Students acquiring American Sign Language (ASL) as a second language (L2) struggle with fingerspelling comprehension more than skilled signers. These L2 learners might be attempting to perceive and comprehend fingerspelling in a way that is different from native signers, which could negatively impact their ability to comprehend fingerspelling. This could be related to improper weighting of cues that skilled signers use to identify fingerspelled utterances. Improper cue-weighting in spoken language learners has been ameliorated through explicit phonetic instruction, but this method of teaching has yet to be applied to learners of a language in a new modality (M2 learners). The present study assesses this prospect. Eighteen university students in their third-semester of ASL were divided into two groups; one received explicit phonetic training, and the other received implicit training on fingerspelling. Data from a fingerspelling comprehension test, with two experimental conditions and a control, were submitted to a mixed effects logistic regression. This revealed a significant improvement from the pre-test to post-test by students who received the explicit training. Results indicate that even short exposure to explicit phonetic instruction significantly improves participants’ ability to understand fingerspelling, suggesting that ASL curricula should include this type of instruction to improve students’ fingerspelling comprehension abilities.
AgrestiA. (2002). Categorical data analysis. 2nd edition.New York: John Wiley.
2.
AkamatsuC.T. (1985). Fingerspelling formulae: A word is more or less than the sum of its letters. In StokoeW.VolterraV. (Eds.), SLR 1983: Sign Language Research (pp. 126–132). Silver Spring, MD: Linstok Press.
3.
BaayanR.PiepenbrockR.GulikersL. (1995). The CELEX lexical database: Release 2 (CD-ROM). Philadelphia, PA: Linguistic Data Consortium.
4.
BatesD.MächlerM.MolkerB.WalkerS. (2015) Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67, 1–48.
5.
BattisonR. (1978). Lexical borrowing in American Sign Language. Silver Spring, MD: Linstok Press.
6.
BrentariD. (1998). A prosodic model of sign language phonology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
7.
CouperG. (2003). The value of explicit pronunciation syllabus in ESOL teaching. Prospect, 18, 53–70.
8.
DeKeyserR. (2003). Implicit and explicit learning. In LongM.DoughtyC. (Eds.), Handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 313–348). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
9.
DerwingT.M.MunroM.WiebeG. (1998). Evidence in favor of a broad framework for pronunciation instruction. Language Learning, 48, 393–410.
10.
FlegeJ. (1995). Second language speech learning. theory, findings, and problems. In StrangeW. (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research (pp. 233–277). Timonium, MD: York Press.
11.
FlegeJ. (2003). Assessing constraints on second-language segmental production and perception. In MeyerA.SchillerN. (Eds.), Phonetics and phonology in language comprehension and production: Differences and similarities (pp. 319−355). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
12.
FlegeJ.HillenbrandJ. (1986). Differential use of temporal cues to the /s/–/z/ contrast by native and non-native speakers of English. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 79, 508–517.
13.
GeerL.C. (2016). Teaching ASL fingerspelling to second-language learners: Explicit versus implicit phonetic training. Unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Linguistics, The University of Texas at Austin, TX, USA.
14.
GeerL.C.KeaneJ. (2014). Exploring factors that contribute to successful fingerspelling comprehension. In CalzolariN.ChoukriK.DeclerckT.LoftssonH.MaegaardB.MarianiJ.MorenoA.OdijkJ.PiperidisS. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC’14) (pp. 1905–1910). Reykjavik: European Language Resources Association (ELRA).
15.
GiannakopoulouA.UtherM.YlinenS. (2013). Enhanced plasticity in spoken language acquisition for child learners: Evidence from phonetic training studies in child and adult learners of English. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 29, 201–218.
16.
HansonV.L. (1981). When a word is not the sum of its letters: Fingerspelling and spelling. In Proceedings of the 3rd National Symposium on Sign Language Research and Teaching. New Haven, CT: Haskins Laboratories.
HoltL.LottoA. (2006). Cue weighting in auditory categorization: Implications for first and second language acquisition. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 119, 3059–3071.
19.
JaegerT.F. (2008). Categorical data analysis: Away from ANOVAs (transformation or not) and towards logit mixed models. Journal of Memory and Language, 59, 434–446.
