Universiteit Gent

Academiejaar 2013-2014

SLA: Hearing adults with Dutch as L1 learning Flemish Sign Language as L2.

Study of the difficulties with word order as a result of interference from Dutch

Prof. Dr. Mieke Van Herreweghe Verhandeling voorgelegd aan de

faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte

voor het behalen van de graad van:

Master in de Taal- en Letterkunde:

Duits-Zweeds

door

Linde Braeckman

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Acknowledgements

Having studied Swedish and German for four years, I decided to write my dissertation on VGT. Many

have asked me why. I consider Flemish Sign linguistics not only from a linguistic point of view utterly

interesting, because they have developed only recently, resulting in many under exposed aspects of

the language which would get every linguistics enthusiast excited, I also consider them utterly

important from a social point of view. To me, it seems obvious that VGT is an officially recognized

language. Stunningly, the official recognition only dates back to 2006. After many years of

suppression, I think it’s about time to build up the knowledge on VGT and in this way also create a

basis for Deaf society. With this dissertation, I hope to have contributed to this.

Therefore, I would like to thank my supervisor, Mieke Van Herreweghe, not only for the essential

advice while writing this dissertation but also for introducing me to Flemish Sign Language. If it

weren’t for your passion and enthusiasm, I wouldn’t have written this dissertation and I wouldn’t be

starting the course to become a VGT interpreter next year. I would also like to thank Sarah De

Meester, who has helped me interpret the examination tapes (even with a new-born baby on her

lap) and Eline Demey, who has helped me immensely with the final stages of my analysis.

Furthermore, I would like to thank Sigrid, one of the first people I met in September 2009 and who

has become one of my dearest friends. You were always there for me, even when I was struggling

this year. Thank you for helping me recover my focus. Even though we disagree on whether literature

or linguistics is the most valuable, you managed to read this dissertation to the end and you offered

me your always highly estimated “eagle eye”.

I would also like to thank my sister, Maya, and brother-in-law, Pieter-Paul, for the support this year,

both emotional and intellectual. I cannot think of two other people whose opinions I value more. In

addition, I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my new-born niece, Norah, who isn’t able to

speak (or sign) yet, but who has already made the year 2014 unforgettable and whom I hope to teach

a thing or two about sign languages when she grows up.

Last but not least, I would like to thank you, Victor. The 8th of August is not only the deadline for this

dissertation but also the exact day that I fell in love with you, two years ago. You were there during

the whole process of this dissertation and I know it hasn’t been easy. Thank you for that.

Even though everyone says they are always so many words between us, I know for a fact they aren’t

necessary, because next year, I will be able to sign that I love you as well.

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Table of contents

1. Introduction 8

2. Second language acquisition 12

2.1. First and second language (acquisition): Definition 13

2.1.1. Mother tongue, first language (L1) and second language (L2) 13

2.1.2. First and second language acquisition 14

2.2. The existence of a critical period in first language acquisition and the consequences of early

first language experience 15

2.2.1. The existence of a critical period in first language acquisition 15

2.2.2. Early first language experience: consequences 16

2.3. Three phases of SLA and positive and negative transfer 18

2.3.1. Three phases of second language acquisition 18

2.3.2. Positive and negative transfer 19

2.4. Facilitating conditions of second language acquisition: differences in learners 21

2.4.1. Age 22

2.4.1.1. Lack of an integrated perspective on the factor age 22

2.4.1.2. An integrated overview of the “valuative criteria” on age of SLA 24

2.4.1.3. Late SLA: expectations for the participants in this study 25

2.4.2. Motivation 27

3. (Basic) Word order patterns in Dutch and VGT: a comparison 29

3.1. Basic word order patterns: a general overview 29

3.2. (Basic) word order patterns in Dutch 31

3.3. (Basic) Word order patterns in VGT 33

3.3.1. Interpretation of the notions subject and object 33

3.3.2. Influences on the (basic) word order patterns of VGT (in contrast with Dutch) 34

3.3.2.1. Polycomponential constructions 35

3.3.2.2. Simultaneity 36

3.3.3. Other influences on the VGT word order patterns 36

3.3.3.1. Placement of subject (S), object (O) and verb (V) 37

3.3.3.2. Placement of pointing signs 38

3.3.3.2.1. Localization 38

3.3.3.2.2. Placement of pointing signs in the sentence 39

3.3.3.3. Placement of adjectives 39

3.4. (Basic) word order patterns in Dutch and VGT: synopsis 40

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4. Expectations 41

4.1. Counter-study: “Syntactic differences due to a different modality” (2003) 41

4.2. Other expectations 42

4.2.1. Simultaneity and polycomponential constructions 43

4.2.2. Placement of subject (S), object (O) and verb (V) 43

4.2.3. Placement of pointing signs in the sentence 44

4.2.4. Localization 44

4.2.5. Placement of adjectives 45

5. Study 45

5.1. Some preliminary remarks 46

5.1.1. On the search for participants 46

5.1.2. Analyzing the examination tapes 47

5.1.3. Informants 48

5.2. Coding 50

5.2.1. Various steps of coding 50

5.2.2. General problems with coding 51

5.2.2.1. Lack of knowledge of VGT 51

5.2.2.2. Examination situation: Observer’s paradox 51

5.2.2.3. Personal variation 52

5.2.3. Cases of doubt 53

5.2.3.1. Unrecognizable signs 53

5.2.3.2. Inconsistent localization 53

5.2.3.3. Unclear relation between elements in the sentence 54

5.2.3.3.1. Adjective or predicate? 54

5.2.3.3.2. Subject or object? 55

5.2.3.3.3. “Rule of the last mentioned subject” and its extension 57

5.2.3.3.4. Serial verbs and verb sandwiches 59

5.2.3.3.5. Full sentence or not? 60

5.2.3.3.6. V-O or V? 60

5.3. Analysis 61

5.3.1. Participant 1 62

5.3.2. Participant 2 67

5.3.3. Participant 3 72

5.3.4. Participant 4 78

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5.3.5. Participant 5 81

5.3.6. Participant 6 85

5.3.7. Participant 7 91

5.4. Results and discussion 94

5.4.1. Some final remarks on the comparison 95

5.4.2. Final results 96

5.4.2.1. Word order patterns in reversible sentences 96

5.4.2.2. Word order patterns in non-reversible sentences 97

5.4.2.3. Placement of pointing signs and their localization 99

5.4.2.4. Placement of adjective and noun 101

5.4.2.5. Polycomponential constructions and simultaneity 102

5.4.3. The “facilitating conditions of second language acquisition”: conclusion 103

6. Conclusion 105

Bibliography 106

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1. Introduction

This research analyses the difficulties hearing adults with L1 Dutch who are learning Flemish Sign

Language as L2 have with the word order patterns of Flemish Sign Language (or VGT, from the Dutch

Vlaamse Gebarentaal) as a result of interference from Dutch. Interference, or negative transfer, is a

term used to indicate “when an L1 structure or rule is used in an L2 utterance and that use is

inappropriate and considered an “error” (Saville-Troike 2010 : 19). Van Herreweghe et al. (2003)

conducted an analysis of reference tracking in VGT narratives and Dutch compositions written by

Flemish deaf pupils, which has revealed interference from VGT in their Dutch (2003 : 102). These

results triggered the idea of conducting a counter-analysis and analyzing whether students of VGT as

L2 with L1 Dutch also experience interference from Dutch in their VGT. The first goal of this

dissertation is to uncover which aspects of the VGT word order patterns the participants in this study

experience most difficulties with (and in which most mistakes were made), resulting in a sort of

“error analysis”. I limited the analysis to reversible and non-reversible sentences, the placement of

pointing signs and their localization as well as the placement of adjective and noun. The second goal

is to uncover whether the L1 Dutch in fact influences the production of VGT (which can be both in a

positive and negative way) and which parts of the language are the most ‘vulnerable’ (the lexical

level, the grammatical level etc.). All of this is illustrated by examples from the analysed material.

As I started writing this dissertation, it soon became clear that the literature on hearing

individuals learning VGT as L2 (or any sign language for that matter) is limited or better said non-

existent. Since Flemish Sign linguistics are relatively new, there aren’t that many studies to be found.

In the very first phases of writing this dissertation, Grammaticale aspecten van de Vlaams-Belgische

Gebarentaal (“grammatical aspects of the Belgian-Flemish Sign Language”), the first ever published

work on the ‘grammar’ of VGT by Vermeerbergen (1999), has been a great help. It has provided me

not only basic knowledge of VGT and general results on VGT word order patterns but also theoretical

and practical guidance. In my opinion, Vermeerbergen didn’t coincidentally choose “grammatical

aspects” instead of “grammar”. Knowing that this work was only one of the first attempts to describe

it, she may have been conscious of the lack of knowledge about it, resulting in calling it the

“grammatical aspects of Belgian-Flemish Sign Language” and not the general “grammar”. Even

though today some aspects of this grammar have been specified, completed and improved, the fact

that this book (which is clearly written in layman’s terms) is still used in the course Inleiding tot de

Vlaamse Gebarentaal (taught at the University of Ghent) even fifteen years after publication date

shows that there hasn’t been any other publication that is both (1) legible for people who don’t

necessarily have prior knowledge but are indeed interested in VGT and (2) provides information on

VGT and its grammatical aspects/grammar as transparently as this does.

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Secondly, two recently conducted studies on VGT and its word order patterns constitute the

main reference on the VGT word order patterns for this research: the study on VGT and SASL,

conducted by Vermeerbergen et al. in 2007, and the research report “Woordvolgorde“ in de Vlaamse

Gebarentaal (“’word order’ in Flemish Sign Language”) that bundles the research that was

conducted on VGT before 2010, published by Vermeerbergen in 2010. The study on SASL and VGT

word order patterns focused on reversible, non-reversible and locative sentences and has led to the

following conclusions: in reversible sentences, the most frequently used word order patterns are

SVO, SOV and SVOV. In non-reversible sentences, the most frequently used patterns are SOV,

whereas, in contrast with reversible sentences, “an SVO-order is relatively rare” (2007 : 50).

Vermeerbergen’s research report (2010) adds that in both reversible and non-reversible sentences,

also the O/SV-pattern occurs (2010 : 18-19). In this research report, Vermeerbergen also draws some

general conclusions on various aspects of VGT. Of importance for this dissertation were the

statements that in VGT adjectives appear before or after the noun as well as both before and after

the noun and that pointing signs “that seem to function as a subject most often appear at the end of

the sentence” (2010 : 19; own translation). Even though these are the conclusions from mostly

elicited data and even though Vermeerbergen stresses that” it is still not (yet) clear how binding

these conventions are” (2010 : 19; own translation), these conclusions have served as the main

reference for my own study.

Thirdly, The quest for basic word order in Flemish Sign Language (published by

Vermeerbergen in 2004) hasn’t been used for this study, since personal correspondence with

Vermeerbergen showed that she herself didn’t consider this “her best publication”. She referred to

her research report (2010) as a better guideline. Some of its theoretical parts have, however, been

affirmed in (her and others’) later work and apply therefore to this dissertation as well.

Fourthly, also the above mentioned counter-study by Van Herreweghe et al. (2003) was a

definite stimulus to this dissertation. Even though most of the analysed structures weren’t the same

(whereas I decided to focus on reversible and non-reversible sentences, the placement of pointing

signs and the placement of adjective and noun, Van Herreweghe et al. also focused on role taking

and shift reference) and even though the research subjects are not entirely comparable (because of

the difference in age and ability to practice, resulting in a different level of proficiency in the

respective language) the research has provided some interesting counter-results to this study.

Finally, Saville-Troike’s Introducing second language acquisition has been the main “point of

departure” for the theoretical parts. Saville-Troike has recapped the extensive discussion on, among

others, second language acquisition, the existence of a critical period and positive and negative

transfer and she did this in a structured and apparent way. She has tried to obtain an integrated

perspective on the facilitating conditions of SLA, which proved to be very useful for this dissertation.

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The research in hand differs from the above mentioned studies for various reasons. Firstly

because the subjects of the analysis are completely different: Whereas Vermeerbergen et al. analyse

the used word order patterns in the VGT production of people with VGT as L1, I analyse the word

order patterns in the VGT production of people with Dutch as L1 who are studying VGT as L2.

Secondly, this research is different from the other two because the methodology is different. While

in both studies, utterances were elicited (by showing the informants images, which they had to

describe), I analysed examination data from hearing adult students of VGT. The examination data are

believed to be situated in between elicited data and spontaneous language data. They are not

elicited because I myself didn’t elicit certain structures and neither did the teacher who prepared

these examination questions. Of course the questions consisted of certain VGT structures that the

teacher believes should be mastered by the students by the end of the year. However, these

questions were no images that (almost) literally showed what the students should give expression to,

but rather short descriptions of general situations by means of keywords, which the students could

give expression to in their own words. This is supported by the fact that even though the

examination questions are the same, the utterances the various students make all differ from each

other. Therefore, the material for this study is considered leaning more towards spontaneous

language data than towards elicited data.

This practical execution of this research was conducted in various steps: Firstly, the

theoretical foundations were established by means of the above mentioned works after which the

actual research was conducted. For this purpose, I collected the examination data of 7 students who

follow the course Vlaamse Gebarentaal Intens II at VSPW (a school for evening-classes in Sint-

Amandsberg) as well as asked them to full out a questionnaire, in which they were asked to indicate

their age, job, possible acquaintances in Deaf community, the languages they speak as well as how

often they can practice VGT outside the classroom. Subsequently, I translated the examination data

with the help of an interpreter and then annotated and analysed them. Finally, the results of the

analysis were compared with the results on the most basic VGT word order patterns by

Vermeerbergen et al.. Even though I examined a limited number of participants, I analysed many

sentences (605 sentences) and therefore chose to put these results in tables as well. For every

participant, results are presented on the amount of occurrences of the various word order patterns

in both reversible and non-reversible sentence, on the amount of the various possible placements of

pointing signs as well as of the adjective and noun. In the final section, all these tables are added and

the final results for all participants are presented.

The first part of this dissertation is a literature study. Section 2 covers the elaborately

discussed theory on second language acquisition (SLA) (with attention being paid to the critical

period-hypothesis and of course to cross-linguistic influence). Section 3 discusses the (basic) word

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order patterns in both Dutch and VGT. Section 4 is the transitional section, in which the counter-

study by Van Herreweghe et al. is briefly described and in which I present the expectations I have for

the study. The second part of this dissertation is the study itself. Section 5 consists of two parts. The

first part discusses the practical and theoretical problems I had to deal with while conducting the

study, while the second part is the analysis itself, followed by the results and the discussion. Finally,

section 6 provides the conclusion.

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2. Second language acquisition

Second language acquisition (SLA) refers to the process of learning a language subsequent to

acquiring a first language as a young child, as well as to “the study of individuals and groups” who are

doing so (Saville-Troike 2012 : 2). SLA has emerged as an interesting field of study for linguists,

psychologists and psycholinguists, sociolinguists and social psychologists. These various researchers

regard SLA in a complete different way, varying from focusing on the languages itself to “mental or

cognitive processes involved in acquisition” and social motivation (Saville-Troike 2012 : 3). Because

each of them has a different focus, it is no surprise, that there are many conflicts between the

various disciplines regarding SLA, which result in the lack of a complete and accurate image of SLA. As

Saville-Troike correctly observes, “a satisfactory account of SLA must integrate these multiple

perspectives” (2012 : 3) and that is precisely what she tried to achieve. Therefore, her Introducing

Second Language Acquisition is the theoretical basis of this section.

Second language acquisition takes up a big part of this dissertation, because that is of course

precisely what the participants in this study are doing: learning VGT as L2. In previous studies, it has

become clear that SLA is indissolubly connected to the first language (and its acquisition), i.e. L1 has

an important effect on L2 and its acquisition. The ways in which they are connected are various.

Firstly, the age at which a learner learns his first language plays a significant role in the acquisition of

the second language(therefore, the discussion on the existence of a critical period and on the

consequences of early first language experience are discussed in 2.2.1.). Secondly, there is “general

agreement that cross-linguistic influence, or transfer of prior knowledge from L1 to L2 […] is involved

in interlanguage development” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 19). Therefore, the two major types of transfer

(positive and negative transfer) are theoretically explained and supported by examples (see 3.3.). In

the study itself, these types of transfer (of word order patterns from Dutch to VGT) were the main

points of interest by investigating in what way positive and negative transfer are “detectable” in the

VGT production of the participants.

This section proceeds as follows. Firstly, light is shed on second language acquisition itself by

clarifying the terms mother tongue, first (L1) and second language (L2) (2.1.1.), followed by a general

definition of first and second language acquisition (2.1.2.). Secondly, subsection 2.2. is divided into

two parts. As a first step, 2.2.1. recaps the extensive discussion on the critical period to learn a

language completely, followed by an overview of the consequences of having had early language

experience (2.2.2.). Subsection 2.3. reports on the transfer process from L1 to L2, which can be both

positive (positive transfer) and negative (negative transfer). Finally, subsection 2.4. summarizes the

two for this study most important facilitating conditions of SLA, being age and motivation, which

among others cause the differences in learners in second language acquisition.

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2.1. First and second language (acquisition): Definition

2.1.1. Mother tongue, first language (L1) and second language (L2)

Before going deeper into the discussion about (the existence of) a critical period in language

learning, the terms mother tongue, first language and second language should be properly

explained. For multiple reasons, at least half of the world’s population masters more than one

language. The mother tongue is the language which a person has grown up speaking from early

childhood. 1Usually (but not always, see below), this is the first language (L1) that a child acquires.

The first language (L1) is a language that is assumed to be acquired during early childhood (Saville-

Troike 2010 : 4) and is “almost always learned effortlessly, and with nearly invariant success” (Saville-

Troike 2012 : 30). The second language (L2), on the other hand, is a language that a person learns

after having acquired his first (most often native) language (Saville-Troike 2012 : 2). The second

language can be learned both informally and formally (see 2.1.2.).

With deaf people, the ‘linguistic’ situation is quite different. People who are born deaf are

often in a way forced into bilingualism; their hearing disorder makes it necessary for them to learn a

sign language, while they often (have to) learn the spoken language of the respective country as

well. It was, however, only from the 1960s onwards, that sign languages have been considered

(albeit gradually) “bona fide languages” (Pust 2012 : 2), which has led to the only recent recognition

of deaf individuals as bilinguals (Pust 2012 : 2)). Deaf people often acquire a sign language later than

they are supposed to (Pust (2012 : 16) considers “late learners” to be 5 to 10 years old), this being

the result of the lack of accessibility when they are young. Even though deaf children often acquire a

sign language later in life (because most of their parents do not master a sign language themselves),

it is still agreed upon that the sign language is their first language (L1). This is in clear contrast with

spoken languages, where the L1 always is the first language acquired. The actual first language that

deaf children acquire is a spoken and/or written language, which is nevertheless considered their

second language (Pust 2012 : 16). It is most common that someone’s mother tongue and first

language are the same language, but in the case of most sign languages there is again a deviation.

