisition process and overlook effects that may change after more complete knowledge of a language’s patterns have
been learned and internalized. Further, these results suggest that the construct of iconicity differs along several dimensions, and transparency does not capture all dimensions of the construct. Careful review of the theoretical implications of the definition and operationalization of iconicity will be crucial to future investigations.

Bibliography

(1) Caselli, Naomi K., Zed Sevcikova Sehyr, Ariel M. Cohen-Goldberg, and Karen Emmorey. (2016).
“ASL-LEX: A Lexical Database of American Sign Language.” Behavior Research Methods, 1–
18. doi:10.3758/s13428-016-0742-0.
(2) Hauser, Peter., Raylene Paludnevičienė, Ted Supalla, and Daphne Bavelier. (2008). “American
Sign Language - Sentence Reproduction Test: Development and implications.” In R. de
Quadros (Ed.), Sign Language: Spinning and unraveling the past, present and future (pp. 160–
172). Petrópolis, Brazil: Arara Azul.
(3) Occhino, Corrine, Benjamin Anible, Jill P. Morford, and Erin Wilkinson. (2017). “Iconicity Is in the
Eye of the Beholder: How Language Experience Affects Perceived Iconicity.” Gesture, 16:1,
101–127. doi 10.1075/gest.16.1.04occ.
(4) Vinson, David P., Kearsy Cormier, Tanya Denmark, Adam Schembri, and Gabriella Vigliocco.
(2008). “The British Sign Language (BSL) Norms for Age of Acquisition, Familiarity, and
Iconicity.” Behavior Research Methods, 40, no. 4: 1079–87. doi:10.3758/BRM.40.4.1079.
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Sociolinguistics and Deaf Communities, 2015

Multilingualism, the use of two or more languages by an individual or a community is described as... more Multilingualism, the use of two or more languages by an individual or a community is described as a ‘powerful fact of life around the world’ (Edwards 1994). If we consider that there are an estimated 195 countries in the world today against the 7,106 living languages listed in the Ethnologue, we might assume that for most of the world's population, multilingualism is a common occurrence (Lewis, Simons, and Fennig 2013). But what do we mean by multilingualism? Research in this field is interested in how languages coexist alongside other languages and the factors that contribute to the various multilingual environments throughout the world. For example, people who know more than one language may or may not be equally proficient in each of their languages; they may only be as proficient as is necessary and their use of different languages may be confined to specific social settings or groups. The extent to which these language communities interact with one another may also vary. Additionally, some languages may not have any official recognition within the nation states in which they are found, and this may affect how these languages are perceived by others. When we consider sign languages, we find many examples of multilingualism that parallel those described for spoken languages. In this chapter, we describe how multilingualism is a fact of life for nearly (if not all) signing individuals. We begin with a brief description of sign language as languages in their own right followed by a description of the different environments in which sign languages can thrive and the patterns of transmission that define them so that one can appreciate where, why, and how sign languages exist today. We also describe the types of multilingual environments that characterize the lives of deaf individuals and the factors that contribute to or against multilingualism.

This chapter provides an overview of research methods used to investigate the comprehension and p... more This chapter provides an overview of research methods used to investigate the comprehension and production of signed languages. In a methodological review of 61 published studies, it was found that psycholinguistic studies have been carried out on a very restricted range of signed languages. The majority of investigations were conducted in laboratory settings. The populations studied consisted primarily of proficient adult deaf signers, with some inclusion of hearing signers. The methods used were best suited for testing specific hypotheses about signed language processing, rather than for documenting or discovering norms and preferences for language use within social contexts. Three types of tasks have been used to date in sign perception studies: identification and discrimination tasks; phonological similarity judgment tasks; and monitoring tasks. The chapter concludes the review with a discussion of the challenges researchers face when conducting psycholinguistic investigations of signed language processing.

Investigations of iconicity in signed language processing often rely on non-signer ratings to det... more Investigations of iconicity in signed language processing often rely on non-signer ratings to determine whether signs are iconic, implying that iconicity can be objectively evaluated by individuals with no prior exposure to a linguistic form. We question the assumption that iconicity is an objective property of the form of a sign and argue that iconicity arises from individuals’ experience with the world and their language, and is subjectively mediated by the signer’s construal of form and meaning. We test this hypothesis by asking American Sign Language (ASL) signers and German Sign Language (DGS) signers to rate iconicity of 86 ASL and DGS signs. Native signers consistently rate signs in their own language as more iconic than foreign language signs under a wide range of conditions. The results demonstrate that iconicity is not an objective characteristic of a sign form, and is instead specific to individual construals of form and meaning.

The Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes, 2019

This article discusses some issues in Canadian sign language recognition in light of the federal ... more This article discusses some issues in Canadian sign language recognition in light of the federal government’s recent introduction of an Accessible Canada Act and related deaf community activism. We identify gaps in knowledge surrounding sign language use, including communicative practices of deaf Indigenous peoples, and outline the history of the struggle for sign language rights in Canada. We discuss existing protections for sign language access rights in Canadian constitutional legislation and how these may preclude the need for sign language recognition within the framework of disability legislation. Next, we propose a sign languages act to parallel the forthcoming Indigenous Languages Act that may better en- compass sign language rights for deaf Canadians.

Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 2019

When deaf bilinguals are asked to make semantic similarity judgments of two written words, their ... more When deaf bilinguals are asked to make semantic similarity judgments of two written words, their responses are inf luenced by the sublexical relationship of the signed language translations of the target words. This study investigated whether the observed effects of American Sign Language (ASL) activation on English print depend on (a) an overlap in syllabic structure of the signed translations or (b) on initialization, an effect of contact between ASL and English that has resulted in a direct representation of English orthographic features in ASL sublexical form. Results demonstrate that neither of these conditions is required or enhances effects of cross-language activation. The experimental outcomes indicate that deaf bilinguals discover the optimal mapping between their two languages in a manner that is not constrained by privileged sublexical associations.

Sign Language Studies, 2020

Gesture, 2017

A renewed interest in understanding the role of iconicity in the structure and processing of sign... more A renewed interest in understanding the role of iconicity in the structure and processing of signed languages is hampered by the conflation of iconicity and transparency in the definition and operationalization of iconicity as a variable. We hypothesize that iconicity is fundamentally different than transparency since it arises from individuals' experience with the world and their language, and is subjectively mediated by the signers' construal of form and meaning. We test this hypothesis by asking American Sign Language (ASL) signers and German Sign Language (DGS) signers to rate iconicity of ASL and DGS signs. Native signers consistently rate signs in their own language as more iconic than foreign language signs. The results demonstrate that the perception of iconicity is intimately related to language-specific experience. Discovering the full ramifications of iconicity for the structure and processing of signed languages requires operationalizing this construct in a manner that is sensitive to language experience.