stuttering in signed languages?

[Sarah Hafer]

Dorothea,

Years ago, i knew of a person who would stutter a lot in ASL and ASL was her first language. I recall telling my friends that it must be the stuttering in ASL. The stuttering signals i noticed were eyes blinking along with repetitive movements for supposedly singular movement in noun signs such as "I/me." She would sign twice or thrice for this sign as well as twice for "will," etc. I don't think it was errors in first language acquisition but rather obviously something else, since the eye blinking would always or nearly always happen with it.

Sarah
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>    1. stuttering in signed languages? (dcogill at une.edu.au)
>    2. RE: stuttering in signed languages? (Grushkin, Donald A)
>    3. RE: stuttering in signed languages? (Deborah Chen Pichler)
>    4. Re: stuttering in signed languages? (Ingvild Roald)
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:00:27 +1000 (EST)
> From: dcogill at une.edu.au
> Subject: [SLLING-L] stuttering in signed languages?
> To: slling-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> Message-ID:
> 	<51683.129.180.103.142.1193187627.squirrel at mail.une.edu.au>
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> 
> Hi there, a general query —
> 
> Does anyone have any observation of a parallel of stuttering in signed
> languages? I'm teaching a First Language Acquisition unit this semester,
> and in it stuttering is classed as a speech problem rather than a language
> problem, and I've always accepted that. It suddenly occured to me in the
> middle of a lecture, though - has anyone actually checked this out? Does
> stuttering manifest in children acquiring a signed language, for example?
> 
> And what would one look for?  Repeated attempts to start to form the whole
> sign?  Being able to choose one parameter, but not to form others? Such
> as, having the handshape and location but not being able to 'release' the
> movement?
> 
> Apart from the blocked ability to proceed with a sign's formation, it
> seems that a real manifestation of stuttering in sign production would be
> accompanied by evident frustration by the child - they FEEL they have a
> problem, when they stutter, whereas they can have all sorts of other slips
> and oddities in their langauge production without seeming in the slightest
> bit worried by that.
> 
> And if stuttering does manifest in signed languages, will it only appear
> in little native sighers, perhaps?  Is learning a signed language a bit
> later in life a very different experience, as far as stuttering is
> concerned? Heck, DO second language learners stutter, even in spoken
> language production?
> 
> There's nothing like teaching to make you realise how much you don't know!
> 
> Can anyone out there help? Say that they've seen something like that, or
> that they've NEVER seen something like that?
> 
> Dorothea.
> 
> Dr Dorothea Cogill-Koez
> Language and Cognition Research Centre
> University of New England,
> Australia.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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