Bimodal Bilingualism

The vast majority of bilingual studies involve two spoken languages. Such “unimodal” bilingualism automatically entails a severe production constraint because one cannot physically produce two spoken words or phrases at the same time. For unimodal (speech-speech) bilinguals, there is a single output channel, the vocal tract, for both languages. In contrast, for bimodal (speechsign) bilinguals, there are two output channels: the vocal tract and the hands. In addition, for unimodal bilinguals both languages are perceived by the same sensory system (audition), whereas for bimodal bilinguals one language is perceived auditorily and the other is perceived visually. In this article, we present a preliminary investigation of bimodal bilingual communication among hearing people who are native users of American Sign Language (ASL) and who are also native English speakers. First, it is important to emphasize that American Sign Language has a grammar that is independent of and quite distinct f...

The focus of the paper is a phenomenon well documented in both monolingual and bilingual English acquisition: argument omission. Previous studies have shown that bilinguals acquiring a null and a non-null argument language simultaneously tend to exhibit unidirectional cross-language interaction effects — the null argument language remains unaffected but over-suppliance of overt elements in the null argument language is observed. Here subject and object omission in both ASL (null argument) and English (non-null argument) of young ASL-English bilinguals is examined. Results demonstrate that in spontaneous English production, ASL-English bilinguals omit subjects and objects to a higher rate, for longer, and in unexpected environments when compared with English monolinguals and bilinguals; no effect on ASL is observed. Findings also show that the children differentiate between their two languages — rates of argument omission in English are different during ASL vs. English target sessions differ. Implications for the general theory of bilingual effects are offered.

Bilingualism and multilingualism are the speaker’s ability to speak two or more languages. This capability is achieved by the individual speakers, where besides the mother tongue (L1) learners different languages on a parallel basis or gradually, indifferent times and places, creating different language competence, which memorializes in his cognitive and uses the self-actualization in the process of instruction in the language required in compliance with contextual communication situation.
Linguistic diversity reflected in multicultural social community enables all individuals to develop bilingualism and multilingualism skills ranging from family environment with mixed marriages and social environment with formal education systems, formal and informal education for the achievement of personal and collective in ward-processing versatile in every aspect of life.
Achievements of the Individual in ward-processing to multilingual speakers reflected on the enrichment cognitive with different competitive languages, in developing affective achieving empathic on respecting the principle of multicultural democratic society toward psychomotor skills development of oral and written expression in every language, communication towards the provision and acceptance of different messaging and social terms with the facilitation of providing vital existential unemployment challenge in the XXI century.
This project aims to clarify scientific theoretical concepts about bilingualism and multilingualism and with empirical research to illuminate the current state of bilingualism and multilingualism which is used by the speakers to provide vital existentiality in everyday life in the city of Gostivar, Republic of Macedonia. In this research shall use combined questionnaires prepared in advance according to Likert scale and with alternative questions for three groups of bilingual speakers. The survey will held with employed citizens of three ethnic groups in Gostivar with Albanians, Macedonians and Turks.

This study investigated 17 Deaf1 families in North America with cochlear-implanted children about their attitudes, beliefs, and practices on bimodal bilingualism (defined as using both a visual/manual language and an aural/oral language) in American Sign Language (ASL) and English. A survey and follow-up interviews with 8 families were con- ducted. The majority of the Deaf families exhibited positive beliefs toward bimodal bilingualism, where they set high expectations for their children to become equally fluent in both languages. However, their perspectives about the pur- pose for each language differed; they viewed English as a “survival language” and ASL as a “cultural language” but yet supported the use of both languages at home as part of their children’s lives.