About 90% of deaf children have hearing parents so their mother tongue (mark the term) is again not

a sign language, but the spoken language that is their parents’ first language (e.g. Dutch) (Van

Herreweghe et al. 2003 : 91).

All the participants in this study have normal hearing and have been raised with the same

mother tongue, which is Dutch, with the exception of the first participant who has been raised with

both Dutch and French. Dutch is therefore also their first language (again, except for participant 1,

1 Source: Oxford Dictionaries

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who has two first languages, namely Dutch and French). The other languages that they have learned

at a later age are all second languages. In most cases these are French and/or English, but also VGT is

of course an L2 now.

2.1.2. First and second language acquisition

First language acquisition is the acquisition of a language or languages “during early childhood –

normally beginning before the age of three years” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 4). Those languages “are

learned as part of growing up among people who speak them” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 4). It is an

automatic process that (normally) all children go through while growing up. The child tries to

interpret and copy the utterances parents make, which results into the child evolving speech

production of his own by the age of one. As soon as the child turns three, the vocabulary starts

expanding and the foundation for the linguistic proficiency later in life has been laid. De Clercq (2009

: 6) claims that the words one learns at an earlier age will be recognized most easily later on.

Second language acquisition refers to the process of learning a language subsequent to acquiring

the L1 as a young child, as well as to “the study of individuals and groups” who are doing so (Saville-

Troike 2012 : 2). Whether the language is the third, fifth or even twentieth that is being learned, the

additional language is always called a second language (L2) (Saville-Troike 2012 : 2). Saville-Troike

differentiates between three types of learning and where they take place:

informal L2 learning: in naturalistic contexts

formal L2 learning: in classrooms

“L2 learning that involves a mixture of these settings and circumstances” (2012 : 2)

An example of “informal L2 learning” would be an immigrant child in Belgium who learns Dutch by

playing with its friends who are native Dutch-speaking children “without any specialized language

instruction” or an immigrant adult by interacting with native Dutch-speaking co-workers or co-

workers who speak Dutch as L2. This type of learning resembles the acquisition of a first language (it

is an (almost) effortless process); the difference is, however, that (1) a L1 has already been acquired

and a L2 is being learned this time and (2) the acquisition is in this case not with nearly invariant

success. The proponents of the critical period hypothesis (see below) would argue that the

(previously mentioned) child would achieve greater success in acquiring an L2 than an adult learner.

“Formal L2 learning” occurs when someone who lives in Belgium takes a course in Arabic; these

courses take place in classrooms and are indeed accompanied with formal language instructions.

Finally, the combination of informal and formal L2 learning occurs when someone from Belgium

takes classes in Italian when living in Rome or Venice (formal L2 learning) while also using the

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opportunity to practice Italian outside of class, for example to interact with fellow students or co-

workers. The informants in this study take courses in VGT, in which the teacher gives them

specialized language instructions, which is clear formal L2 learning. 6 out of 7 participants are able to

practice VGT outside of class while interacting with their deaf co-workers, but they are all native

Belgians with mother tongue Dutch who are studying VGT as L2, so this cannot be defined as

informal L2 learning.

2.2. The existence of a critical period in first language acquisition and the consequences of

early first language experience

When it comes to first and second language acquisition, the existence of a critical or sensitive period

(these terms are often used interchangeably, for more information see Newport 2003 : 737) is still

hotly disputed. Subsection 3.2.1. briefly recaps the discussion about the existence of such a critical

period, followed by an attempt to define the consequences of early first language experience (3.2.2.).

The question here is whether it only leads to a greater proficiency in that same L1 or also to

becoming more proficient in every later-learned language (L2)?

2.2.1. The existence of a critical period in first language acquisition

A critical period refers to a “maturational time period during which some crucial experience will have

its peak effect on development and learning” (Newport 2003 : 737) and to “the limited number of

years” children have “during which normal acquisition is possible” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 88),

suggesting that learning a language outside of this period either won’t have the same (strong) effect

on learning other languages or even have no effect at all. Applying this to first language acquisition,

the age at which the L1 is acquired and the ultimate proficiency achieved in that language (and other

languages, see 2.2.4.) are connected. It would therefore not only be easier for a child than for an

adult to acquire a (first) language, it would also solely for a person under a certain age be possible to

reach complete proficiency in that (first) language. There are a few extreme cases that show there

are extreme deficits successive to the deprival, for example the case of Genie, who was not exposed

to her first language until after puberty. As a result, Genie was only able to acquire some of the

“simplest aspects of the English language” (Newport 2003 : 738). Because of the extremity of these

cases (regarding their physical and cognitive status), ‘normal cases’ have to be examined separately.

Mayberry (et al.) has confirmed the importance of early language experience with two

studies. In the study of 2003, Mayberry and Lock investigated the English syntactic abilities of both

deaf and hearing adults “who either did or did not have linguistic experience (spoken or signed)

during early childhood” (2003 : 380). It was found that the group of learners with no early language

experience was unable to acquire English grammar well, even after many years of daily usage. They

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therefore concluded that the effects of not learning a language early in life are long lasting (2003 :

380). Mayberry conducted another study in 2007, this time on her own. The study led her to the

following interesting conclusions: (1) the age of acquisition has “a strong and lifelong effect on the

outcome of L1 acquisition” (2007 : 547), whereas intriguingly (2) it only has a small effect on the

outcome of L2 (this is only valid when the L2 is learned after having had an early language experience

with a L1, meaning that early language experience is absolutely necessary to come to this conclusion)

and (3) it doesn’t matter whether or not the first and second language have the same modality, the

acquisition of the first language always supports later learning of the second language (2007 : 547).

Thus, Mayberry concludes that only the lack of an early language experience could lead to an

“incomplete acquisition of all subsequently learned languages” (2007 : 547), affecting all levels of

linguistic structures. It could therefore be deduced that all learners of a language who have had early

language experience, are able to reach near-native levels. The reached level of sufficiency, however,

depends on other factors than the first language and its acquisition, among others general linguistic

proficiency (e.g. having already learned multiple languages). As a result from these factors, Newport

states that there are indeed proficiency plateaus for adult learners (2007 : 738).

It has become clear that it is and probably will remain an ongoing discussion, whether the full

acquisition of a language after a certain age is still achievable or not. Following numerous researchers

(among whom Lenneberg (1967), Hurford (1991), Newport (2003) and especially Mayberry (2003)

whose studies have proven to be very convincing) and after having provided various arguments to its

benefit, I acknowledge the hypothesis of the existence of a critical period for language acquisition. I

do, however, agree with Newport and Mayberry, when stating that this does not mean that the

learners of a second language cannot reach a near-native level in this language.

2.2.2. Early first language experience: consequences

Having acknowledged the existence of a critical period in language acquisition and therefore that it is

‘preferred’ to have had early language experience in order to become proficient in that language, it is

now questioned whether this early language experience with a certain language (being the L1) only

leads to greater proficiency in that same language or also in every other language learned later on in

life? It is often assumed that late acquisition of L2 has negative consequences for the proficiency in

that same language (see 2.2.3. for an elaborated view on this), questioned is now whether early

experience with a certain language as L1 can erase these future negative consequences and in

contrast lead to a greater proficiency in that L2. Newport, who has examined this, raises this question

in the following way: “Does the acquisition of a language early in life reduce the effects of age on

later language learning?” (2003 : 738). If yes, it would be expected that the participants in this study,

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even though they are learning VGT as L2 at a later age, would experience the advantages the early

language experience with Dutch during their childhood brings along and that they would only

experience a small(er) effect of their age on their second language learning.

Two interesting studies have been conducted on this subject. The first is the study Newport herself

performed. Intriguingly for this study, Newport researched both signed and spoken languages and

has proved that the age at which someone starts acquiring his first language does in fact have an

important effect on learning other languages later on, while language modality does not (Newport

2003 : 738). Thus, whether someone learns a spoken or signed language, “late first language

acquisition results in lower performance than late second language acquisition” (Newport 2003 :

738). This confirms the assumption stated above, late (sign) language learners will indeed have some

difficulties becoming proficient in the grammar of their L2, but, as Newport emphasizes, having had

early language experience is absolutely necessary and the knowledge of a first language makes it

easier (or better said less difficult) to learn this second language (2003 : 738).

The second interesting study is the one conducted by Mayberry et al. (2003), which confirms

this assumption as well. The study’s participants (two groups, one with early language experience

and the other without) had to execute two tasks, a grammatical judgment task and a sentence to

picture matching task. In both tasks, the adults who had early language experience reached near-

native levels whereas the adults who only had little or no early language experience performed

poorly every time (2003 : 380). Again particularly interesting is the fact that Mayberry et al.’s study is

conducted both cross-linguistically and cross-modally. This means it has been researched whether

early language experience has a positive effect on the acquisition of every language whatsoever, of

both spoken (cross-linguistically) and signed languages (cross-modally) (2003 : 380). The study

revealed that “early experience with a spoken language led to near-native performance on a task

involving complex ASL structures whereas a lack of such experience did not” (2003 : 380). Mayberry

et al. have taken the research about (the existence of) a critical period to a next level, while

concluding that “language experience during human development dramatically alters the capacity to

learn languages throughout life and that these effects are supramodal with respect to both the first

and second language” (2003 : 380).

Translating this into this study, the participants have all acquired their L1 (Dutch and in the

case of participant 1 both Dutch and French) early in life, so it is assumed that, in theory, they should

be able to reach a high level of proficiency in VGT as L2. Of course, as explained above, the achieved

level of proficiency is not only related to the age at which the L1 has been acquired, it is (among

others) also related to social and individual factors, such as age and motivation (e.g. the time and

effort they want and/or can put into practicing the usage of signs) (see 2.3.1.). As Mayberry

concluded, the age of acquisition does have a “strong and lifelong” effect on the outcome of the L1

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(2007 : 544) (supporting the critical period hypothesis), but not on the outcome of the L2. On the L2

it does have a small effect, but mainly on its linguistic structures. This dissertation therefore does not

focus on the vocabulary used by the students of VGT (because the vocabulary normally doesn’t get

affected), but on the linguistic structures, more precisely in this case on the usage of the word order

patterns.

2.3. Three phases of SLA and positive and negative transfer

In both first and second language acquisition, there are three phases that a learner goes through

before acquiring the L1 or L2 completely. Since second language acquisition is the main subject in this

dissertation, subsection 2.3.1. briefly summarizes the three phases in SLA and, when important,

constitutes the difference between L1 and L2 acquisition.

Learning an L2 means already having acquired an L1. As stated above, this L1 plays a significant role

in the acquisition of an L2. The factor of age in first language acquisition has already been explained

(see 2.2.2.), now it is time to take a look at the ways in which the L1 can influence the L2, in terms of

positive and negative transfer (2.3.2.).

2.3.1. Three phases of second language acquisition

Saville-Troike distinguishes three phases in language learning: the initial state, the intermediate

states and the final state. The initial state in both first and second language acquisition is by many

researchers believed to include “the underlying knowledge about language structures and principles

that is in learners’ heads at the very start of the L1 or L2 acquisition” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 16). In first

language acquisition this should then be regarded as a natural ability or even an “innate capacity to

learn a language” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 17). Among researchers the question whether or not this

“innate capacity” which children have remains with them throughout life and therefore supports the

acquisition of subsequent languages causes disagreement (see 3.4.1.). Complete agreement is there,

however, upon the idea that the prior knowledge of L1 is “a major component of the initial state for

L2 learning” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 18). This prior knowledge entails “knowledge of how language (in

general) works, as well as a myriad of language-specific features which are only partially relevant for

production of the new L2” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 18). Apart from these elements, the L2 learner can

also transfer the real-world knowledge that he has acquired by now as well as the “knowledge of

means for accomplishing such interactional functions as requesting, commanding, promising and

apologizing” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 18). All these ’types of knowledge’ will be transferred from L1 to L2

during second language development, most often during the intermediate states (Saville-Troike 2012

: 18).

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The intermediate states cover “all stages of basic language development” and include among others

“the L2 developmental sequence which is known as learner language (also interlanguage or IL)

(Saville-Troike 2012 : 16). Many similarities can be found in the intermediate states of L1 and L2

learning, since “the development of both L1 and L2 is largely systematic, including predictable

sequencing of many phenomena within each and some similarity of sequencing across languages”

(Saville-Troike 2012 : 18). However, one of the differences between the development of both is that

L2 development is not an unconscious process (whereas L1 development mostly is), because L2

learners (1) “have already reached a level of maturity where they can understand and produce

complex utterances in their L1” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 19) and therefore can use this ability very early

in their production of L2, and (2) because they can use their already acquired world knowledge and

experience as stimuli for the L2 learning. In addition and most importantly for this study (3), they can

transfer the above mentioned acquired types of knowledge from L1 to L2, which is one of the

processes that take place in second language acquisition (see 2.3.2. on positive and negative

transfer). In the intermediate states, there are some necessary conditions (e.g. for L1 learners that is

direct, reciprocal interaction, whereas this is not an absolute necessary condition for L2 learners) as

well as facilitating conditions (such as age, aptitude, motivation) (see subsection 2.4.).

The final state is “the outcome of L1 and L2 learning” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 16). In contrast

with L2 learning, the final state of L1 development is “native linguistic competence” (Saville-Troike

2012 : 21). Learning some aspects of (among others) the vocabulary of L1 may take longer than

learning other elements, but in general is the basis of the language that a child is acquiring as L1

established by the age of five or six years (Saville-Troike 2012 : 21). As has already been noted, “this

is a universal human achievement, requiring no extraordinary aptitude or effort” (Saville-Troike 2012

: 21) and a process “with nearly invariant success” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 30).

In contrast, the final state of L2 development is entirely different. Firstly, the outcome can never be

“totally native linguistic competence” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 21) because – as the critical period

hypothesis suggests – that is no longer possible after a certain age. Secondly, the success of SLA is

“highly variable” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 21), varying from learners with “near-native” or “native-like”

competence in L2 to people who are only partially mastering the L2 and still transferring e.g.

grammatical elements from their L1 to their L2 (Saville-Troike 2012 : 21).

2.3.2. Positive and negative transfer

The proficiency in the L1 brings along both grammatical and general linguistic insight as well as

already established skills for interaction which can help L2 learners learn an L2 more easily. It is

therefore always of interest as well as of importance to take the L1 of the learners into by analyzing

its grammatical and lexical structure and rules (for this study, this has been done for Dutch, see 3.2.).

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The grammatical and general linguistic insight can certainly help the learner master his L2 more easily

(positive transfer), it can, however, also cause confusion, leading to incorrect forms (negative

transfer). Thus, there are two major types of transfer (or cross-linguistic influence) (Saville-Troike

2012 : 19):

Positive transfer, “when an L1 structure or rule is used in an L2 utterance and that use is

appropriate or “correct” in the L2”

Negative transfer (or interference), “when an L1 structure or rule is used in an L2 utterance

and that use is inappropriate and considered an “error””

As Saville-Troike states, cross-linguistic influence (both positive and negative) “occurs in all

levels” of the learner language, including “vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, and all others

aspects of language structure and use” (2012 : 19). Obviously, positive transfer facilitates L2 learning

because the fact that the same structure can be correctly used in both L1 and L2 means “that a new

one doesn’t have to be learned” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 19). Not only positive transfer of a word (1) is

possible, e.g. exterior ‘outside’ (used in both Spanish and English, it has a different pronunciation but

the same spelling and meaning (Saville-Troike 2012 : 19)), but also positive transfer of a grammatical

structure (2) is possible. For example, the BIFF-rule in Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Norwegian,

Danish and Finnish) which means that in subordinate clauses, the negative inte (‘not’) is placed in

front of of the finite verb (Kallonen 2011 : 16) instead of behind it, e.g. in Swedish:

Han ska inte komma (he will not come)

vs.

Han meddelar att han inte ska komma (He announces that he will not come)

Because this rule is used in all Scandinavian languages, a learner with L1 Swedish who is learning

Danish as L2 can simply and correctly use the same BIFF-rule, which of course facilitates the learning

of Danish as L2, in contrast with a learner with L1 Dutch in which the BIFF-rule does not exist.

Finally, many skills for social interaction (3) that a learner develops in L1 are also transferred to L2

(Saville-Troike 2012 : 20) (e.g. knowing how to request something).

Negative transfer, on the other hand, means that while using L2 the learner uses forms that

are correct in the L1 but incorrect in the L2. These can either be forms “which are unlike any that are

likely to be produced by a native speaker of the L2” (sometimes not being incorrect per se, but very

unnatural) or forms that are “an integration of elements which would not occur in monolingual

speech” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 19). The “most common and most easily recognized aspect of L1

influence” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 19) is probably the “foreign accent” that many L2 learners have.

21

Probably this is also the aspect that is most accepted (if, of course, the accent is understandable)

than any other example of interference. Interference at the grammatical level (e.g. a learner with L1

Swedish who might transfer the BIFF-rule to English *He announces that he not will come) is, in

contrast, less likely to be overlooked.

The question whether cross-linguistic influence also occurs with people who have a spoken

language as L1 (e.g. Dutch) and are learning a sign language as L2 (e.g. VGT), is intriguing. Does the

different modality of both languages change the advantageous possibility of positive transfer and the

risky possibility of negative transfer occurring in L2 learning? Before having conducted the study, it

seems unlikely that, for example, the Dutch word ‘mixer’ (meaning ‘food mixer’) would interfere with

the corresponding sign in VGT (in which the (e.g. right)hand represents the food mixer, performing

the mixing movement with stretched thumb (pointing to the left) and index finger (pointing

downwards)2). Precisely because of the different modality of both languages, cross-linguistic

influence on the lexical level seems unlikely.

On the grammatical level, however, interference should in fact be possible, for also sign languages

have their own, independent grammar. Many people believe that sign languages are modeled on the

spoken language(s) that is/are also spoken in the respective country. This is of course incorrect; sign

languages are independently developed languages (meaning not necessarily bound to the spoken

languages in the respective countries they are used), which therefore have an independently

developed grammar (which can of course be similar to the grammar of a spoken language, but isn’t

necessarily). It is to be expected that the participants, being older learners with L1 Dutch, are likely to

project their grammatical knowledge of Dutch onto the grammatical structures in VGT, which won’t

necessarily match one another (see section 4 and 5 for the results on this).

2.4. Facilitating conditions of second language acquisition: differences in learners

One of the main differences between first language acquisition and second language acquisition is

the fact that the former is an almost effortless process with “nearly invariant success” (Saville-Troike

2012 : 30), while the success of the latter depends on different factors, resulting in some L2 learners

being more successful than others. Whereas first language acquisition by children “occurs without

instruction” and -since it are children- there is no degree or (possible lack of) motivation that can

influence the rate of L1 development (Saville-Troike 2012 : 21), the acquisition and the rate of

development of the second language do depend on many of these social and individual factors.

