Nicaraguan Sign Language as a Realization of the Language Bioprogram
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2017
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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Abstract
This study compares Nicaraguan Sign Language (ISN) and Hawaiian Creole English (HCE) in
order to validate the realization of the Language Bioprogram in environments that lack linguistic
input. Bickerton (1981) proposed the existence of such a Bioprogram that acts as a mechanism
that gives humans the innate sense of what for a language should take. Some (Kegl &
McWhorter, 1997) have argued that sign languages are better candidates for studying the
Bioprogram because deaf children are linguistically isolated because of their inability to hear
spoken language and often their lack of access to deaf and sign language education. ISN is
especially suited for a study about the Language Bioprogram because its de novo emergence in
the late 20th century has been documented. In this work, it is hypothesized that if HCE and ISN
were both products of the Language Bioprogram, then they should have structural similarities.
And overall, there is evidence that ISN and HCE do have similar underlying structures. First,
both languages feature SV as the basic word order and allow for topicalization of constituents by
moving them to the front of the sentences. Both languages also exhibit similar behavior in terms
of relative clauses, in that such clauses are subject to the A-over-A principle as described by
Chomsky (1964). Second, both languages make similar basic distinctions with regards to
definiteness of NPs, tense, mood, and aspect. Third, both languages feature similar mechanisms
for negation, forming interrogatives, and expressing the existential and possessive. There were
some supposed Bioprogram parameters that are found in HCE, but not in ISN, but this may be
explained by modality-specific effects, environmental and social effects, or language contact.
The similarities between HCE and ISN may be further evidence for an innate mechanism
common to all humans that sets linguistic parameters. Conversely, the differences between HCE
and ISN suggest that social and environmental factors may have lasting effects on cognition and
language acquisition.