En este trabajo, nos proponemos reflexionar sobre la necesidad de profundizar los caminos que comenzaron a transitarse lentamente a fines del siglo XX en relación a la educación de las personas sordas, no solo en nuestro país sino en muchos otros de América Latina: los de la educación intercultural bilingüe bimodal (EIBB), desde una perspectiva socioantropológica de la sordera. En particular, nos centraremos en los aspectos lingüísticos de la formación docente de proyectos de EIBB, que consideramos necesario fortalecer y ampliar para poder cumplir con los objetivos que esta se propone, entre ellos, el de la alfabetización de las personas sordas. En este sentido, haremos explícitas las debilidades observadas y socializaremos diversos avances institucionales y normativos con la finalidad de contribuir a pensar en la necesaria complejización de la formación lingüística, indispensable, a nuestro entender, para poder dirigirnos hacia el logro colectivo de una EIBB de mejor calidad en el marco de la modalidad de educación multicultural bilingüe del sistema educativo argentino

This article extends current methodologies for the linguistic analysis of sign language acquisition to cases of bimodal bilingual acquisition. Using ELAN, we are transcribing longitudinal spontaneous production data from hearing children of Deaf parents who are learning either American Sign Language (ASL) and American English (AE), or Brazilian Sign Language (Libras, also referred to as Língua de Sinais Brasileira/LSB in some texts) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Our goal is to construct corpora that can be mined for a wide range of investigations on various topics in acquisition. Thus, it is important that we maintain consistency in transcription for both signed and spoken languages. This article documents our transcription conventions, including the principles behind our approach. Using this document, other researchers can chose to follow similar conventions or develop new ones using our suggestions as a starting point.

L'idea che le persone sorde debbano appartenere alla società degli udenti è una delle ragioni per sostenere una scelta oralista. Questa idea comporta anche l'esclusione del bilinguismo italiano-LIS (cioè tra una lingua orale e una lingua dei segni)?
L'articolo mette in relazione il diritto alla lingua dei segni con le vedute di Franco Basaglia, il cui movimento è stato tra l'altro una delle ispirazioni per l'integrazione degli studenti disabili nella scuola (con la legge 517/1977).
Rileggendo con attenzione le parole di Basaglia, l'articolo contesta l'idea che essere uguali agli udenti implichi la rinuncia alle lingue segnate. 
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Thinking that deaf people should belong to the hearing society is one of the reasons why an oralist choice is usually made. Does this idea entail the exclusion of bimodal bilingualism (i.e., bilingualism between a signed and a spoken language)? The paper relates the right to sign language with the views of Italian psychiatrist Franco Basaglia. The movement sparked by Basaglia has been, among other things, an inspiration for a wave of laws that allowed for disabled students to be mainstreamed. By carefully rereading Basaglia's words, the paper questions the assumption that being equal to hearing people implies for deaf people to renounce signed languages.

This study discusses the ethical issue of the development of hearing technology in the form of cochlear implants that are used by an ever-growing number of deaf and hard of hearing people. The development of this kind of technology progresses so quickly all over the world, including Poland, that the deafness paradigms change drastically. This may not only affect, to a greater or lesser degree, the implementation of early support programmes but also the face of the Deaf communities using their respective sign languages on a daily basis. It is therefore necessary to create an eclectic model of education for deaf and hard of hearing people which would allow for the ethical option to integrate the conflicting approaches on the proper procedure for deciding on the language (spoken or signed) and the culture (the hearing or the Deaf one) for the development of deaf and hard of hearing students with cochlear implants or hearing aids.

This study aims to describe, in exploratory form, aspects connected to the language history of the participants and the domains of use of Libras and Portuguese. In order to achieve that, contributions were explored from bilingualism studies, specially the view of bilingualism focused in usage, considering the Complementarity Principle, as well as studies about intermodal bilingualism. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 bilingual deaf individuals. The analysis of the interviewee's profiles points to important factors, namely, the period of occurrence of deafness, the age of contact with Libras and the form of contact and the development of orality possibilities. The analysis also indicated that Libras and Portuguese have different functions for the deaf, as stated by the Complementarity Principle. However, there are some issues to be considered regarding the possibilities of using the modalities involved.

This study investigated whether language control during language production in bilinguals generalizes across modalities, and to what extent the language control system is shaped by competition for the same articulators. Using a cued language-switching paradigm, we investigated whether switch costs are observed when hearing signers switch between a spoken and a signed language. The results showed an asymmetrical switch cost for bimodal bilinguals on reaction time and accuracy, with larger costs for the (dominant) spoken language. Our findings suggest important similarities in the mechanisms underlying language selection in bimodal bilinguals and unimodal bilinguals, with competition occurring at multiple levels other than phonology.