Saville-Troike names additional (social) factors, such as cognitive style, personality and learning

strategies as well as sex. Since this is not a sociolinguistic study, these factors aren’t taken into

2 Source: http://gebaren.ugent.be/alfabet.php?id=18161

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account. In addition, the factor of sex is, in my opinion, not proven equally scientifically relevant and

therefore remains quite speculative. In this study, 6 out of 7 participants appear to be female, so this

wouldn’t be representative anyway.

The factor of aptitude, which is often defined as the talent a person has, in this case for

language learning, is considered very much interesting. When analyzing a person’s aptitude, different

tests can be executed to come to conclusions on their grammatical sensitivity or associative memory.

However, since this isn’t analysed in the study in hand, it is decided not to take upon this factor

either. Two final notes should however be marked: danger lays in the assumption that the aptitude

components (altogether) form the complete talent that a learner has to possess to be able to learn a

language. However, it has been concluded that “individual ability may vary by factor” (Saville-Troike

2012 : 91), meaning that a learner with a good associative memory may have poor grammatical

sensitivity (and vice versa), and that this doesn’t necessarily hamper learning a language fully. Talent

in all factors is of course a big advantage, but not a requirement for success. Secondly, I support the

assumption that aptitude is only “one of several factors which may influence ultimate L2 proficiency”

(Saville-Troike 2012 : 91), next to age, motivation and others.

For the purpose of this dissertation it was decided to only focus on the factors of age and

motivation.

2.4.1. Age

2.4.1.1. Lack of an integrated perspective on the factor age

Previously, it has been discussed whether and showed that learning an L1 early in life results in

greater proficiency in both that language and other languages later on in life. However, as Newport

(2003 : 738) indicates, the age at which the learner starts learning his L2 is also of interest, because

when learning an L2, late acquisition does slow down the learning of the formal properties of a

language (phonology, morphology and syntax). Newport underlines that studies have shown “a

strong relationship between the age of exposure to a language and the ultimate proficiency achieved

in that language” (2003 : 738). With regard to this, the early study of Johnson and Newport (in 1989)

on Chinese and Korean immigrants who moved to the USA is interesting. Johnson and Newport

discovered that the age of exposure to a language – even when the number of years of exposure is

matched – indeed affects someone’s ability to judge the grammatical structure of the ‘newer’

language, even after many years (Newport 2003 : 738). This could be regarded as the (partial) result

of the L1 interfering with the L2, but Newport underlines, this is not the only reason. She refers to

deaf adults who have acquired American Sign Language (ASL) as their L1. The age of exposure to ASL

affects their grammatical skills in ASL “even though they may not control any other language with

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great proficiency” (Newport 2003 : 738). This provides clear indication, that the age of exposure to a

(first or second) language plays a significant role.

There are, however, differences in the fundamental idea of these assumptions. It is a

common belief that children are more successful in learning an L2 than adults, but it appears that

“the evidence for this is actually surprisingly equivocal” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 87). This also becomes

clear when regarding the discussion on the innate capacity of children to learn a language and

whether or not this capacity remains with them throughout life and therefore supports the

acquisition of subsequent languages. Some believe it does and attribute the differences in the final

outcomes of L1 and L2 learning to other factors (Saville-Troike 2012 : 17). Others believe the innate

capacity partially remains but grows weaker as the age advances. Still others believe that learners

only have this innate capacity during childhood, after which it disappears and they (have to) learn

subsequent languages by the same means as “older learners acquire other domains of knowledge,

such as mathematics or history” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 17).

The lack of integration of the multiple current perspectives leads to various opinions on being

successful in learning an L2. “Success” is often defined differently. Some researchers consider a

native-like pronunciation of that language as successful, others find the learner’s grammaticality

judgments most important, while still others regard “fluency or functional competence” (Saville-

Troike 2012 : 87). Finally, many researchers define relative success either in terms of “ultimate

achievement” or in terms of “initial rate of learning”.

Firstly, when it comes to ultimate achievement, it is -according to some researchers-

generally acknowledged that younger learners have an advantage, since learning a language early in

life results in a better knowledge of that language than when learning it later in life. This could be

understood as a clean slate serving as the best platform. On this subject, Newport reports that long-

term outcome (ultimate achievement) “clearly favors those who start learning the language during

childhood” (2003 : 738). Early learners do control every single aspect of the respective language

flawlessly; its accent and rhythm as well as syntax and morphology (Newport 2003 : 738). It seems

though that they do not have a lot of time to control every single aspect, as Newport (2003 : 738)

indicates that the decline in average proficiency begins as early as ages 4 to 6. Additionally, it could

be argued that a clean slate avoids the interference of one language into another. As explained

above, when searching for possible interference of Dutch into VGT, it seems unlikely, because of the

different modality, that there will be any interference of the Dutch vocabulary into the VGT

vocabulary. It is, however, very plausible that the students of VGT reproduce some aspects of the

Dutch grammar, for example typical Dutch word order patterns, which do not necessarily agree with

24

the VGT word order patterns. Because of the flexible word order patterns in VGT (see 3.3.), these are

not necessarily incorrect, but (possibly) rather artificial.

Secondly, when it comes to initial rate of learning, “older learners have an advantage”

(Saville-Troike 2012 : 87). It is indeed arguable as well that a person with an already characterised

slate (to continue the metaphor) with his knowledge of at least one language and his experience in

life could have some advantages too when learning an L2. This is underpinned by adult learners, who

do indeed experience an advantage during the first months or years of the linguistic exposure. They

are better at gaining vocabulary and particularly speedy at using certain complex sentence forms

(Newport 2003 : 738). This is supposed to be the result from (1) the adult brain that is completely

developed, (2) the experiences adults have already gained, which leads to (3) the more developed

way of thinking logically that adults excel in and by which they outperform children. The knowledge

of other languages and their structures is believed to contribute to the general way of thinking about

languages and structuring them as well as to being successful when learning new languages.

Up until today, no definite and integrated (research) perspective has been agreed upon.

Newport is a great example of this, on the one hand reporting that long-term outcome (ultimate

achievement) “clearly favors those who start learning the language during childhood” (2003 : 738),

but on the other hand remarking that it “should […] not be surprising that a critical period for

language in humans would show some continuing ability to learn, with individual variation, during

adulthood” (2003 : 739) and that it is surely possible that some individuals are as proficient as early

learners, as the proficiency of older learners differs more greatly (2003 : 738).

Having provided arguments both for the positive consequences of learning a language early

in life and later on in life, the relevance of what Saville-Troike repeatedly states becomes apparent:

there are no simple answers to the various questions about SLA, because of its “highly complex

nature” and the diversity of academic disciplines and therefore opinions about SLA (2012: 2). In this

study, the precedent of Saville-Troike is followed and attention is paid to the different (linguistic,

sociolinguistic, pragmatic etc.) factors that have an influence on the acquisition of an L2.

2.4.1.2. An integrated overview of the “valuative criteria” on age of SLA

Trying to find a counterweight to the confusing variety of points of view on age of second language

acquisition, Saville-Troike attempted to assemble an integrated overview (meaning an overview that

takes into account the different points of view) of the advantages of both being younger and being

older when learning an L2. It is generally agreed upon that on the one hand, young people have the

advantage of having greater brain plasticity (“the capacity to assume the new functions that learning

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language demands” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 88)), of not being analytical and of (usually) having fewer

inhibitions. They are believed to have a weaker group identity (they don’t consciously feel more

related to people with the same native language because they are young and socially not completely

developed) and more likely to receive simplified input (Saville-Troike 2012 : 88). On the other hand,

thanks to their age and the knowledge and experience that come with that age, older people have a

better learning capacity (“including better memory for vocabulary” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 89)) and

analytic ability. This is considered positive in the short run, because “they are able to understand and

apply explicit grammatical rules” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 89), but younger learners are in contrast

believed to “develop more native-like grammatical intuitions” because “they are in a non-analytic

processing mode” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 89), leading to the presumption that older learners are more

successful in “formal instructional settings” (such as a VGT course for the informants in this study)

and younger learners in “informal and naturalistic L2 learning contexts” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 89).

Finally, older learners have both better pragmatic skills and real-world knowledge (because of their

experience in life) as well as greater knowledge of L1 (Saville-Troike 2012 : 88)

Aside from the above mentioned “valuative criteria”, there are many others to take into

consideration, such as the system of the language that is being learned, the stage of L2 development

in which the learner finds himself and many others. Again, it becomes clear that there are many

individual factors and advantages (and disadvantages) of both stages in life, making it difficult to

declare one definite statement.

2.4.1.3. Late SLA: expectations for the participants in this study

Even when many researchers support the critical period hypothesis for first language acquisition

(“children have only a limited number of years during which normal acquisition is possible” (Saville-

Troike 2012 : 88)), still many different points of view remain (e.g. Birdsong 1999). Some, with

Lenneberg (1967) as pioneer, even speculated that there’s not only a critical period for first language

acquisition, but also for SLA. Lenneberg believed there was a definite cut-off age, before which the

learner had to acquire some crucial elements of language (e.g. the pronunciation). If not, they will

never achieve a native-like level (and therefore always have “a foreign accent”) (Saville-Troike 2012 :

89). Others argue instead that there is no absolute cut-off age, but rather “multiple periods which

place constraints on different aspects of language” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 89), meaning that one

aspect of language, e.g. phonology, should be acquired before a certain age, which is a different age

than the age at which one should have acquired e.g. syntax. Research has proved that some (but only

few) older learners are able to achieve native-like proficiency (Saville-Troike 2012 : 89). This weaker

claim is believed to have more reach and is therefore preferred. So in theory, it is possible that the

26

participants in this study would achieve native-like proficiency in VGT, but this is of course not

possible to investigate (yet) because the participants in this study are only in their second course of

VGT. A diachronic study on this would be interesting.

After having provided various arguments for the advantages and disadvantages of learning a

language at a (early or) later age, it is now time to apply these to the situation in which the

participants in this study find themselves and to express the expectations regarding their proficiency

in VGT at this point in the learning process (having taken a second course in VGT).

When starting learning VGT, the participants in this study are (much) older than the optimal

age to acquire or learn a language profoundly, meaning that – as among others the studies of

Newport and Saville-Troike both indicate - they should have more difficulties with acquiring

grammar than with acquiring vocabulary. Thus, the first expectation (1) is that the participants

experience more difficulties with mastering the VGT grammar than the VGT vocabulary. Two reasons

can be appointed for this. Firstly, all older learners are supposed to experience more difficulties with

complex grammatical structures than with vocabulary, because they have a better learning capacity,

which allows them to remember vocabulary better (Saville-Troike 2012 : 89). Secondly, even though

Mayberry stated that it doesn’t matter whether or not the L1 and L2 have the same modality and

that the acquisition of the L1 always supports later learning of the L2 (2007 : 547)), it seems unlikely,

that older learners with a spoken language as L1 who are studying a sign language as L2 can make

the same use of their “greater knowledge of L1” as learners who study an L2 that has the same

modality as their L1, e.g. when a learner with L1 Dutch is learning French as L2, it is plausible that his

ability to fall back on his knowledge of Dutch and its lexicon (with some loanwords from French) will

help him acquire the French lexicon more easily, whereas this is not possible for a learner with L1

Dutch who is learning VGT as L2. Also within the grammar itself differences can be found, meaning

that some grammatical elements are less difficult to learn than others (Newport 2003 : 738). The

“basic word order of a language” is being considered relatively easy to acquire, whereas some “more

complex aspects of grammar” (2003 : 738) are not.

The second expectation (2) is that on the short term, the participants experience the

advantages of their analytic ability, which enables them to “understand and apply explicit

grammatical rules” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 89). This seems in contrast with the first expectation, but

the advantages of their analytic ability are only on the short term, meaning that they are supposed

to master the VGT grammatical rules quite sufficiently at this point, but will not on the long term

when comparing their linguistic ability with that of younger learners of VGT as L2, who will “develop

more native-like grammatical intuitions” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 89). Since this is a synchronic study

27

(and therefore only analyses a particular moment of time), the proficiency of the participants in the

VGT grammar cannot be compared with their proficiency at a later moment in the learning process.

It would, however, be interesting to conduct a diachronic study and research whether the

proficiency in VGT grammar of the participants indeed stagnates.

The third expectation (3) concerns Saville-Troike referring to the greater knowledge of L1 as

one of the advantages for older learners (2012 : 88). Following this stream of thought, the

knowledge of Dutch of the participants would be supposed to help them with learning VGT.

However, as stated previously, it is also possible that precisely this knowledge of Dutch could

hamper the process of learning VGT, because it is very plausible that the learners imitate some

grammatical and/or lexical elements of Dutch and incorrectly transfer them into VGT. Precisely this is

the main interest of this dissertation and is therefore researched elaborately in section 4.

2.4.2. Motivation

Saville-Troike defines motivation as largely determining “the level of effort which learners expend at

various stages in their L2 development, often a key to ultimate level of proficiency” (2012 : 91).

Motivation is of course an individual and variable factor, which for a long time has been regarded as

almost a type of characteristics, but more recent developments in SLA research have showed that

“motivation for second language learning, along with L2 representation and processing, is controlled

by neurological mechanisms” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 92). Saville-Troike indicates that “specific areas

within our brain conduct a “stimulus appraisal”” (2012 : 92), which varies from speaker to speaker

and “determines how we respond”, e.g. what our attitudes towards language learning will be and

which degree of effort we will achieve (2012 : 92). If a certain aspect of language for the learner is

perceived to be important enough (e.g. mastering the native-like pronunciation of a language), it is

possible that the motivation of the learner results in him overcoming the odds of not acquiring that

certain aspect.

Various definitions of motivation co-exist, but it is generally regarded as including at least the

following components (Saville-Troike 2012 : 91):

Significant goal or need

Desire to attain the goal

Perception that learning L2 is relevant to fulfilling the goal or meeting the need

Belief in the likely success or failure of learning L2

Value of potential outcomes/rewards

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It seems that all of these components are present in the participants in this study. The participants

have a significant goal or need (learning VGT for job- and sometimes personal purposes), they have a

desire to attain this goal because they perceive the learning of VGT as L2 as relevant to fulfilling the

goal (e.g. increasing business opportunities), they believe in the likely success or failure of learning L2

(they often indicated that it wasn’t easy to learn VGT) and finally they value the potential

outcomes/rewards (e.g. a raise or full-time contract at work, appreciation from family members who

are deaf or know a sign language their selves).

Two types of motivation are widely recognized, integrative motivation and instrumental

motivation. Integrative motivation is based on the interest in learning L2, caused by emotional or

affective factors, e.g. because the learner wants to connect with the people who use the language or

because he wants to become a part of the L2-using speech community (romantic or altruistic reasons

are here the most common reasons) (Saville-Troike 2012 : 92). Instrumental motivation is not

dominated by emotional or affective factors, rather by practical factors. Learners who experience

instrumental motivation regard learning the L2 as a practical matter, e.g. in order to access “scientific

and technical information” for which the knowledge of the L2 is necessary or to “increase

occupational or business opportunities” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 92). No type of motivation has proved

to be more effective than the other, their effect is relative and depends on “complex personal and

social factors” (Saville-Troike 2012 : 92). Also altruistic reasons, desire to travel, intellectual curiosity

and general communicative needs are reported motivations (Saville-Troike 2012 : 92).

The course Vlaamse Gebarentaal Intens II itself is clearly ‘instrumentally motivated’, since it is

taught particularly for people who want to (or have to) learn VGT for job purposes. Some of the

participants are, however, believed to be emotionally motivated as well (integrative motivation),

because they want to connect with colleagues or because they have a deaf brother (participant 4).

Only participant 3 differs from the others, because they don’t have a current job in which they work

for or with deaf or hearing impaired people. Participant 3 has decided to take the intense course of

VGT because they wanted to learn VGT more quickly and thoroughly than is the case in the basic

course of VGT, in order to find a job soon. This does, however, mean as well, that they cannot

practice VGT as often as the other participants which may result in a lower level of proficiency as the

others or at least different results.

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3. (Basic) Word order patterns in Dutch and VGT: a comparison

In order to be able to conduct the study on the word order patterns of VGT and the difficulty hearing

adult learners with Dutch as L1 experience with it, a discussion of (basic) word order patterns in

general and in both Dutch and VGT seems self-evident. A crucial factor for the word order patterns is

the different modality of spoken and signed languages. Spoken languages namely belong to the oral-

aural languages, while signed languages are visual-gestural languages. This modality results in its

users (namely, the signers) having far different “structural possibilities” than the users of spoken

languages. Vermeerbergen et al. indicate that signers (1) can make use of “three dimensional space

for linguistic expression” and (2) dispose of a range of articulators, “including both hands and arms,

the torso, the mouth and the eyes, as well as others parts of the face” (2010 : 3). Signed languages

have therefore no “primarily linear patterning” (which spoken languages have), but “exhibit a highly

simultaneous organization” (2010 : 3).

In subsection 3.1. a general overview of word order patterns is presented. Most languages of

the world are divided into one of six theoretically possible basic word order patterns. These six (and

in particular the three most common) as well as the diachronic research on them are (briefly)

analysed. Subsection 3.2. briefly provides information on word order patterns in Dutch, after which

subsection 3.3. elaborately discusses word order structures in VGT. Finally, subsection 3.4.

recapitulates the most important differences between word order patterns in Dutch and VGT and

forms an attempt to compare both as well as consequently predict which difficulties the adult

students of VGT will have with the VGT word order patterns.

It should be noted that I always refer to word order patterns instead of generally to word

order. Because of the finding that not all languages entirely correspond to one of six word order

patterns (see below), but instead sometimes match two (or more) of them (among others depending

on the type of clause), I decided not to refer to it as word order in general, but as word order

patterns, which can vary considerably.

3.1. Basic word order patterns: a general overview

Before going deeper into the theoretical and experimental groundwork on word order patterns, it

should be defined what the term word order actually means. The simple and short definition by

Vermeerbergen is preferred: “Word order is the way of arranging words in greater wholes (phrases,

parts of a sentence, clauses, sentences) in a language or the way in which these words occur” (2010 :

1; own translation). A language is generally characterised as having a basic word order, which

involves the position of the subject (S), object (O) and verb (V). According to Volterra et al. (1984 : 27)

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the notion subject refers to “the one who carries out the action” and the object to “what or who is

the recipient of that action”. The verb expresses the action itself. Numerous linguistic researchers

have examined a great deal of languages in the world and their word order, resulting in six

theoretically possible basic word order patterns. As stated above, I follow Vermeerbergen’s (limited)

definition of basic word order, being “the word order of simple declarative, active clauses, with no

complex noun phrases” (2004 : 2).