20.
KeaneJ. (2014). Towards and articulatory model of handshape: What fingerspelling tells us about the phonetics and Phonology of Handshape in American Sign Language. Unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago, IL, USA.
21.
KeaneJ.GeerL. (2016). Understanding fingerspelling comprehension. Unpublished poster at Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research 12, Melbourne, Australia.
22.
KeaneJ.BrentariD.RiggleJ. (2013a). Coarticulation in ASL fingerspelling. In Proceedings of the North East Linguistic Society, 42. North East Linguistic Society.
23.
KeaneJ.RiggleJ.BrentariD. (2013b). The timing of ASL fingerspelling. Unpublished conference presentation, Texas Linguistics Society 14, Austin, TX, USA.
24.
KeaneJ.BrentariD.RiggleJ. (2015). Segmentation and pinky extension in ASL fingerspelling. In RaimyE.CairnsC. (Eds.), The segment in phonology and phonetics (pp. 103–128). Malden, MA: Wiley.
25.
KuhlP. (2000). A new view of language acquisition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 97, 11850–11857.
26.
LiN.JuffsA. (2015). The influence of the moraic structure on L2 English syllable-final consonants. In Proceedings from the Annual Meeting on Phonology 2014 Conference (pp. 1–12). Washington, DC: Linguistics Society of America.
27.
MacdonaldD.YuleG.PowersM. (1994). Attempts to improve English L2 pronunciation: The variable effects of different types of instruction. Language Learning, 44, 75–100.
28.
McAllisterR.FlegeJ.PiskeT. (2002). The influence of L1 on the acquisition of Swedish quantity by native speakers of Spanish, English and Estonian. Journal of Phonetics, 30, 229–258.
29.
NorrisJ.OrtegaL. (2000). Effectiveness of L2 instruction: A research synthesis and quantitative meta-analysis. Language Learning, 50, 417–528.
30.
NorvigP. (2015). English letter frequency counts: Mayzner revisited or ETAOIN SRHLDCU. Available at: http://norvig.com/mayzner.html (accessed December 2016).
31.
PaddenC.1998. The ASL lexicon. Sign Language and Linguistics, 1, 33–51.
32.
PatrieC.J.JohnsonR.E. (2010). Fingerspelled word recognition through rapid sequential visual presentation. San Diego, CA: DawnSign Press.
33.
Qualtrics. (2016). Qualtrics. June–December2015. Provo, UT. Available from: http://www.qualtrics.com (accessed December 2016).
34.
Quinto-PozosD. (2011). Teaching American Sign Language to hearing adult learners. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 31, 137–158.
35.
R Core Team. (2013). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.
36.
SaitoK. (2007). The influence of explicit phonetic instruction on pronunciation teaching in EFL settings: The case of English vowels and Japanese learners of English. Linguistic Journal, 3, 17–41.
37.
SaitoK. (2011). Examining the role of explicit phonetic instruction in native-like and comprehensible pronunciation development: an instructed SLA approach to L2 phonology. Language Awareness, 20, 45–59.
38.
SchmidtR. (2001). Attention. In RobinsonP. (Ed.), Cognition and second language instruction (pp. 3–32). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
39.
SchwarzA.L. (2000). The perceptual relevance of transitions between segments in the fingerspelled signal. Unpublished master’s thesis, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
40.
SmithC.LentzE.MikosK. (2008). Signing naturally: Student workbook units 1–6. San Diego, CA: DawnSign Press.
41.
StokoeW.C.CasterlineD.C.CronebergC.G. (1965). A dictionary of American Sign Language on linguistic principles. Silver Spring, MD: Linstok Press.
42.
ThorykR. (2010). A call for improvement: The need for research-based materials in American Sign Language education. Sign Language Studies, 11, 100–120.
43.
ValliC.LucasC.MulrooneyK.RankinM. (2011). Linguistics of American Sign Language: An introduction. 5th edition.Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.
44.
WilcoxS. (1992). The phonetics of fingerspelling. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
45.
YlinenS.UtherM. (2010). Training the brain to weight speech cues differently: A study of Finnish second-language users of English. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22, 1319–1332.