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.

The focus of the paper is a phenomenon well documented in both monolingual and bilingual English acquisition: argument omission. Previous studies have shown that bilinguals acquiring a null and a non-null argument language simultaneously tend to exhibit unidirectional cross-language interaction effects — the null argument language remains unaffected but over-suppliance of overt elements in the null argument language is observed. Here subject and object omission in both ASL (null argument) and English (non-null argument) of young ASL-English bilinguals is examined. Results demonstrate that in spontaneous English production, ASL-English bilinguals omit subjects and objects to a higher rate, for longer, and in unexpected environments when compared with English monolinguals and bilinguals; no effect on ASL is observed. Findings also show that the children differentiate between their two languages — rates of argument omission in English are different during ASL vs. English target session...

RESUMO
O presente estudo investiga a habilidade de discriminação fonêmica do Português Brasileiro (PB) e da Língua de Sinais Brasileira (Libras) em crianças e adultos ouvintes bilíngues bimodais (filhos de pais surdos), e em crianças surdas usuárias de implante coclear (IC) filhas de pais surdos ou de pais ouvintes, com acesso irrestrito ou restrito à Libras. Para avaliação da discriminação fonêmica do PB foi utilizado o Teste de Figuras para Discriminação Fonêmica (TFDF), proposto por SANTOS-CARVALHO (2007), e para avaliação da discriminação fonêmica em Libras foi elaborado um teste com organização do TFDF. Os resultados revelaram que a habilidade de discriminação fonêmica do PB e da Libras em crianças ouvintes bilíngues bimodais está ocorrendo de forma esperada/normal. Em relação às crianças surdas usuárias de IC, o desempenho da criança surda com acesso irrestrito à Libras foi superior às outras crianças surdas com acesso restrito à Libras, e igual ao de adultos bilíngues bimodais no teste em Libras. A aquisição bilíngue bimodal (PB – Libras) por crianças e adultos ouvintes bilíngues bimodais, e por crianças surdas usuárias de IC com acesso irrestrito à Libras, não impede o desenvolvimento da habilidade de discriminação fonêmica na Libras nem no PB.

ABSTRACT
The present study investigates the ability of phonemic discrimination in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and in Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) in bimodal bilingual children and hearing adults (children of deaf parents), and in deaf children users of cochlear implants (CI) born from deaf parents or from hearing parents, with unrestricted or restricted access to Libras, respectively. For assessment of PB phonemic discrimination was used the Teste de Figuras para Discriminação Fonêmica (TFDF), proposed by SANTOS-CARVALHO (2007), and for assessment of Libras phonemic discrimination was prepared a test with the same organization of TFDF. The results revealed that the ability of phonemic discrimination in PB and Libras is occurring as expected for bimodal bilingual children. In relation to deaf children users of CI, the performance of the deaf child with unrestricted access to Libras was far superior to the other deaf children with restricted access to Libras, and equal to the bimodal bilingual adults in the Libras test. The bimodal bilingual acquisition (PB – Libras) for bimodal bilingual children and hearing adults, and deaf children users of CI with full access to Libras, does not prevent the development of phonemic discrimination ability in Libras or in PB.

The focus of the paper is a phenomenon well documented in both monolingual and bilingual English acquisition: subject and object omission.  Previous studies have shown that bilinguals acquiring a null and a non-null argument language simultaneously tend to exhibit unidirectional cross-language interaction effects—the null argument language remains unaffected but oversuppliance of overt elements in the null argument language is observed. Here subject and object omission in both ASL (null argument) and English (non-null argument) of young ASL-English bilinguals is examined.  Results demonstrate that in spontaneous English production, ASL-English bilinguals omit subjects and objects to a higher rate, for longer, and in unexpected environments when compared with English monolinguals and bilinguals; no effect on ASL is observed. Findings also show that the children differentiate between their two languages—argument omission rates during ASL- vs. English target sessions differ. Implications for the general theory of bilingual effects are offered.