The six (theoretically possible) basic word order patterns that are acknowledged today are

SOV, SVO, VSO, VOS, OVS and OSV (Song 2012 : 16). Because linguists discovered that many

languages have a more or less similar word pattern, they designed a theoretical categorical basis for

it, in order to simplify later research, which led to more and more comparative studies. The word

‘basic’ is however not coincidental. It is not possible to categorize all utterances in the basic word

order pattern. There are always structures that deviate from this basic pattern, but that doesn’t

change its predominance. Possible reasons for deviating from the basic word order pattern are

widely diverging cognitive motivations (Coussé 2008 : 26). When one wants to stress a certain

element, the basic word order pattern can be overturned by the speaker’s wish to highlight

something and therefore put it in a different position it would usually find itself in. It is important to

be aware of this, but fact is still that there are basic word order patterns in almost all languages,

which according to Coussé are arisen from the frequent repetition of patterns that originally were

cognitively motivated themselves (2008 : 26). Obviously the presence of these patterns means that

they come naturally to its users and therefore simplify the speaking process, for the speakers can fall

back on fixed structures and routines.

Greenberg is to be considered the pioneer of researching word order patterns. He examined

a sample of only thirty languages (more or less), aiming to uncover whether there were any

reoccurring word order patterns to be discovered. Greenberg chose to research in what order the

categories ‘nominal subject’ (S), ‘nominal direct object’ (O) and ‘lexical verb’ (V) can appear in a

declarative sentence (Coussé 2008 : 8). To avoid that this subject would lead us too far, it can be

concluded that Greenberg excluded three out of six theoretically possible word order structures,

namely VOS, OVS and OSV. However, more expanded studies later on found some missing elements

in Greenberg’s theory and proved that these structures could indeed appear cross-linguistically, but

especially utterances with the object in the first position of the sentence (OVS and OSV) are

extremely rare (Coussé 2008 : 8). This is interesting, because the O/SV-structure is not at all that rare

in VGT.

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3.2. (Basic) word order patterns in Dutch

Dutch is a Germanic language, along with German, Danish and English (Willemyns 2013 : 26).

Languages that belong to the same language family have of course many similarities, but

interestingly enough not necessarily their word order pattern. Superficially, a pure SVO-pattern is

found in English, in both main and subordinate clauses (Gavarró 2003 : 72).

(1a) He eats an apple.

He has eaten an apple.

(1b) He says that he eats an apple.

He says that he has eaten an apple.

Because he has eaten an apple, he now has a stomach ache.

This is not the same in (among others) German and Dutch because differences have been found

between main and subordinate clauses and between the different tenses used in main clauses.

Because German and Dutch show different kinds of patterning (SVO- and SOV-patterns as well as

SVOV-patterning (or SOV with V2, see further)), the basic word order patterns in both languages

have been discussed elaborately. The following examples clarify this discussion:

In main clauses in which the verb expresses a simple present or simple past tense, the sentence

follows the SVO-pattern (which is the same as in English):

(2a) Hij eet/at een appel.

Er isst/ aß einen Apfel.

However, when the verb expresses any other tense, the SVO-pattern is no longer followed.

This is the result of both German and Dutch showing verb second (V2) word ordering, which means

that the infinite verb remains in final position but the finite verb is transferred to the second position

(Gavarró 2003 : 72; Wetta 2011 : 249). Thus, in a case like this, there are actually two verbs; a finite

verb and an infinite verb (or repeated verb at the end). In this case, the finite verb mostly functions

as an auxiliary. While Volterra et al. (1984) continued to consider this patterning as an SVO-pattern,

Vermeerbergen (2004) did not. Precisely because the finite verb in second position is considered as

the result from the verb being transferred from the final position to the second position,

Vermeerbergen defined this type of patterning as SVOV-patterning (2004 : 4), which (after Wetta)

can be understood as an SOV-pattern with V2.

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(3a) Hij heeft een appel gegeten.

Er hat einen Apfel gegessen.

Since in Dutch and German, the one single position before the finite verb can be filled in by a

variety of elements (such as the subjects or objects), leading to quite a flexible constituent ordering,

German and Dutch show a “potentially-strict verbal position” (Wetta 2011 : 249) combined with a

relatively flexible word order. Wetta concludes therefore that “it often becomes difficult to

characterize such languages as SVO or OVS, as there are many possible permutations of syntactic

elements, that is, there may be no dominant word order” (2011 : 249).

Finally, when the sentence is a subordinate clause, in Dutch and German it follows the SOV-

pattern (regardless of what the tense is) (Gavarró 2003 : 72):

(2b) Hij zegt/zei dat hij een appel eet/at.

Er sagt/sagte, dass er einen Apfel isst/ aß.

(3b) Hij zegt dat hij een appel gegeten heeft.

Er sagt, dass er einen Apfel gegessen hat.

(3c) Omdat hij een appel gegeten heeft, heeft hij nu buikpijn.

Weil er einen Apfel gegessen hat, hat er jetzt Bauchschmerzen.

It immediately becomes clear that word order patterns in Dutch (and German) aren’t that

easy to get acquainted with. As stated above, Dutch and its word order have been discussed

elaborately, being declared both a language with SOV- and SVO-word order. Rarely, also the

possibility of Dutch having a VSO-word order has been explored (Coussé 2008 : 9). Others suggest

that Dutch is finding itself in a transitional process (from having a SVO- to a SOV-word order pattern)

(Coussé 2008 : 11). Coussé concludes that Dutch has a variable verb order pattern (as can be seen

above), and she adds that in Dutch, the position of subject, object and verb can’t be captured in only

one word order pattern (2008 : 10). This doesn’t mean that Dutch has free word order, it only means

that it has different word order patterns that don’t fit into only one word order pattern. To support

this claim, Coussé also refers to other constituents that can take different positions in a sentence in

Dutch, for example a prenominal genitive that can be replaced by a ‘postnominal’ descriptive

genitive (Peters boek vs het boek van Peter (Peters book vs. *the book of Peter)). This confirms

Vermeerbergen’s statement, that in simple, declarative sentences in Dutch, the possibilities of

ordering the constituents are (almost) endless (2010 : 2).

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In conclusion, it cannot be denied that Dutch has variable verb and word order patterns.

However, because the SOV-patterning with V2 includes both main clauses (SVO and SVOV) and

subordinate clauses (SOV), it seems the most correct proposition. Therefore, the Dutch basic word

order pattern refers from now on to SOV-patterning with V2.

3.3. (Basic) Word order patterns in VGT

The quest to find (basic) word order patterns in VGT has been tough and is still ongoing. To resume,

basic word order is defined as “the word order of simple declarative, active clauses, with no complex

noun phrases (Vermeerbergen 2004 : 2). A quest for basic word order patterns means that the

position of the subject (S), object (O) and verb (V) have been examined. Therefore, in subsection

3.3.1., the (sometimes problematic) notions subject and object are clarified. Subsequently, in

subsection 3.3.2. attention has been paid to two elements that are characteristic for VGT, namely

polycomponential constructions (3.3.3.1.) and simultaneity (3.3.3.2.), after which subsection 3.3.3.

analyses the other grammatical elements that have an influence on the VGT basic word order

patterns and therefore are subject to this study as well: the placement of subject, object and verb

(3.3.3.1.), the placement of pointing signs as well as their localization (3.3.3.2.) and the placement of

adjective and noun (3.3.3.3.). Finally, the (basic) word order patterns in Dutch and VGT are presented

(3.4.).

3.3.1. Interpretation of the notions subject and object

Vermeerbergen acknowledges very thoughtfully the lack of transparency and uniformity in using the

notions subject and object when discussing word order. When reading a text, one shouldn’t be in the

dark about what is meant ‘this time’ by important notions such as subject and object. When referring

to the subject, researchers often combine various different definitions, resulting in “an amalgam of

several different notions” (Vermeerbergen 2004 : 6). This resulted in other researchers proposing a

partition of the notion into the grammatical, psychological and logical (or semantic) subject (see

Vermeerbergen (2004) and (2010)). In Flemish sign linguistics it still remains unclear whether a

grammatical subject can be distinguished, moreover whether it is even pertinent to distinguish one

(Vermeerbergen 2010 : 5). In VGT, the logical and psychological subjects often coincide. The logical

subject is described as:

the constituent indicating the referent which performs the described action, or, if no action is described:

the constituent indicating the referent to which the condition, the process, the quality, etc. ... named by

the verb is attributed (Vermeerbergen 2004 : 6; Vermeerbergen 2010 : 6; cf. Geerts et al. 1984 : 1050 ).

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As for the psychological subject, the definition goes as follows:

the particular about whom / which knowledge is added (about which something is being said in the rest

of the sentence) will be called the subject (Vermeerbergen 2004 : 6; Vermeerbergen 2010 : 6 ; cf. Chave

1976 : 44).

Vermeerbergen states that in Flemish sign linguistics the term subject most often refers to the logical

subject (2010 : 16). In VGT studies, however, some examples have been found, in which the element

that the signer regards as subject is not the logical subject, but the psychological subject

(Vermeerbergen 2010 : 16). The following sentence is an example of this:

MAN KNEEL // DOG gc: “wash”

because the dog is not the one who washes, but is being washed. This sentence is an example of a

“split sentence”, in which in this case the (logical) subject of the first clause is the (logical) object of

the second clause (Vermeerbergen 2010 : 17). This is, however, not always the case.

Finally, the selected definition for object is:

the constituent naming the referent affected by what is expressed by the verb (the action,

condition)... (Vermeerbergen 2004 : 7 ; Vermeerbergen 2010 : 6)

Vermeerbergen refers to the ‘new’ nature of sign language research in particular and to the

fact that grammatical definitions always take time to be formed and (often even more demanding) to

be agreed upon. Moreover, the situation is particularly ‘cramped’ for sign language researchers

because they have to take the realizations of spoken language research into account, but without

forgetting that they deal with another kind of linguistics, which needs a different point of view and

methodology (Vermeerbergen 2004 : 7). As stated above, Vermeerbergen is remarkably cautious

when emphasizing that these definitions ‘only’ are a proposal on her part, without declaring the one

and only right definition. Because the reader of this dissertation too should be sure of what is meant

with the notions subject and object, he can, when referred to subject or object in the following

chapters, bear these definitions in mind.

3.3.2. Influences on the (basic) word order patterns of VGT (in contrast with Dutch)

Two elements that are an important part of the VGT grammar and have an influence on its word

order patterns are the polycomponential constructions and simultaneity. These two are analysed

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separately because there is not only a difference between VGT and Dutch on this point, moreover,

these elements lack completely in Dutch (and in spoken languages in general).

3.3.2.1. Polycomponential constructions

Because the main goal of this section is to analyse the (basic) word order patterns in VGT and the

differences between those patterns and the ones in Dutch, the position of the notions subject, object

and verb is scrutinized. However, when it comes to the notion verb, because of its different modality,

there is some more to it in VGT (and other sign languages). In sign languages there are not only

lexical verbs, but also polycomponential constructions (Vermeerbergen 2004 : 3).

The difference between lexical verbs and polycomponential constructions is the following:

Whereas a lexical verb (e.g. “to drive”) is expressed with only one sign, which is part of the fixed or

“frozen” lexicon of VGT and has a more or less fixed form and meaning (Vermeerbergen 2010 : 7),

the polycomponental constructions (e.g. “car-drives-up-the-hill”) are not yet part of the frozen

lexicon and do not have a fixed form since its different components (handshape, movement, etc.)

can vary in order to express a certain meaning (Vermeerbergen 2010 : 7).

In a polycomponential construction, a classifier is incorporated. A classifier refers to a certain

handshape or to certain combinations of a handshape and the orientation of the hand. These

handshapes are being used to represent a certain referent (which can be a person, an animal, an

object, …). The used handshape refers very often to the shape (or a part of the shape) of the referent

it represents (Vermeerbergen 1999 : 29-30). The movement of the hand then reflects the movement

of the person/object that the classifier represents. To sign the construction “car-drives-up-the-hill” in

VGT, a B-hand with the palm of the hand pointing upwards represents the car and is slowly moved

upwards (Vermeerbergen 1999 : 29). If the construction were to be “person-walks-up-the-hill”, the

handshape for a person (an overturned V-shape that refers to the legs of a person) would be used

(Vermeerbergen 1999 : 29-30).

It is still quite vague how these constructions should be characterised for VGT, but

Vermeerbergen (2004 : 3) proposes to regard them as the results of a process that “involves selecting

the component parts and putting them together in order to create particular kinds of effects”

(Brennan 1990 : 163). Thus, in VGT, the lexical verb (V) and object (O) can be put together (which

leads to the object being incorporated in the verb (Vermeerbergen 2004 : 3)), to create a certain

effect.

Polycomponential constructions are also known as classifier constructions/verbs,

polysynthetic constructions /verbs, polymorphemic constructions/verbs etc. (Vermeerbergen 2004 :

3).

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3.3.2.2. Simultaneity

Because of the different modality in sign languages, there is another difference between signed and

spoken languages. In sign languages, there is the possibility of (manual) simultaneity. Because sign

languages have “two primary articulation tracts” (Napoli et al. 2010 : 1), namely, the two hands,

signers can use both hands simultaneously and therefore express two elements simultaneously. This

means that signers make use of the space around them. Spoken language users on the other hand

only have one primary articulation tract, the mouth, which doesn’t allow them to do so. This means

that in spoken languages, the arguments are expressed sequentially (meaning ‘in a row’) and not

simultaneously. Of course, also spoken languages can show simultaneous patterning, e.g. tone in

tone languages and intonation in other languages (Vermeerbergen et al. 2010 : 3), which adds

information to the expression, but –usually- doesn’t add a complete and different argument. This

type of simultaneity is therefore not the subject here. Expressing two arguments at the same time by

using both hands simultaneously is a complete deviation from the primarily linear patterning in

spoken languages.

Naturally, precisely this simultaneity has its reflection on the word order patterns of VGT.

When signing that a motorcycle and a car have been in an accident, each hand can be a classifier and

conveying different information (the right hand can represent the car and the left hand the

motorcycle) and can be moved towards each other and hit each other. In spoken language, this

would be expressed as “there was a car coming from the right side and a motorcycle coming from

the left side and they hit each other”, while in sign language the whole utterance can be expressed

simultaneously.

Both polycomponential constructions and simultaneity are considered an influence on the

word order patterns of VGT and subsequently (the triggers of) a major difference between the word

order patterns of VGT and Dutch (in which they completely lack). Therefore it is expected, that the

participants in this study consider them a difficult part of the VGT grammar to subdue and might

avoid using them. They are therefore considered an interesting research subject for this dissertation.

3.3.3. Other influences on the VGT word order patterns

Aside from polycomponential constructions and simultaneity, three other types of ordering are

scrutinized: (1) the basic elements of the basic word order patterns (being S, V and O) (3.3.3.1.), the

placement of pointing signs and their localization (3.3.3.2.) and the placement of adjectives (3.3.3.3.).

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3.3.3.1. Placement of subject (S), object (O) and verb (V)

Because of the focus of this paper it was decided to follow Vermeerbergen and only focus upon

declarative sentences with nominal arguments. Vermeerbergen examined three types of sentences

(Vermeerbergen 2004 : 3 ; also Vermeerbergen 2010 : 3-4):

Non-reversible sentences (“where the order of constituents cannot be reversed without a

resultant marked construction arising”), e.g. The girl eats the pie.

Reversible sentences (“where the major constituent roles could be reversed”), e.g. The girl

kisses the boy.

Locative sentences (“presenting the positions of two elements relative to each other”), e.g.

The cat sits on the chair.

Since almost no locative sentences were used in the participants’ examination data, it was

decided to not take upon this type of sentences in this theoretical part nor (if they occurred) to

elaborately analyse these sentences.

Vermeerbergen’s research report (2010) compresses different studies conducted on word

order patterns in VGT and shows that different kinds of patterns can be found in VGT.

In non-locative sentences with reversible arguments, the most common word order patterns (2010 :

18) are:

SVO-order (most often found, in contrast with few examples in non-reversible sentences),

e.g.: GIRLS HITS BOY

O/SV-structure, in which the object (O) is topicalized, e.g.:

___t

BOY/GIRL HITS

SOV-order (least frequent, the verb GEVEN (to give) often precedes the object and/or the

verb isn’t a verb sign but a verb construction)

In non-locative sentences with non-reversible arguments, again the same three patterns are

most frequently used: SVO-, SOV- and O/SV-order. Additionally, also SV-patterning and SVOV-

patterning can occur (but in much lesser degree). In these sentences, SOV-patterning seems to be

the most frequent, especially with the “final position in the sentence […] taken by a

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polycomponential verb or [by] a verb in combination with a mechanism which gives a more specific

meaning to the verb” (2004 : 5, see also 2010 : 19).

Repetition of the verb (whether or not in the same form), leading to a SVOV-patterning, is

possible in both sentences with reversible and with non-reversible arguments (2010 : 19). This could

be ascribed to the tendency to place the lexical verb rather in the beginning of the sentence, and the

verb sign at the end of the sentence (2010 : 19). This too could be of interest for this study, because

this differs from Dutch, in which the same verb is (more or less) never used twice and there is no

equivalent for verb signs.

3.3.3.2. Placement of pointing signs

3.3.3.2.1. Localization

As mentioned before, one of the main differences between signed and spoken languages is that the

signer can make use of the so-called signing space, i.e. “the space in front of and on both sides of the

signer's head and torso“ (Vermeerbergen 1999 : abstract). This signing space is also used to localize a

(present or non-present) person when talking about him or her. In VGT (and other sign languages)

the “signs” for pronouns such as I, you, they etc. are pronominal pointing signs. This means that

when the signers wants to say something about a certain present person, he simply points at the

person he refers to, e.g. to refer to himself he points at himself, to refer to the person he talks with,

he points at this person (Vermeerbergen 1999 : 23-24). The most commonly used pointing sign is a 1-

hand, but when referring to multiple persons also a V-handshape (closed hand with stretched index-

and middlefinger) and a 3-handshape (closed hand with stretched index-, middle- and ringfinger) are

commonly used (Vermeerbergen 1999 : 23). No different sign is being made for masculine, feminine

or neutral referents nor for a referent that is the subject or object of the sentence (Vermeerbergen

1999 : 23).

It is also possible to refer to a person/object that is not present. To be able to do this, the signer

should first localize this person/object. To localize means to link up an absent person/object (the

referent) with a certain place in the room (the locus) by means of a pointing sign. There are different

ways to do so, the most common way is that the signer points at a certain place in the room before

or after the sign for the referent that is being linked up with that certain place, is made

(Vermeerbergen 1999 : 18). When the signer then points at this particular place, he actually points at

this absent person/object (Vermeerbergen 1999 : 27) and in this way marks that he is going to talk

about this person/object. The direction of the pointing sign is therefore of great importance, because

(1) it clarifies whether someone is talking about himself or another person and (2) when using a locus

the direction bears all information.

