Project description
Conversational skills in sign language: the case of turn-taking in a Balinese sign language
Taking turns in conversation is a crucial skill for a child’s linguistic development. However, little is known about how this skill develops in sign languages. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the LETITIA project investigates this question in deaf children growing up in a Balinese village where deafness is common and the local sign language, Kata Kolok, is widely used. There, children learn Kata Kolok from signing adults, providing a unique opportunity to understand how visual and spatial communication influences turn-taking development. The project will track the turn-taking development of deaf children from 1 to 4 years old and experimentally test how conversational settings impact turn-taking. Project work combines insights from social interaction, sign language linguistics and language acquisition.
Objective
The acquisition of turn-taking is pivotal to a child's pragmatic development; learning how and when to contribute and align with your interlocutor is a critical skill that enables smooth conversation. Despite extensive research on the development of turn-taking in spoken languages, we know little about how this unfolds in sign languages. Differences are likely as deaf children usually lack rich language models (ecology), and the visual-spatial nature of sign languages poses different challenges to manage visual attention (modality). To address this gap, this project investigates turn-taking development in an exceptional context: a Balinese village characterized by high incidence of deafness and widespread use of the local sign language, Kata Kolok. Here, children acquire Kata Kolok surrounded by a village of signing adults, providing an unparalleled opportunity to study how signing-rich ecologies shape turn-taking development in the visuo-spatial modality. I conduct two complementary studies: First, I follow the developmental trajectory of turn-taking of deaf children across 1-4 years, comparing their practices to turn-taking practices used by the adult signers in their community. For this, I draw on a unique interactive corpus of longitudinal naturalistic recordings of children who acquire Kata Kolok from their deaf caregivers from birth (KKCSC) and use a micro-level analysis of spontaneous conversations. Second, I use an experimental spot-the-difference task to further tease apart how conversational setting affects turn-taking, examining whether age of conversation partners (child vs adult) and number of interlocutors (two vs three or more) affect turn-taking behaviour among adult and child Kata Kolok signers. Merging threads from social interaction, sign language linguistics and language acquisition, the LETITIA project represents a paradigm shift in the study of sign language acquisition, grounding linguistic observations and analyses in real-world language use.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- humanities languages and literature linguistics sign language
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology
- social sciences psychology psycholinguistics
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01
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10691 Stockholm
Sweden
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