stuttering in signed languages?

[Deborah Chen Pichler]

This line of discussion made me think of one of our former students here at Gallaudet,
Geoff Whitebread, who wrote his undergraduate honors thesis on stuttering in ASL,
entitled "Stuck on the Tip of my Thumb: Stuttering in American Sign Language". I've never
read it, but I noticed that if you google his name and the words "stuttering" and "ASL,"
a link for a pdf version of his thesis pops up. Alternately, you could try contacting him
by email. His address is listed at http://honors.gallaudet.edu/x4293.xml

-Debbie Chen Pichler
Gallaudet Linguistics Department

--- "Grushkin, Donald A" <grushkind at csus.edu> wrote:

> I don't have any research on this, but I do have observations of sign language
> stutterers.  
>  
> My first was at Gallaudet, where a student would stutter in both speech and sign
> language (simultaneously).  He was a second-language learner of sign language.  It's
> been so long, I can't remember how exactly his stuttering looked.  I recall quite a bit
> of facial twitching and blinking accompanying his sign stutters.  
>  
> My second experience was at a school for the deaf.  There was a teenage student who did
> not have much (if any?) speech that I know of.  He had a bad stutter in sign.  He would
> be saying something, and then on one sign he would form part of the sign (handshape and
> part of the movement) but be unable to complete the movement, making several attempts
> before finally completing the sign in a spasmatic movement.  He also often had some
> twitching accompanying the stutter, but in his case, it looked more like it was a
> stress-related twitch (as compared to the first guy, whose twitches seemed more
> physiological).  
>  
> I noticed that the first guy in later years seemed to "outgrow" his stuttering -- I
> wonder if it was related to his increased linguistic fluency in sign, or if he had
> gotten some sort of therapy to control the stuttering.  I never dared to ask him.  
>  
> --Don Grushkin
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> From: slling-l-bounces at majordomo.valenciacc.edu on behalf of dcogill at une.edu.au
> Sent: Tue 10/23/2007 6:00 PM
> To: slling-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> Subject: [SLLING-L] stuttering in signed languages?
> 
> 
> 
> 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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Dr. Deborah Chen Pichler
Department of Linguistics
Gallaudet University
800 Florida Ave, NE
Washington, DC 20002
deborah.chen.pichler at gallaudet.edu

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