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When discussing several non-present referents, “the spatial relationship between the chosen

loci usually ‘mirrors’ the spatial relationship between the referents at the time being discussed” (Van

Herreweghe et al. 2003 : 94). When signing about a certain meeting, the signer “seems to imagine

the referent as being actually present” (2003 : 94), so he will often localize the referents on the

location where the people actually sat. When the signer wants to refer to the same person later on in

the conversation, he can rapidly point (or even merely glance at) the location that is connected to the

person he wants to refer to, so loci “serve to keep track of reference” (2003 : 94).

It is therefore important that the signer remembers which locus refers to which referent and

not confuses the loci with each other. Only if the signer is signing about only one non-present

referent, it is not that important that he points at the same locus every time (Vermeerbergen 1999 :

20). The number of loci isn’t limited in theory, but signers usually do not localize more than five

referents, since localizing many referents means the loci will probably be situated close to each

other, which could cause confusion about which referent is connected to which locus

(Vermeerbergen 1999 : 20).

3.3.3.2.2. Placement of pointing signs in the sentence

In 2010, Vermeerbergen concluded that “pointing signs that seem to perform as subject often appear

at the end of the sentence” (Vermeerbergen 2010 : 19; own translation) but also claimed that it was

not yet sure how binding these conventions were (2010 : 19; own translation). This uncertainty

became clear when in 2011, she concluded that both in declarative sentences and in yes-no

questions the pronominal pointing signs can be placed in the beginning and/or at the end of the

sentence (2011 : 2). In yes-no questions, they are most often placed at the end of the sentence or at

the beginning and at the end of the sentence (showing a clear preference for the final position)

whereas there is no such preference found in declarative sentences (Vermeerbergen 2011 : 2).

The possibility of placing the subject at the end of the sentence deviates from the subject’s

position in Dutch. In Dutch, the subject never appears at the end of the sentence. The subject is

always the first element of the sentence (except for question-structures and rare other structures

with OVS-structure), which arises from its SVO- or SOV-patterning.

3.3.3.3. Placement of adjectives

There seem to be some rules or conventions, for which no apparent function or reason can be found.

The adjective placement is one of those rules (Vermeerbergen 2010 : 2). A definite answer to the

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question why in Dutch, the adjective always appears before the noun and never after, hasn’t been

found yet. The learner simply should accept this rule.

Adjective placement has not yet been examined thoroughly, but Vermeerbergen (who has

conducted various studies on other aspects of VGT grammar and who therefore has in fact certain

data on adjective placement) concludes that in VGT, the adjective can be placed both in front of the

noun and behind the noun, as well as both in front of and behind the noun (2010 : 19). In addition, in

VGT, the indefinite numeral adjectives such as many (“veel/vele”), some (“enkele”), various

(“verschillende”) seem to be placed both in front of the noun it belongs to and behind it

(Vermeerbergen 1999 : 73).

Also regarding the placement of adjectives, Vermeerbergen concludes he that it is still not clear

how binding all of these conventions really are (2010 : 19; own translation).

3.4. (Basic) word order patterns in Dutch and VGT: synopsis

The presence of any basic word order patterns in Dutch has been discussed by many researchers,

leading some to the opinion that Dutch finds itself in a “transitional process” from SVO- to SOV-

patterning (Coussé 2008 : 11). Since research has showed that in Dutch both SVO- and SOV- as well

as SVOV-patterning occur, it seems most likely to conclude that Dutch has a variable word order

pattern. This doesn’t mean it has free word order patterning but that it can’t be fit into only of the six

(theoretically) possible basic word order patterns. However, because Dutch shows verb second (V2)

ordering and because this pattern regards both main and subordinate clauses, the SOV-patterning

with V2 seems most correct to be regarded as most frequent word order pattern.

Up until today, the quest for (any) basic word order patterns in VGT has been difficult. In

VGT, no strict conventions about word order patterns have yet been found (of course, not that much

research has yet been conducted). This does not mean that VGT has a free word order patterning, it

only means it has a flexible word order patterning. It has, however, been concluded that in VGT, the

SVO-, SOV- and O/SV-patterning occur most frequently. Also SVOV- and SV-patterning are found.

Secondly, the most recent conclusion on pointing signs was that both in declarative

sentences and in yes-no questions the pronominal pointing signs can be placed in the beginning

and/or at the end of the sentence (2011 : 2).

Thirdly, the adjective can be placed both before and/or after the noun.

41

4. Expectations

4.1. Counter-study: “Syntactic differences due to a different modality” (2003)

In 2003, Van Herreweghe et al. conducted a study on deaf pupils and the interference from VGT in

their production of Dutch. Having acquired VGT informally (on the playground), the deaf students’

knowledge of VGT is a lot more advanced than their knowledge of Dutch, which has been formally

taught. These pupils are therefore much more fluent in VGT than in Dutch (Van Herreweghe et al.

2003 : 92). In this study, Van Herreweghe et al. try to underpin the (already and long-) existing

intuition that there seem to be traces of the L1e, the sign language (in this case: VGT) in the students’

production of the L2, the spoken language (in this case: Dutch) (see 3.3.2.) (2003 : 92).

The informants in the study in hand (ranging from 24 to 45 years old) and the pupils Van

Herreweghe et al. (being school-aged subjects as well as adults) are of course not entirely

comparable, because of two reasons. Firstly, both groups of participants were at different ages when

starting the acquisition of VGT and Dutch respectively, which makes it impossible to make a veridical

comparison concerning the level of proficiency in these languages (see section 2 for more on the

critical period). Secondly, the participants in the study of Van Herreweghe et al. were (prelingually)

deaf and attending a school for deaf or partially deaf children. These two factors bring along that (1)

the deaf participants had input of both languages in their everyday life (most likely Dutch at home

and at school and VGT at school) and therefore (2) reached a high proficiency level in both Dutch and

VGT at an earlier age than the participants in this study, which is expected to have resulted in (3) a

better proficiency in the use of both languages than is the case for the participants in the study in

hand. These factors of course result in the fact that the interference of VGT in the production of

Dutch in the deaf participants can’t be analysed in the exact same way as the interference of Dutch in

the production of VGT in the hearing participants in this research. However, all of these ‘buts’ aside,

it is still remarkably interesting that a reverse (and yet similar) study has been undertaken. Its results

will operate as a counter-image of the results of this study, which will hopefully underpin them even

more.

Even though most of the analysed structures weren’t the same (whereas I decided to focus

on reversible and non-reversible sentences, the placement of pointing signs and the placement of

adjective and noun, Van Herreweghe et al. also focused on role taking and shift reference), the

research has provided some interesting counter-results to this study.

Firstly, in the signed narratives, full noun phrases to refer to referents with a high discourse

value are almost always used. Once the referent has been introduced, this is usually not the case

(because when referring again to a certain referent, signers tend to use loci. (see above)). In the

42

Dutch compositions, the full noun phrases were the most frequently used as well, but Van

Herreweghe et al. could bring to light “a scale of sophistication”. The least sophisticated writers did

not describe the referents at all and used a non-determined noun (which makes the story impossible

to follow) while others were slightly more to much more sophisticated and used more defining

nouns and descriptive adjectives (2003 : 95-97). The most sophisticated are the users who make use

of a noun, followed by a relative clause. Only a very small minority has shown to excel in this.

Because Dutch does indeed regularly make use of full noun phrases to refer to referents with a high

discourse value (and in this case usually don’t just use a pronoun), it is expected that the participants

in this study don’t have difficulties with using these full noun phrases as well in VGT. It may be

possible that there is interference of Dutch in their production of VGT by overly using full noun

phrases, which is uncommon in VGT.

Secondly, as stated above, when anaphorically referring to a non-present referent, signers

make use of pointing signs, eye gaze etc. to the locus that has been established for that person.

These gestures have “pronominal status”, but as Van Herreweghe et al. remark: “pronominalization

is determined in a different way in VGT than it is in Dutch” (2003 : 97). In VGT, the information about

the referent lies within the locus for the referent. In order to understand who the locus refers to, the

recipient should remember two things: (1) who or what this locus refers to and (2) what information

was given on this referent in the beginning of the narrative (does it refer to only one person or more

than one? To a woman or a man?). In Dutch, however, there are “three types of contrast: person,

number and, for third person pronouns, gender” (2003 : 97). The study showed that the deaf pupils

seemed to have problems with the pronouns in the Dutch compositions, so they simply avoided

them by overly using full noun phrases, resulting in (almost) grammatically correct, but very rigid

sentences. This result is not a surprise, because it is supposed to be difficult for the participants with

higher proficiency in VGT to suddenly start using pronouns with the three types of contrast instead of

one pointing sign. It is, however, also considered to be difficult for the participants in the study in

hand to use pointing signs, to localize them and not to forget to remember the localization of these

pointing signs.

4.2. Other expectations

The (in subsection 3.3.2. and 3.3.3.) discussed influences on the basic word order patterns of VGT are

not randomly chosen. These influences are considered to cause difficulties for the participants in this

study when learning VGT as L2. Before conducting the study, the (beforehand) expected difficulties

with these different aspects of VGT are briefly explained.

43

4.2.1. Simultaneity and polycomponential constructions

Because of the different modality of VGT, there is the possibility of manual simultaneity. This means

that signers can use both hands simultaneously and therefore express two elements simultaneously,

whereas users of a spoken language cannot. Because manual simultaneity completely counteracts

the sequential principle (the primarily linear patterning) in spoken languages, it is expected that the

participants in this study experience difficulties with this.

An example of simultaneity in VGT is the usage of a polycomponential construction. When

using such a construction, the signer puts an object and a verb together, which leads to the object

being incorporated in the verb (Vermeerbergen 2004 : 3) to create a certain effect. Apart from the

difficulty of simultaneity, the participants in this study might also experience difficulty with the fact

that the polycomponential constructions aren’t part of the frozen lexicon and don’t have a fixed form

(because of variable classifiers) (Vermeerbergen 2010 : 7). As a result they might (whether or not

consciously) avoid using these and use several lexical verbs in a row instead.

Some speakers of other languages, in contrast, could possibly have less difficulty with using

polycomponential constructions, because their L1 consists of constructions that include different

components. This is among others the case in so called agglutinative languages (such as Turkish). It

would be interesting to conduct further research on this in the future.

4.2.2. Placement of subject (S), object (O) and verb (V)

To resume, the word order patterns that occur in Dutch are both SVO- and SOV-patterning as well as

SOV-patterning with V2 (SVOV-patterning). It was decided to consider the latter as the most basic

word order pattern, because it includes the patterns in both main and subordinate clauses. In VGT,

the same SVO- , SOV- and SVOV-patterns are found, as well as O/SV- and SV-patterning.

Firstly, because the O/SV-pattern isn’t common in Dutch (only in question-structures and

rare others), this pattern is expected to occur very rarely to never. SVO- and SOV-patterns are,

however, supposed to occur frequently. Secondly, in Dutch, the verb is traditionally placed at the

second position in the sentence (V2). It is expected that the participants in this study overly transfer

this pattern, even when a D/deaf signer would not place the verb at the second position in that

occasion (and e.g. rather use a SOV-pattern).

Thirdly, in VGT, the verb is sometimes repeated at the end of the sentence, often with the

lexical verb in the beginning of the sentence and the verb sign at the end (Vermeerbergen 2010 : 19).

Of course, the lexical verb and the verb sign are not exactly the same verb (the verb sign includes

additional information), but the main ‘verbal content’ is the same. In Dutch, two verbs (mostly) only

occur when the first verb functions as an auxiliary (V2) or as a modal verb, so the second verb is

44

(almost) never the same verb as the first one, whereas this is more or less the case in VGT. The

participants in this study might experience difficulties with expressing (more or less) the same verb

twice in a sentence and might drop the lexical verb in the beginning of the sentence, because the

verb sign at the end of the sentence bears the most information and is considered the most

important. This would result in fewer SVOV-patterns.

4.2.3. Placement of pointing signs in the sentence

In Dutch (with SOV-order with V2), the subject is always positioned at the very beginning (first

position) of the sentence (except from question-structures). In VGT, the most recent conclusion was

that the pointing signs that seem to function as a subject can be placed both in the beginning and/or

at the end of the sentence (Vermeerbergen 2011 : 2). In simple, declarative clauses no preference for

one or the other is found (Vermeerbergen 2011 : 2).

The participants in this study are expected to almost always place the pointing sign that

functions as a subject at the first position in the sentence. They might also express the pointing sign

twice (both at the beginning and at the end of the sentence as a sort of extra emphasis) but this is

expected to only occasionally occur, e.g. as the personal preference of a participant. It is, however,

not expected that the participants will frequently place this pointing sign only at the end of the

sentence, because this deviates clearly from the principle in Dutch. Of course, all three options are

considered correct in VGT, so the participants can benefit from the possibility of “positive transfer”

(see 3.3.2.), regarding the placement of the pointing sign. If, however, the participants clearly overly

place the pointing sign in the beginning of the sentence, this could be regarded as influence from

their L1 Dutch.

4.2.4. Localization

When signing about present or non-present referents, the signer can establish a location for these

referents, in order to be able to quickly refer to these referents with a pointing sign. With present

referents, this location is (mostly) the place where this referent finds himself, so the localization of

present referents is not considered to form a problem, localization of absent referents, however, is.

The signer has to pick the loci wisely, so he will be able to remember and not confuse the loci with

each other when signing as well as limit the number of established loci.

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4.2.5. Placement of adjectives

As stated above, in VGT, the adjective can be placed both in front of the noun and behind the noun,

as well as both in front of and behind the noun (Vermeerbergen 2010 : 19). The indefinite numeral

adjectives such as many (“veel/vele”), some (“enkele”), various (“verschillende”) seem to be placed

both in front of the noun it belongs to and behind it (Vermeerbergen 1999 : 73).

As is the case with the placement of pointing signs in the sentence, there are various possibilities that

are considered correct in VGT. The participants in this study are expected to experience influence

from Dutch and therefore almost always place the adjective in front of the noun (being the

convention in Dutch). Again, this is not incorrect, but an overly use of this structure (in comparison

with people with VGT as L1) would imply influence from Dutch.

Finally, it should be noted that the multitude of correct options (e.g. for the placement of

pointing signs and adjectives in the sentence) can be confusing, leading to doubt and possible

wrongful usage, in the last of the elements that can be freely arranged, but mostly of the elements

that cannot be. The next section shows us whether these predictions turned out to be correct and

which (possible) other difficulties the participants experienced.

5. Study

One of the triggers for taking on this task was the fact that almost no research had been conducted

on this subject yet. Of course, this brings along a great disadvantage too, because little research also

means little input and little established knowledge. This also conveys, however, that I couldn’t

completely rely on what has already been written on this subject, which means I wasn’t as influenced

as could have been the case with a study which has been undertaken multiple times already. Apart

from the general studies on word order (both in general and in VGT), I couldn’t consult any studies

on adults learning VGT (or any sign language for that matter). As a result, I had to try to put the

pieces of the puzzle together myself in order to draw a conclusion about the ways in which adults

with Dutch as L1 experience studying VGT as L2.

Two recently conducted studies constituted the base-reference on VGT word order patterns:

the study on VGT and SASL, conducted by Vermeerbergen et al. in 2007, and the “investigation

report” that bundles the studies on VGT until 2010, published by Vermeerbergen in 2010. As stated

in the introduction, the study in hand is, however, different for various reasons. Firstly because the

subjects of the analysis are of course completely different: Whereas Vermeerbergen et al. analyse

the used word order patterns in the VGT production of people with VGT as L1, I analyse the word

order patterns in the VGT production of people with Dutch as L1 who are studying VGT as L2.

Secondly, this study has a different methodology. While in both studies, utterances were elicited (by

46

showing the informants images, which the informants had to describe), I analysed examination data

from hearing adult students of VGT. These examination data are, as stated above, believed to be

situated in between elicited data and spontaneous language data. All data can be found on the

enclosed CD.

Regarding these differences, two important side notes have to be made. Firstly, both studies

didn’t distinguish an implied subject from an explicitly named subject, presumably because the

results were elicited by means of picture, resulting in the fact that every subject is named explicitly. I,

however, did distinguish the one from the other because in this study, the analysed data are

narratives, which means there is a great chance that the signers omit the last mentioned subject (in

the subsequent sentence). Thus, I made this distinction and analysed whether the students correctly

execute “the last mentioned subject”-rule (which will show not to be the case) and which difficulties

they experienced with it (see 5.3.). The final results (see 5.4.) show that the students omit the

subject more often than they express it explicitly. In the final discussion, I will add the sentences with

an implied and an explicitly mentioned subject, in order to come to a general conclusion.

Secondly, in the study of Vermeerbergen et al. (2007) only utterances with two arguments tied

to the verb were elicited, whereas I analysed narratives, which find themselves in an intermediate

position. I considered the results of both methodologies too different to use the 2007 study as a

reference. This was supported by the following statement on spontaneous language data by

Vermeerbergen (2010):

“[…]there are only few sentences in which a verb is combined with 2 arguments; less than 1 out of 100

utterances in the analysed material had 2 arguments and 1 of those 2 was often a personal pronoun,

most often I” (2010 : 17; own translation).

The results Vermeerbergen et al. (2007) obtained (being that the most frequent patterns

consist of three arguments, see 5.4.) will hardly ever occur in the results of this study (and vice versa)

so in fact they cannot sufficiently serve as reference for this study. However, since no elaborate

studies have yet been conducted on spontaneous language data, these results and those of

Vermeerbergen’s research report (2010), which did include some general conclusions on the patterns

in spontaneous language data, are nevertheless used.

5.1. Some preliminary remarks

5.1.1. On the search for participants

As I stated above, my method of working was different from some other studies that have been

conducted. I didn’t elicit utterances nor did I examine spontaneous language data, I did, however,

47

analyse tapes of leaving examinations that adult students of VGT have taken at VSPW (a school for

adult education) in 2014. The teacher of course elicits certain data by asking the students to sign

certain narratives by giving them some key words, but the students are relatively free on how to

integrate these key words in their narrative which sort of resembles spontaneous language data as

well.

The reason(s) for this methodology was mostly practical. I don’t actively know VGT, which

made examining spontaneous language data impossible. I didn’t elicit utterances either because I

wasn’t particularly on the search for something concrete, which is mostly the case with elicitation.

After having consulted some specialists, I decided to ask the students of Vlaamse Gebarentaal Intens

II for their permission to use their examination data for this paper. These students were at that

moment finishing off their second semester of intense courses in VGT. This course is established for

adults who are active in a sector of the Deaf community, whose superior doesn’t need them to

follow the interpreting course at VSPW, but does want them to be able to communicate with D/deaf

colleagues (website VSPW3). Most of the informants have indeed this precise motivation to study

VGT (see 5.1.2.).

When asking for the students’ permission, I got the chance to talk to them briefly and find

out what their reason for studying VGT was. As expected, all of them but one had a connection to the

Deaf community. The one student who doesn’t have this connection stated immediately that they

felt the difference with the other students because they couldn’t practice as much as the others.

5.1.2. Analyzing the examination tapes

Because I myself don’t have sufficient knowledge of VGT, I searched for another person to help me

translate the examination tapes into Dutch. The person I found is a professional interpreter from VGT

into Dutch and vice versa, who has graduated as an interpreter from VSPW themselves (by following

the course to become an interpreter, which isn’t the same as the one the participants in this study

follow) and therefore has knowledge of the methodology at VSPW and its teachers.

Afterwards, I transcribed and annotated all utterances with the supervision of my supervisor.

I used the program Elan (version 4.7.1.) to make the transcriptions and annotations, which allowed

me to annotate every single sign in detail. I decided to establish different tiers (see 6.2.1.).

When transcribing the examination tapes, I followed the rules that are established by

Vermeerbergen (1999 : 12-14). I always transcribed all verbs in the infinitive form and all nouns in

singular form. For the annotations of the examination tapes, I used the “annotatierichtlijnen” from

3 www.vspw.be

48

September 2013, established and used for the VGT corpus project, which is conducted at the

University of Gent. This document can be found on the CD with the examination tapes.

There were three kinds of examination tapes to be analysed: “imitations”, tapes from

“permanent evaluation” and “introducing someone”. In the imitations, four of the participants were

asked to imitate something, e.g. spring, by signing some of its characteristics. The tapes from the

permanent evaluation were varied: there were narratives about a family going to the zoo, others

about a person and his dog and their adventures so on. Finally, three participants were asked to

introduce a certain person, by talking about their address, their family, their appearance etc. Not

everyone received the same examination questions, neither did all the participants execute all three

examination questions.

In the following subsection, the answers the informants gave to the various questions I asked

have been put together in a table.

5.1.3. Informants

Being aware of the previously discussed factors (see subsection 2.4.), the participants (who will

remain anonymous) answered to the following questions:

What is your age?

What is your job?

Which languages do you speak?

Do you know people from the Deaf community? If yes, what is your relation to them?

Can you practice with this and/or these persons VGT? If yes, how often do you do this?

In contrast with Saville-Troike, who doesn’t consider the learner’s competence in other

languages, I did ask the participants to indicate what their L1 is as well as how many and which

languages they are proficient in. I did this because I considered it important to know whether or not

the participants only have Dutch as L1 or whether they are bilingually raised in order to pay attention

to possible interference. Secondly, it was considered important to know whether the participants are

proficient in learning languages (for example when being proficient in three or more languages)

because knowledge of other languages (and therefore of how to learn other languages) is believed

to have an effect on learning an additional language. All of these elements can possibly contribute to

the participants’ knowledge of VGT and their speed in acquiring it.

The answers were the following:

49

Participant Age Job Languages Acquaintances from the Deaf

community? + relation to them

Possibility to

practice VGT with

them + how often

Participant 1 45 Kindergarten teacher

in a school for deaf

and hearing impaired

(pre-school) children

Bilingual in

Dutch and

French

English

Deaf and hearing impaired

children and deaf

colleagues

Sister-in-law, master in Sign

Language of the

Netherlands (NGT) and

linguistics

Weekly during

the courses VGT

and Deaf culture

at VSPW

Daily to

communicate

with the

children at work

Participant 2 25 Teacher at a special

education school

Dutch (mother

tongue, L1)

English (good)

French

(sufficient)

Colleagues (therapists,

teachers, educators, …)

Deaf and hearing impaired

children at school

Teacher VSPW

At school with

colleagues and

students

Contact with

colleagues

outside of

school

Participant 3 24 Speech therapist

(unemployed)

Dutch (mother

tongue, L1)

French (basic)

English (basic)

None /

Participant 4 26 Special education

generalist

Dutch (mother

tongue, L1)

English

French (±)

Deaf brother, who is,

however, not active within

the Deaf community

Daily, the level

of difficulty

varies

sometimes

Participant 5 43 Administrative

employee

Dutch (mother

tongue, L1)

French

English

Works at Fevlado

(Federation of Flemish Deaf

Organizations) → most

colleagues are deaf

Daily

Participant 6 27 Lab assistant Dutch (mother

tongue, L1)

French

One deaf colleague Every working

day

50

Participant 7 26 Special education

generalist

Dutch (mother

tongue, L1)

French

English

Colleagues (therapists,

teachers, educators, …)

Teacher VSPW

Almost every

working day

5.2. Coding

Firstly, the examination tapes are transcribed and subsumed under the tier glossen (“glosses”). In

order to analyze them later on, they now have to be coded. In this subsection, the various steps of

the coding process are presented and explained (5.2.1.), followed by the discussion of the general

problems that I experienced while doing this research (5.2.2.). Finally, subsection 5.2.3. discusses

some specific “cases of doubt” on which I had to take a decision.

5.2.1. Various steps of coding

The coding was done in various steps. Seven tiers were established:

Woordvolgorde (“word order”)

Positie van wijsgebaren in de zin (“placement of pointing signs in the sentence”)

Localisatie (“localization”)

Adj-subst (“adjective-noun”)

Opmerkingen (“comments”)

Niet-omkeerbare zinnen (“non-reversible sentences”)

Omkeerbare zinnen (“reversible sentences”)

Firstly, the elements in the sentences are labelled. In the first tier, subject (S), object (O) and

verb (V) are identified for non-locative sentences. Lexical verbs are labelled as ‘V’ (Vermeerbergen et

al. 2007 : 5), while polycomponential constructions are labelled as V-O (Vermeerbergen 2004 : 3).

However, when identifying the word order in the actual analysis, the construction is nevertheless

included in the notion verb (V), because the main content is considered to be the verbal part. In the

tier for the glosses, before each polycomponential constructions the term ‘gc’ (after the Dutch

gebarenconstructies) is added. Following Vermeerbergen et al., when transcribing locative sentences

(which were utterly rare), not S, O and V were labelled, but the ‘location’ (LOC) and ‘located element’

(2007 : 5) (LE). When a fixed preposition sign (under, in on) prefaces the locative relation, this is

labelled as such (2007 : 5).

51

In the second tier, the placement of the pointing signs in the sentence is indicated, being

vooraan (“in the beginning of”), midden (“in the middle of”) or achteraan (“at the end of”) the

sentence.

In the third tier, the localization of the pointing signs is marked, varying from links/rechts

boven (“top left/right“), links/rechts midden (“centre left/right ”) to links/rechts onder (“bottom

left/right“).

In the fourth tier, the position of the adjective and noun is marked, as adjectief voor

substantief (“adjective before noun”) or adjectief na substantief (“adjective after noun”).

The fifth tier is kept free for opmerkingen (“comments”). The information that cannot be

subsumed under one of the previous tiers is marked in this tier. This information can vary from

“doubt/hesitation” (to mark the reason for a long pause in between two elements) to “correction”

(to indicate that the speaker has corrected himself) and e.g. “repetition of verb” (to indicate when

the speaker repeats a verb, among others). Also in this tier, “role-taking” is indicated. Role-taking “is

a general term that is used to refer to the ways in which the speaker takes the role of another

person” (Vermeerbergen 1999 : 55; own translation). I indicated this to clarify the narrative for the

viewer, because the role-taking is not always executed well.

Finally, in the sixth and seventh tier, the final complete word order patterns for the non-

reversible sentences and reversible sentences are indicated.

5.2.2. General problems with coding

5.2.2.1. Lack of knowledge of VGT

The very first problem already occurred when I received the examination data: I don’t have active,

nor sufficient passive knowledge of VGT, so I was in need of an interpreter. Luckily, as stated above, I

found an interpreter. It was nevertheless not easy to always interpret the participants’ utterances in

a correct manner, because the participants are still students of VGT, who make mistakes and (this

was often claimed by the interpreter) have not yet left the linear patterning of Dutch behind, making

their VGT utterances less fluent and simultaneous as they would be when uttered by people with

higher proficiency in VGT.

5.2.2.2. Examination situation: Observer’s paradox

Another problem has to do with what we call the “observer’s paradox”. Regarding this, Labov stated

that “the aim of linguistic research in the community must be to find out how people talk when they

are not being systematically observed; yet we can only obtain this data by systematic observation”

(1972 : 209). Much linguistic research, both on spontaneous and elicited data, is conducted by using

52

a camera or voice recorder. In contrast with the aim of linguistic research (especially of spontaneous

language research), this leads to the participant feeling very much observed, which influences the

utterances the participant makes and therefore doubtlessly has its influence on the outcome of the

research.

Because of the visual-gestural modality of sign languages, there is no other option than to

use a camera in sign language research. Also when examining students of a sign language, everything

is taped because in case of doubt or in case of e.g. an accusation of deceit by the professor, these

tapes have to be accessible for a possible investigation. So the participants in this study experience

the feeling of a camera being present, recording what they sign.

In addition to the stressed feeling that is generated by a camera being present, there is

another stress-producing element: the examination situation. I believe that the participants might

be even more influenced by the fact that their production of VGT at that particular moment is being

evaluated. Therefore, it is very well possible that the utterances the participants in this study make

are not representative of their usual proficiency in VGT and therefore influence the outcome of this

study. Nevertheless, we have to work with the means that are available to us. The influence of the

observer’s paradox should, however, be kept in mind.

5.2.2.3. Personal variation

When examining various participants, their utterances sometimes differ from each other as a result

from other influences and/or personal preference. The participants in this study have all been taught

by the same teacher(s), from whom they undoubtedly copy their personal preference for certain

aspects (e.g. placing the adjective in front of or behind the noun). So, on the one hand, the

participants are expected to use (more or less) the same structures and make (more or less) the

same mistakes (which is indeed the case). On the other hand, all the participants but one are

acquainted with someone from the Deaf community and/or practice VGT outside of class (so with

someone else). I deliberately asked them to indicate this, because this could explain the possible

variation there is between them. It is also possible that the participant in question simply prefers a

certain structure (and not the one generally taught), the reasons for this could for example be

attributed to proficiency in another language that resembles the preferred structure.

Participant 3 is an extreme example of this. This participant is the only one who tends to

repeat various elements in the sentence, varying from the pointing sign that functions as subject

(placing it both in the beginning and at the end of the sentence) to the verb. Since participant 3 is the

only participant who doesn’t have deaf acquaintances outside of the classroom, whom they can

practice VGT with, this is possibly linked to this lack of practice. If having had the opportunity to

53

practice signing with a deaf acquaintance, participant 3 maybe would have omitted all the repetitions

or at least have become more consistent in their usage of repetitions.

5.2.3. Cases of doubt

As stated previously, the participants in this study have only learned VGT for a short period of time,

which results in a multitude of mistakes of different kinds. This led to many cases of doubt during the

interpretation and annotation of the examination tapes. Some of them have been solved when

putting them into context, others, however, remain to be unsolved. In the following I discuss those of

them that were the most complicated, confusing and at the same time most interesting obstacles.

5.2.3.1. Unrecognizable signs

The first problem was the fact that some expressed signs weren’t recognizable as correct or even

existing signs. In many cases, we doubted the correctness of a sign that was used and its meaning,

e.g. as a result of an incorrect handshape or orientation of the hand. These were often discovered

and nonetheless interpreted and annotated correctly. In some cases, however, the used sign and its

meaning remained unclear. This was then indicated by means of two question marks (??).

5.2.3.2. Inconsistent localization

The third problem occurred when localizing the pointing signs the participants in this study made.

The participants often didn’t consistently refer to the firstly established and therefore correct locus

when signing about a certain referent (which is, however, no problem when only one locus has been

established for only one non-present referent), nor did they regard the unofficial limitation of

pointing signs (being limited to five) (Vermeerbergen 1999 : 20). So in some of the cases, it wasn’t

problematic when the participant re-used the same locus established for a previously localized

referent, because it had become clear that this previously discussed referent was no longer a part of

the narrative. In other cases, however, this was not apparent, which made it difficult to interpret and

annotate correctly.

Because the usage of the pointing signs by the participants in this study is somewhat

“disorganized”, I decided to follow the general rule and name the first pointing sign WG-3a (“PS-3a”)

(regardless of its direction), the second WG-3b and so on. In addition, the tier localisatie indicates

where the signer points at when making this pointing sign (e.g. top left or centre right) and therefore

also whether the signer (confusingly) varies in localizing the pointing signs. When it has become clear

which referent the pointing sign refers to, the “name” of the referent is indicated in the name of the

pointing sign (e.g. when WG-3a refers to a dog, the name evolves to “WG-3Dog” when the pointing

sign is being used a second time).

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5.2.3.3. Unclear relation between elements in the sentence

The unclear relation between the elements in the sentences has been the most complex and

confusing problem for me when conducting this study. Vermeerbergen states that it’s very

uncommon for Flemish signers to only make use of the VGT word order patterns “to clarify the

relation between a verb and its arguments” (2010 : 18; own translation), because” when a spectator

has no other information than the word order, then he will interpret the first argument as the

subject of the verb (2010 : 18; own translation). Vermeerbergen refers to the fact that Flemish

signers (who are by all means more proficient in VGT than the participants in this study) make use of

their mime to clarify the relation between the elements in the sentence, as well as sometimes pause

in between certain elements. The participants in this study don’t sufficiently make use of these

options, resulting in six unclear word order patterns that occur the most:

5.2.3.3.1. Adjective or predicate?

A first example of such an unclear word order pattern has to do with the (lack of) copula in VGT.

When translating the sentence “the man is tall” into VGT, it would only consist of two signs in VGT,

namely MAN TALL (Vermeerbergen 1999 : 36). In this example, “man” is the subject of the sentence

and “tall” says something about this subject (expresses a characteristic). In VGT, no difference has

been found between the function of the verb and the predicate. There is therefore no difference in

function between “work” in MAN WORK and “deaf” in FIRST CHILD DEAF. Because of this lack of

difference, Vermeerbergen concluded to subsume both of them under the category verb (1999 : 37).

Even though both seem to function in the same way in VGT, this feels very unnatural to me.

However, until further research has been conducted, I have applied this to the annotations of the

data as well but by always putting a question mark behind it. This also means hat the predicative

sentences are annotated as SV.

Even though in VGT, copula (e.g. “to be”) are not explicitly mentioned, they are usually

implied by establishing a (brief) pause between the subject and the rest of the sentence. It became

clear, however, that the participants in this study don’t do so. Therefore, a frequently reoccurring

problem during the annotation of the examination tapes is the interpretation of phrases such as the

following:

DOG BIG BLACK / ELEPHANT BIG

In the examination tapes, it is unclear, whether these phrases mean “the dog is big and

black” and “the elephant is big”, in which “big” and “black” function as the predicate or whether they

mean “the big black dog” and “the big elephant”, in which “big” and “black” function as an adjective

behind the nouns “dog” and “elephant” (which is perfectly correct because in VGT the adjective can

55

also be placed after the noun (Vermeerbergen 2010 : 19), see 4.2.5.) I paid attention to possible

pauses between the subject and the rest of the phrase/sentence and to a possible mimetic

expression, so some examples would be excluded from the adjective category, but there were

(almost) no clear indications that pauses were deliberately held to mark the elements nor were there

notable mimetic expressions. Because the elements that functioned as adjectives were most often

placed in front of the noun (see results), it was decided to consider the elements placed behind the

noun in most cases as the predicate and therefore annotate it as a verb. In few cases, the pause

between the clauses/sentences was indeed held, so then, it was analysed as a predicate.

It should be noted that I annotated all predicates as verbs and the subjects were often

implied, so because of this, the results show a remarkably high amount of (S)V-pattern.

5.2.3.3.2. Subject or object?

A second example of such an unclear pattern (as a result of the lack of mimic expressions or pauses

as an additional indicator of the word order pattern) has to do with the subject (S) and object (O) in a

sentence. It should be stressed that in VGT, not every sentence needs a subject, object and verb. The

“rule of the last mentioned subject” states that “when a verb occurs without an explicitly mentioned

subject, the last mentioned subject is the subject of that verb” (Vermeerbergen 1999 : 66; own

translation). So when the last mentioned subject also applies to the subsequent sentences, it doesn’t

have to be repeated. In Dutch, this only seems possible in some kind of summaries in which the

repetition of the subject isn’t necessary, e.g. Hij kookt, wast en strijkt. (“He cooks, washes and

irons.”) or Hij kijkt rond en ziet hem plots. (“He looks around and suddenly sees him.”).

One of the examination questions was to sign a narrative about a family that goes to the zoo

and sees various kinds of animals. For example:

GO TO TRAIN / SIT / SEE VARIOUS ANIMAL

SEE DEER WALK / GOAT BEAUTIFUL WHITE / CHILD CARESS

TRAIN / ‘OH’ BEAUTIFUL / MANY DIFFERENT BIRD

This example involves four interesting elements:

(1) This example and the entire narrative completely lack an explicitly mentioned subject (the most

plausible subject is “we”).

(2) The verb “see” is, however, explicitly mentioned. It clearly applies first to the various animals,

after which the verb is repeated with the deer as its subject. Even though the verb presumably

applies to the subsequent sentence about the goat as well, it is not repeated when the goat becomes

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its subject. This results in the goat being the subject of the last mentioned (absent) verb “see”.

Extending the rule of the last mentioned subject, it doesn’t seem unlikely that in the case of a

summary, not only the last mentioned subject but also the last mentioned verb could apply to the

subsequent sentences. The participants in this study nevertheless often do this (see analysis).

(3) In the final sentence about the birds, it is again not clear what is meant. Has the student kept in

mind the verb “see” and therefore means “(we) see many different birds”? If this is the case, I think

this student has extended the previously mentioned rule too much, because in between the

sentence with the verb “see” and the part about the birds, there are too many sentences. I would

rather think that the student means the following: “The train drives further and ‘oh’ (it’s so beautiful)

many different birds fly around”.

(4) Finally, also the sole sign for “train” (without any mentioned verb) is a bit confusing. As stated

above, this could be interpreted as “The drain drives further”, this would mean this is considered a

gebarenconstructie with an SV-pattern. This could also be interpreted as “We are sitting in the train”

with “train” being the location. I tend toward the first option, because the prolonged signing of

“train” could in fact also mean “the train is driving” or “the train drives further”.

Another example that can clarify the confusion between subject and object is the following:

PS-4 LOOK DOLPHIN RING GC: DOLPHIN-JUMP-THROUGH-RING

In this example, because of the lack of indications by the participants, it is not clear whether this

sentence means “We look at a dolphin that jumps through a ring” (with the “dolphin” being the

object of the sentence) or “We look (around). A dolphin jumps through a ring” (with the “dolphin”

being the subject of the sentence). Usually, there would be a pause in between these two sentences

or the signer would mark the subject of the sentence as the topic, so the recipient knows what is

meant, but this is not the case here.

I tend toward the latter option, because in this way the VGT word order patterns are respected the

most. This sentence then matches a SV-pattern / SOV-pattern. Similar examples in this study are

analysed in the same way.

In addition, also the object can sometimes be left behind. For example:

SORT OF SAME RABBIT SEARCH FOR / SORT OF SAME FIND

In the first sentence, the object (rabbit) is explicitly mentioned, whereas this is not the case in the

second one. Even though the noun that functions as object is not explicitly mentioned, it is implied

and will therefore nevertheless be analysed as O.

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5.2.3.3.3. “Rule of the last mentioned subject” and its extension

Vermeerbergen’s research report (2010) shows that less than 1 percent of the analysed sentences

consists of a verb combined with two arguments and that one of these two arguments very often is a

personal pronoun (mostly “I”) (2010 : 17). The fact that signers don’t often use a verb sign combined

with two arguments has to do with the “rule of the last mentioned subject”. Because the subject of

the previous sentence remains the subject in the subsequent sentence(s), it is not considered

necessary to repeat it. Since this subject is not explicitly present, I decided not to analyse these

sentences as SVO, SOV and so on. However, because, the subject is implied and therefore cannot be

completely disregarded, I established some other categories, which take the implied subject into

account, without claiming it is a real argument being present in the sentences. In the analysis I will

therefore refer to them as being (S)VO, (S)OV and so on. These sentences, e.g. (S)VO, can be

understood as containing a not explicitly mentioned S, that is, however, assumed because it has been

copied from the previous sentence + an explicitly mentioned V + an explicitly mentioned O.

The same rule applies to sentences with (implied) role-taking (see 6.2.1.). Role-taking can

occur explicitly, e.g. when the person that performs the action is indicated by a full sign or by a clear

pointing sign (which in fact functions as a locus), in this case there is of course an explicitly

mentioned subject. Role-taking can, however, also occur implicitly, when e.g. only the pose of the

signer indicates who performs the action. In this case, this will again be analysed as an implied

subject.

Interestingly, the participants seem to extend the “rule of the last mentioned subject” in two

ways:

(1) Firstly, the participants tend to establish an (apparently) “main” subject in the beginning of the

narrative, which repeatedly functions as an implied subject in the subsequent sentences, even

though other subjects have been established in between and “the rule of the last mentioned subject”

therefore doesn’t count. For example, when signing the narrative about the family that goes to the

zoo and sees a lot of animals, the participants start off with making the sign for “we” or for “family”

(except for participant 1 and 6, who don’t establish a subject at all) and using it as a (firstly explicit,

later only implied) subject in the first sentences. Afterwards, the participants also describe some

characteristics of and actions by the animals, in which the animal functions as the subject. During the

whole narrative, there are intermissions in which the “we” or the “family” functions as a subject, but

is not repeated anymore, even though there have been other subjects in between. This means that

the participants cannot rely on the rule of “the last mentioned subject”, because the subject they

refer to and imply has been mentioned only in the beginning of the narrative, which is actually too

far away. Some participants don’t only do this, but also suddenly change the subject by role-taking

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without correctly indicating what the subject is and then change the subject back again.

The following example will clarify all of this:

PS-4 FAMILY TRAIN GO TO ZOO

PS-4 QUICKLY INSIDE QUICKLY

CHILD gc:TAKE-BY-THE-HAND-AND-WALK

WALK LOOK

In the introduction of this narrative, the subject is established as “PS-4” and/or “FAMILY” (family

being the apposition). Only once, few seconds later, it is repeated. This subject remains the implied

subject for some of the sentences later on in the narrative, even though it hasn’t been repeated ever

since. For example, in the sentence “WALK LOOK”, no subject is established and the last mentioned

subject (being the child or the PS-1) is not believed to possibly function as a subject here. Therefore,

it is concluded that again the “PS-4” and/or the sign for “family” is supposed as the subject, without

being explicitly mentioned, which would, however, be recommended because of the big lapse of

time (and distance) in between the sentences.

The third sentence mentioned above shows another kind of problem. Suddenly, the

participant performs “role-taking”, which if performed correctly would be a clear indication of the

fact that the mother is now performing an action and is therefore the subject of the sentence. The

role-taking is, however, not performed correctly, which results in a confusing construction. Because

of the previous examples, the recipient could understand the subject once more as an implied

repetition of the “PS-4” or “family”, but this would be incorrect because it is supposed that not the

whole family has taken the child by the hand and walked together with it. Since the recipient should

be able to remember the main subject of the narrative, these kinds of constructions aren’t

considered incorrect, but they are nevertheless believed to cause confusion when narrating a story

that involves various subjects.

(2) Secondly, the participants do not only excessively make use of the “rule of the last

mentioned subject”, they sometimes take it a step further and tend to do the following:

GO TO LION / HAVE BEAUTIFUL MANE

This example is not an isolated example, it has occurred a few times in the examination tapes. It

shows that (some of) the participants use the object of the previous sentence as subject of the

subsequent sentence, which is perhaps the result of stretching “the last mentioned subject”-rule.

This is not entirely correct and moreover may cause confusion, but of course, when this occurs, the

context can often help, and it has. It is nevertheless an interesting case, which wouldn’t apply to

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Dutch. As stated above, the initially established subject “PS-4” or “family” remains to be used as an

(implied) subject in the narrative later on, which is also the case in this sentence. The above

mentioned sentence is then analysed in the same way as a sentence with an implied (last mentioned)

subject:

(PS-4/FAMILY) GO TO LION / (PS-4/FAMILY) HAVE BEAUTIFUL MANE

Whereas the signer actually wants to say:

(PS-4/FAMILY) GO TO LION / (LION) HAVE BEAUTIFUL MANE

This message has not, however, been uttered correctly.

5.2.3.3.4. Serial verbs and verb sandwiches

The term serial verbs refers to two or more verbs that are subsequent to each other

(Devriendt 2009 : 49). Two different kinds of serial verbs can be distinguished: Either the verbs are

“describing the same action or event from one referential viewpoint and then another” (Devriendt

2009 : 49) (AB verb constructions), or the verbs can describe a different action but are uttered

immediately after each other, e.g. MOTHER BABY GIVE SHOW. In this example, the two verbs could

be analysed as two different verbs or as one verbal unit. Since I analysed the “last mentioned

subject”-rule and distinguished sentences with an implied subject and an explicitly mentioned

subject, I decided, in contrast with Devriendt (2009), to go in some cases with the former option and

analyse them as two different verbs, e.g. the sentence “MAN BOOK gc: READ-BOOK /LOOK AROUND

/ READ / LOOK AROUND” is analysed as an SOV-/(S)V-/(S)V/(S)V-pattern. I acknowledge that this

seems somewhat far-fetched and too specific, but this was necessary to be able to analyse the way in

which the participants handle the “last mentioned subject”-rule. In other cases, however, the verbs

are to be analysed as one verbal unit, e.g. “CHILD WANT TO GO AWAY”. In this example, the verbs

clearly belong to each other, there is no implied subject and the sentences can’t be analysed apart

from each other.

The term verb sandwiches refers to “sentences in which two realizations of the same verb

occur or in which both a verb and a related verbal construction occur” (Devriendt 2009 : 50 ; own

translation). In the sentence GIRL EAT PIE / gc: EAT-PIE, the question is whether the

polycomponential construction should be regarded as a sentence on its own or not. Following

Devriendt (2009 : 50), I decided to regard the second verb as a part of the first sentence and

therefore analyse this as SVOV.

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5.2.3.3.5. Full sentence or not?

Deciding whether a certain sentence functions as a full sentence or not has proven to be

problematic. In some of the examination tapes (especially those about the visit to the zoo), there

seems to be a summary of the animals. At first, the animal is often named without any mentioning of

O or V, e.g.

FLAMINGO SWEEP PINK

RHINOCEROS HIPPOPOTAMUS PS-3c PS-3d

Since no verbs, verb constructions or objects are accompanying these arguments, these examples

could be understood as “pink flamingos stand everywhere” (in which “flamingo” is the subject) or as

“we see pink flamingos everywhere” (in which “flamingo” is the object). The same applies to

“rhinoceros” and “hippopotamus”. Because of their ambiguity, cases like this weren’t included in the

counted sentences and therefore weren’t taken into account when conducting the analysis. They

would only undermine the results. However, when an object and/or verb is linked to the subject,

they are considered full sentences.

This rule is only followed when there’s a clear summary of certain arguments. If, however,

this is not the case, e.g. in the sentence “many ponds this is analysed as an (S)V-pattern. The

sentence is considered in lack of a subject “there” and verb “are”, making the “many ponds” the

predicate. Since this is no summary, it is indeed analysed as a full sentence with (S)V-pattern. This

results in a great amount of (S)V-patterns in my results, the decision to do so is of course taken into

account.

5.2.3.3.6. V-O or V?

Before commencing the actual analysis, one more final remark has to be made. In this dissertation,

the intention is to focus on the general word order patterns, therefore only these patterns are in fact

analysed. In VGT, however, there are many possibilities, among others because of the

polycomponential constructions. The sentence “GIRL PIE gc: EAT-PIE” for example could be analysed

as SOV-O, whereas the sentence “GIRL gc: EAT-PIE PIE” could be analysed as S V-O O. In accordance

with Vermeerbergen (2004 : 4), I did indicate the polycomponential constructions as V-O in the

annotations, but when executing the real analysis I decided to attribute these specific word order

patterns to one of the general patterns.

Therefore, the label SVO-order includes:

Subject-verb-object (S V O)

Subject-verb with object incorporation-object (S V-O O)

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The label SOV then includes:

Subject-object-verb (SOV)

Subject-object-verb with object incorporation (S O V-O)

Finally, the label SVOV includes:

Subject-verb-object-verb (SVOV)

Subject-verb-object-verb with object incorporation (SVOV-O)

5.3. Analysis

In the analysis, every participant is being individually discussed, because this uncovers some possible

remarkable differences between the participants and it offers a clarifying overview of the data in this

study. Since this study also aims to provide a sort of “error analysis”, the most remarkable errors and

cases of doubt are discussed.

For every participant, the following five elements (in accordance with the established tiers) are

analysed:

Word order patterns in reversible sentences (SVO, SOV, etc.)

Word order patterns in non-reversible sentences (SVO, SOV, etc.)

Placement of pointing signs and their localization (before or after the referent; consistent

localization or inconsistent)

Placement of adjective and noun (before or after the noun)

Additional remarkable constructions (see also tier for comments)

Every participant is present in various examination tapes. So for every participant, I have put

the data together in order to come to a general conclusion about this certain participant. For every

participant and their results, I make note of the sentences that couldn’t be subsumed under any of

the categories, they are therefore subsumed under the “other”-category. If I couldn’t come to a

conclusion on these sentences, I didn’t take them along in the results, because also these unsure

cases would undermine the results.

In this part, the results of the analysis are simply presented and some additional cases of

doubt as well as some significant patterns are briefly reviewed. The final results are discussed in

subsection 5.4.

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5.3.1. Participant 1

For participant 1, five examination tapes were analysed. The first two are the so-called “imitations”,

the other three are part of the permanent evaluation. The first two “mimic”-tapes almost included

no relevant information for this dissertation, so the greater part of the data come from the three

other tapes. Note that the parts with only “summed up” animals aren’t taken into account, neither

are the descriptions of the winter (with only nouns, without any orther arguments whatsoever) in the

first imitation tape.

Word order patterns in reversible sentences:

The examination tapes of participant 1 include 72 analysed word order patterns. Only 7 of the 72

analysed sentences are sentences with reversible arguments.

SVO SOV O/SV SVOV SV (S)VO (S)OV O/(S)V (S)VOV (S)V Other

0 1 0 0 0 3 0 0 2 1 0

Six of the seven reversible sentences belong to the (S)-category, which means the subject is almost

never explicitly mentioned but implied. For example:

(PS-3man) SEE DOG

(PS-4) LOOK AT VARIOUS ANIMAL

In one case, the subject is explicitly mentioned (SVOV):

DOG SMALL RABBIT NEIGHBOUR GRAB

As stated by Vermeerbergen et al. (2007 : 50), the SVO-pattern occurs most frequently in sentences

with reversible arguments in VGT. The data on participant 1 agree with this, participant 1 indeed

makes use of this pattern most frequently, with the difference being that they mostly utter this

pattern with a non-explicitly mentioned subject, which shows that they often make use of the “last

mentioned subject”-rule, both in a correct and incorrect manner (see 6.2.3.4.3.). This feeds the

expectation that also the other participants will show a tendency towards patterns with an implied

(not explicitly mentioned) subject. This is discussed in the final results.

Word order patterns in non-reversible sentences:

The overwhelmingly greater part of the sentences (65 out of 72) are sentences with non-reversible

arguments.

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SVO SOV O/SV SVOV SV (S)VO (S)OV O/(S)V (S)VOV (S)V Other

3 4 3 2 17 3 2 0 0 24 7

The word order patterns found in the non-reversible sentences show a much layered result. As

expected, there are more patterns with an implied subject than with an explicitly mentioned subject.

The (S)V-pattern with an implied (“main”) subject occurs most often, also SV- and (S)VO-order occur

frequently. There are, however, definitely a few examples of an incorrect usage of the “rule of the

last mentioned subject”. Among others, there is the following example:

JUMP UP

HIT

gc: LET-GO-OF-RABIT

In the first two sentences, the man is the implied subject (which is used correctly), in the subsequent

sentence, however, suddenly the dog (who lets go of the rabit because he is being hit) is the subject,

which is not the last mentioned subject. Even though the context makes it clear, this should have

been explicitly (with a sign or a pointing sign) established. Additionally, it should be noted that

participant 1 when narrating the zoo-narrative never established a main subject (whereas most other

participants immediately established the “family” or “we” as the subject).

7 of the 70 sentences don’t belong to any of the above mentioned patterns. Five of them are

considered worth mentioning:

(i) O/(V)S: WEIRD HAT PS-2

In this example, there doubtlessly lacks a verb, e.g. “have”. It the VGT production of signers with L1

VGT, it is quite uncommon that the verb is being left back (both in VGT and in Dutch, in which the

presence of a verb is necessary), this construction is therefore quite remarkable.

(ii) Apposition: VS: RIKSKE BOY PS-3a / DOG NAME VS: FIKSKE / DOG

NAME SIGN NG FIKSKE / BOY NAME SIGN NG RIKSKE /

PS-3b NAME SIGN FIKSKE

The first sentence is supposed to follow an SV-pattern with “boy” being the predicate. In the second

sentence, however, the pattern is supposed to be an S(V)O-pattern with the verb “have” lacking. The

name “VS:FIKSKE” is then considered an apposition. After that, the established name signs are

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considered appositions to both “dog” and “boy”. Since I didn’t consider these sentence as full

sentences (but merely as presentations of the persons the narrative will be about), these are not

taken into account when analyzing the word order patterns.

(iii) SOV: PS-3f BUILDING IN/INSIDE

In this sentence (and many other sentences in the zoo-narrative), the Dutch word binnen (possibly

“in” or “inside”) complicates the analysis of this sentence. Because no verb is uttered, it is not sure

whether this argument can be understood as a part of a verb, e.g. “to go in” (binnengaan). I decided,

however, to analyse it as (a part of) the verb.

(iv) ??: PS-2 MEAN FROM LAUGHING

It is supposed that the signer wanted to express the following: “you are mean because you laugh at

me”, the way in which this is structured is, however, completely unclear. “PS-2 MEAN” could be

analysed as “SV” (with “mean” as predicate), but the “from laughing”-part remains difficult. Thus,

this sentence wasn’t added to the table.

In addition, one construction that has been taken into account but has caused difficulties is

considered interesting to take a closer look at:

(v) SV: WOMAN ORANGE CLOTHES (/) LIE DOWN

There seemed to be two options here: either there is a lacking verb in the first part, e.g. “wear”, or

the “orange clothes” are merely a description of the woman, possibly translated as “the woman with

the orange clothes”. If the first option, the first part can be considered as a full sentence with lacking

verb, which would mean that the second sentence also lacks an element, namely its subject

“woman” (resulting in a SO(V)/(S)V-pattern). If the second option, the “woman” is considered the

subject, with the “orange clothes” as a part of the subject and the “lie down” the verb, resulting in a

simple SV-pattern. The latter option is preferred.

Placement of pointing signs and their localization

When examining the placement of the pointing signs and their localization by the participants,

attention is paid to two questions:

(1) When the pointing sign is linked to a certain referent for the first time (which results in

establishing a locus), does the participant place the pointing sign before, after or before and

after this referent? This question of course almost only applies to PS-3 and PS-6, in rather

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rare occasions also the other ones can be explicitly linked to a referent.

(2) When the pointing sign (and therefore the locus) has been established and the participant

refers to it, does the participant place the pointing sign (PS-1 to PS-6) in the beginning of the

sentence, in the middle of the sentence (usually only question structures), at the end of the

sentence or at the beginning and at the end of the sentence?

When placing the pointing sign for the first time, these were the results:

Before the referent After the referent Before + after the referent

10 7 1

Participant 1 prefers to place the pointing sign before the referent.

When having established the locus, the occurances of the pointing sign in the sentences were the

following:

Beginning of the

sentence

Middle of the

sentence

End of the sentence Beginning + end of the

sentence

3 2 4 2

Whereas other participants do (see further), participant 1 doesn’t show a clear preference towards

any of the options. However, even though the difference is utterly small, it is remarkable that they

place the pointing sign most often at the end of the sentence.

In the annotations, it is always indicated when the participant makes a remarkable mistake when

pointing at a different locus than the one established for that referent. One mistake aside,

participant 1 is quite consistent when using loci and kept them well apart. In the narrative about the

zoo, a lot of referents were localized and some of them at the same locus, but because many of them

only played a small role in the narrative and soon were out of the picture, this wasn’t a problem. In

two cases, they used and in the beginning established name sign in stead of pointing at the also

already established locus and in a few other cases, the participant preferred to use the full sign for

“man” or “neighbour” instead of using the established locus. This explains the relatively small

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number of used pointing signs and established loci. Also in one case, they didn’t establish the locus

very clearly.

Placement of adjective and noun

Regarding the placement of adjective and noun, two positions were in question: before and after the

noun. These are the results:

Adjective before noun Adjective after noun Adjective before + after noun

17 10 0

This shows that the adjective is most often placed before the noun by participant 1. Remarkable is

that the adjectives that indicate time (last week etc.) as well as the indefinite numeral adjectives,

such as many, some, various etc. are always placed before the noun.

Additional remarkable constructions (comments)

Since I suspected that the participants in this study would experience difficulties with

polycomponential constructions and the manual simultaneity of VGT, the presence and/or lack of

these two are analysed in the utterances of every participant.

The data on participant 1 show 13 polycomponential constructions, which will prove to be

present in the examination tapes of (most) of the other participants as well. In some of them the

object and verb are included:

(i) gc: READ-BOOK

(ii) gc: GRAB-WITH-MOUTH

(iii) gc: WALK-WITH-RABBIT-IN-MOUTH

(iv) gc: LET-GO-OF-RABBIT

(v) gc: PUT-HAT-ON-HEAD

(vi) gc: BONCE-BALL-ON-NOSE

(vii) gc: CARESS-GOAT

(viii) gc: GET OFF-TRAIN

(ix) gc: JUMP-THROUGH-RING

Since I didn’t distinguish the various types of polycomponential constructions, also the ones without

an included object are considered as the same polycomponential construction:

(x) gc: EAGLE-SIT

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(xi) gc: EYES-CLOSING

Since many of these constructions reoccur in the exact same form, they won’t be discussed every

time. Only the ones that are new or different will be.

In addition, one remarkable construction was found:

ERG SLECHT WEER

(VERY BAD WEATHER)

The usage of the sign for the adverb erg (“very”) is quite remarkable, because using this sign in this

way leans very closely to Dutch (therefore, the example is also given in Dutch translation). Normally,

in VGT, no such construction would be used. Instead, signers would use their mimetic expression to

indicate how bad the weather in fact was and not an adverb and definitely not this one.

5.3.2. Participant 2

For participant 2, only three examination tapes were analysed. All three of them are part of the

permanent evaluation. Because this participant only has signed these examination questions, this

could possibly result in different outcomes than with the ones who did have a variety of examination

questions.

Word order patterns in reversible sentences

The examination tapes of participant 2 include 70 analysed word order patterns. Again, only 7 of the

70 analysed sentences are sentences with reversible arguments.

SVO SOV O/SV SVOV SV (S)VO (S)OV O/(S)V (S)VOV (S)V Other

0 1 0 0 0 3 2 0 0 0 1

Most of these sentences seem correct, two of them are, however, interesting to take a look at.

Firstly, there is the common word order pattern SOV:

(vi) SOV: NEIGHBOUR(PS-3a) US WIFE gc: “wife-located-at-loc” ME(PS-1) ALSO INVITE

Literally, this sentence has the order: S O O gc O V, but follows of course actually the SOV-pattern. It

is, however, a remarkable example, because the signer didn’t first establish who the “us” refers to,

but only did this when already giving expression to the sentence.

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Secondly, only one sentence of all reversible sentences couldn’t be subsumed under any of the

categories:

(vii) VSO: THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY MORNING SEE PS-1 RABBIT

Since the usage of a VSO-pattern in VGT is uncommon, this example is significant. It can be

attributed to interference from Dutch. In Dutch, when using an expression of time, there is inversion

(the subject and verb switch places). It is believed that this participant (wrongfully) transferred the

construction from Dutch into this VGT-construction (which means this is a case of negative transfer).

Word order patterns in non-reversible sentences

64 of the 70 analysed sentences are sentences with non-reversible arguments.

SVO SOV O/SV SVOV SV (S)VO (S)OV O/(S)V (S)VOV (S)V Other

3 4 1 0 17 3 6 0 5 16 9

Again, the sentences with an implied subject are more frequently used than the ones with an

explicitly mentioned subject. It also stands out that (S)V-order (16 times) and SV-order (17 times) are

the most frequently used. Participant 2 used the “last mentioned subject”-rule more cautiously than

participant 1, which resulted in better organized stories that were easier to comprehend.

Some of the sentences were finally added to the table but beforehand they required some

thought:

(i) SV: 2 CHILD OF-1 WITH/ALONG

I decided to annotate the “with/along” as a part of the (lacking) verb “to take with/along”, but

considered it a V in the analysis.

(ii) (S)OV: HOUSE OF SNAIL ALWAYS WITH/ALONG

The same goes for this example, I decided to annotate the “with/along” as a part of the (lacking) verb

“to take with/along”, but considered it a V in the analysis.

(iii) (S)V / O/SV: NOW UNDERSTAND WHY SNAIL SLOW

Since the subject “PS-1” is missing, I decided to analyse this sentence as “now I understand why the

snail is slow”, resulting in an (S)V / O/SV-pattern.

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Other sentences were considered too unclear or didn’t belong to any of the other categories:

(i) VOS: HAVE OWN HOUSE SNAIL

The VOS-pattern is one of the six general word order patterns, it is, however, quite uncommon in

VGT. In this example, it is meant as a question. Usually in VGT, an O/SV-pattern would be used.

(ii) PREP-(V)-S: NEXT TO PS-3d 2 PS-3d BIG GORILLA

Since locative sentences are so rare in these examination tapes, they are added to the “other”-

category. This pattern of the sentence is analysed as PREP-(V)-S with e.g. “sit” as the lacking verb.

(iii) SVO/VS or SVOV + O: PS-1 BELIEVE NOTHING EXIST NOTHING

This sentence was considered either following a VS-pattern, which is, however, quite uncommon in

VGT, or an SVOV + O-pattern, with the final “nothing” just being repeated to extra stress this

utterance.

(iv) S(V)O: PS-6 (2) DESIRE

Firstly, the verb “have” lacks in this example, which results in the utterance being no correct

sentence at all. Secondly, it is difficult to categorize “desire” as an object.

(v) S(V)O or LE-(locative relation)-LOC: MANY PEOPLE ROW

This sentence lacks a verb, either “stand in“ or “form”. If the verb would be “stand in”, then the word

order pattern would be the following: located element-(locative relation)-location. If, however, the

verb would be “form”, the word order pattern would be the following: S(V)O.

(vi) S(V): PS-3a elephant PS-3elephant

HEY PS-3giraffe GIRAFFE PS-3giraffe

YES PS-3giraffe GIRAFFE

These examples occur quite frequently in the examination tapes. In the zoo-narratives, the

participants often use role-taking and point many times at a certain locus, to refer to a certain animal

that is supposed to stand there. In these cases, it was considered difficult to decide whether these

were meant as “we see an elephant standing there”, in which the “elephant” would be the object, or

as “an elephant is standing there/over there is an elephant” in which the “elephant” would be the

subject. Since the verb is missing, I have decided to annotate them as a subject, but without

analyzing them as a real sentence.

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(vii) LE– LOC – locative relation: MONKEY TREE gc: SIT-IN-TREE

Because locative sentences are so rare, it was decided to subsume them under/into the “others”-

category.

(viii) (S)VO(?)/(S)VV/(S)Vgc: CAN HIGH( /)CAN EAT/CAN gc: EAT-LEAF-FROM-TREE

Finally, this example is subsumed under the other-category, because it remains unsure how “high”

should be analysed. Presumably, the participant means that the giraffe (which is the last mentioned

subject) can reach high and therefore can eat the tree leafs. Whether or not the two clauses “can

high” and “can eat” are to be analysed separately (“the giraffe can reach high” and “the giraffe can

eat” with the third part being a specification of what the giraffe eats) or together (“the giraffe can

eat things that are located up-high in the trees”) remains unclear.

Placement of pointing signs and their localization

When placing the pointing sign for the first time, these were the results for participant 2:

Before the referent After the referent Before + after the referent

5 5 2

Participant 2 doesn’t show a clear preference for placing the pointing sign before or after the

referent. However, again it becomes clear that the pointing sign is least frequently placed both

before and after the referent.

One example was unclear:

PS-4 FAMILY TAKE TRAIN

There are two options: the pointing sign either functions as a possessive pronoun, meaning “our

family takes the train”, or it functioned as a pointing sign before the referent “family”, establishing

this sign as the sign for “family” later on in the narrative (with “family” functioning as apposition).

The pointing sign is also used later on in the narrative, if it’s the first option this would be interpreted

as meaning “we”, in the latter option this could be interpreted as a reference to “family”. I prefer the

first option and consider “family” as an apposition to the pointing sign..

When having established the locus, the occurances of the pointing sign in the sentences were the

following:

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Beginning of the

sentence

Middle of the

sentence

End of the sentence Beginning + end of the

sentence

14 2 2 5

Two pointing signs appeared in the middle of the sentence. One of them appeared in a question (as

is usually the case) (WHAT PS-2 DO), while the other one appeared in the above mentioned, Dutch-like

structure DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY MORNING SEE I RABBIT.

Also participant 2 seems to experience few difficulties with localizing the referents. They localize

some of the referents at the same locus, which is in theory no problem because it is clear that the

previously established referent at that locus is not going to be referred to anymore. It remains

nevertheless confusing that the participants localize that many referents, the narratives would be

easier comprehendible when fewer pointing signs were used and fewer loci were established. Finally,

it occurs two times that participant 2 who has already established the locus for the pointing sign

nevertheless places the referent once more before the pointing sign. The reason for this could be

that participant 2 wanted to make clear for the recipient, which referent this particular locus to.

Placement of adjective and noun

These are the results of the placement of the adjectives:

Adjective before noun Adjective after noun Adjective before + after noun

10 1 0

Participant 2 places the adjectives in the same way as participant 1: never both before and after the

noun and (much) more often before the noun than after it.

One example was disputable:

PS-3Elephant BIG gc: STOMP-WITH-FEET / FAT

In this example, it isn’t clear whether the construction STOMP-WITH-FEET is a polycomponential

construction after the subject “PS-3Elephant big” or whether can function as an adjective after the

pointing sign. This doesn’t change anything to the word order pattern, but because it remains

unsure, this hasn’t been taken into account in the results on the adjectives.

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Additional remarkable constructions (comments)

Participant 2 used 14 polycomponential constructions. They are all different from the ones

participant 1 used, because of the different stories they narrated. The ones that include both verb

and object are the following:

(i) gc: TAKE-CHILD-BY-THE-HAND-AND-LOOK-AROUND

(ii) gc: STOMP-WITH-FEET

(iii) gc: GO-TO-PEOPLE-WITH-TRUNK-AND-SNIFFLE-THEM

(iv) gc: SWING-ON-LIANE

(v) gc: SIT-IN-TREE

(vi) gc: PEEL-BANANA

(vii) gc: EAT-BANANA

(viii) gc: EAT-FLEA

(ix) gc: EAT-LEAF-OUT-OF-TREE

(x) gc: GRAB-PEOPLE-WITH-MOUTH

(xi) gc: TAKE-CAGE-AND-PUT-IT-ON-BACK

(xii) gc: THROW-WIRE-TO-THE-OTHER-SIDE-OF-THE-BELLY-AND-MAKE-A-KNOT

Two other constructions didn’t include both object and verb, but only the (implied subject and) verb:

(xiii) WALK-AS-A-DOG

(xiv) WALK-SLOWLY-AS-A-DOG

Most of these will reoccur in the other examination tapes, so only the new or different ones will be

named.

5.3.3. Participant 3

For participant 3, six examination tapes were analysed. The first two are the so-called “imitations”,

three of them are part of the permanent evaluation and the purpose of the last one is to introduce a

person. Again, the first two “mimic”-tapes almost include no relevant information for this

dissertation, so the greater part of the data come from the four other tapes.

Participant 3 repeats many arguments (both S, V, sometimes O and other parts of the sentence).

Even though this breaks up the whole word order pattern of the sentence (e.g. VS:TOM PS-3a WITH

PLEASURE PS-3Tom WITH PLEASURE ICESKATE PS-3Tom WITH PLEASURE), these repetitions aren’t

taken into account when analyzing the word order pattern, so the above mentioned example is

simply analyzed as an SV-pattern). Note that the parts with only “summed up” animals aren’t taken

into account.

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Word order patterns in reversible sentences

The examination tapes of participant 3 include 106 analysed word order patterns. Only 8 of the 106

analysed sentences are reversible sentences. These are the results:

SVO SOV O/SV SVOV SV (S)VO (S)OV O/(S)V (S)VOV (S)V Other

1 0 0 0 0 3 2 0 2 0 0

Again, most of the sentences include an implied subject. Since some of the same examination

questions are executed by the participants, it is possible to compare their utterances. In the zoo-

narrative, there are many similarities in word order patterns and usage of implied subjects. For

example, two of the reversible sentences are:

SEE MANY ANIMAL (with the lacking subject PS-4)

CHILD gc: TAKE-BY-THE-HAND (with the lacking subject PS-1)

Word order patterns in non-reversible sentences

98 of 106 analysed sentences belong to the non-reversible sentences.

SVO SOV O/SV SVOV SV (S)VO (S)OV O/(S)V (S)VOV (S)V Other

4 1 0 1 32 5 11 0 1 31 12

Again, many more varied word order patterns occur in the non-reversible sentences (8 types) than in

the reversible sentences (4 types). Such as the other two participants, participant 3 shows a clear

preference for using an implied subject. Once more, the two most used word order patterns are the

SV- and (S)V-patterns.

Twelve of the analysed sentences couldn’t be subsumed under any of the categories. Some of them

have already been discussed when analyzing the examination tapes of the previous participants.

Others, however, are new:

(i) S(V)O: BOY HAT

In this example, the verb “have” or “wear” is lacking, resulting in a strange and odd S(V)O-structure.

(ii) S(V)O: PS-1 AS WELL HAT AS WELL (x2)

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In this example, the verb “want” is lacking, again resulting in a strange and odd S(V)O-structure.

(iii) O(V)S or OS(V): NICE HAT PS-2

Once more, a verb is lacking in this example, this time presumably “have”. Both the O(V)S-pattern

and the OS(V)-pattern are plausible, since the pointing signs that seem to function as the subject can

both occur in the beginning and/or at the end of the declarative sentence (Vermeerbergen 2011 : 2).

(iv) S IO V O: AGAIN RABBIT GIVE CAGE

This is the only time the verb “give” is used by the participants. The sentence is considered an S IO V

O-pattern, with the indirect object (IO) before the verb and the direct object (O) after it.

(v) S(V)O: PS-3Jos C:3 CHILD

Again, the verb “have” is missing.

(vi) VS: NOT PLAY SOCCER PS-3Jos

This example shows a VS-pattern with “play soccer” as V and the subject “PS-3Jos” after it. Since (as

stated above) the pointing sign that functions as a subject can be placed sentence-finally, this

construction is not that remarkable, but it is still rare in VGT. A repetition of the pointing sign, placing

it both in the beginning and at the end of the sentence would be more common.

Half of the sentences that are subsumed under the other-category lack a verb sign. Also other

participants will show the tendency to do so.

Placement of pointing signs and their localization

When establishing the locus for the first time, these are the results for the placement of the pointing

signs:

Before the referent After the referent Before + after the referent

4 5 3

When the locus is already established, the placement of the pointing signs is the following:

Beginning of the

sentence

Middle of the

sentence

End of the sentence Beginning + end of the

sentence

14 3 6 6

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Very soon it became clear that participant 3 has a clear preference for repeating arguments, both

the subject (being a pointing sign or not), the verb and sometimes the object. This has resulted in a

remarkably higher amount of pointing signs that are placed both before and after the referent as

well was in the beginning and at the end of the sentence. This results in a quite disorganized usage

and placement of pointing signs. Moreover, this participant uses the pointing signs and the “full”

signs next to each other, which makes everything even more confusing.

The pointing signs that occur in the middle of the sentence are usually pointing signs in

question structures. However, because this participant repeats pointing signs (and other arguments)

so often, structures such as the following are formed:

T-O-M PS-3a WITH PLEASURE PS-3Tom WITH PLEASURE ICESKATE PS-3Tom WITH PLEASURE

This means that in only one sentence, the pointing sign is established both in the beginning, in the

middle and at the end of the sentence. Also the “with pleasure”-part is repeated three times. This

leads to the sentence being too “full” and difficult to follow.

Participant 3 appears to be quite consistent in localizing the pointing signs. In two cases, it

wasn’t clear who or what the pointing sign referred to and finally, in one case, they signed that

people were getting on the train, without having established the locus for the train yet. In the

context this can of course be understood, but this is actually a mistake.

Placement of adjective and noun

Adjective before noun Adjective after noun Adjective before + after noun

20 0 0

Participant 3 is the most consistent when placing adjectives: the adjective is only placed before the

noun. There were four cases of doubt:

(i) PS-3b ELEPHANT BIG gc: STOMP-WITH-FEET/FAT PS-3Elephant

In this case, the subject PS-3Elephant is repeated at the end of the sentence. This sentence could

have been analysed as “There stands an elephant. He is big, he stomps his feet/he is fat”.

However, because there is almost no pause in between “elephant” and “big” and in between

“big” and the polycomponential construction “STOMP-WITH-FEET”, “big” could be analysed as an

adjective before the sentence-finally pointing sign and subsequently also the polycomponential

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construction could be considered an adjective to the pointing sign here. This seems plausible, but

is, as in the other cases, not taken into account because it remains unsure.

(ii) 2 GORILLA BIG GORILLA 2

As stated above, participant 3 repeats many arguments. In this case, both the numerals as well as the

subject itself are repeated. Because of this, it is considered unclear, whether the adjective “big”

belongs to the first “gorilla” and both the subject and the numeral are repeated or whether the

adjective “big” belongs to the second “gorilla” and the following is meant: “there are two gorillas, big

gorillas, there are two”.

(iii) THE FIRST TWO SON

THE THIRD DAUGHTER

In this case, it isn’t clear whether “the first two” now functions as a noun “the first two are sons, the

third is a daughter” or whether it remains to function as an adjective, before a lacking noun

“children/child”, “the first two children are sons, the third child is a daughter”. The first option seems

the most valid and it is therefore also in this way analysed. This means the “two son” and “daughter”

are predicates, resulting in an SV-pattern.

(iv) THE FIRST SON NAME

THE SECOND SON NAME

THE THIRD DAUGHTER NAME

Also in this case, it isn’t clear whether “the first son” etc. is meant as an announcement “The first son

is now introduced. His name is …” (with “the first” etc. functioning as an adjective to the noun “son”)

or whether “the first”, ”the second”, ”the third” function as an adjective to a lacking noun “child”.

This could then be understood as “the first child is a son. His name is…” and so on.

Following Vermeerbergen (2010 : 17), it is decided to consider the referents first being introduced,

after which their name (and other things) are named (it is still strange that the signer then would sign

“the third daughter” instead of only “daughter”, but they are supposed to do that to make clear that

the third child is a daughter). These referents are analysed as subject but aren’t part of a real

sentence.

Additional remarkable constructions (comments)

The data on participant 3 show 15 polycomponential constructions. Most of them are the exact same

constructions as named before (see previous participants).

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The following, however, are new and include both object and verb:

(i) gc: TAKE-BELL JAR-AND-PUT-IT-ON-HEAD

(ii) gc: EAT-SOMETHING SMALL

(iii) gc: PUT-RABBIT-IN-CAGE

(iv) gc: DIG-A-GRAVE

One construction only includes the (implied subject and) verb:

(v) gc: DISAPPOINTEDLY-WALK-AS-A-DOG

When executing the task of introducing someone, participant 3 clearly structures the arguments

more sequentially (which in this case results in a better comprehension of the story). This brings

along that in this task no polycomponential constructions are used.

Very remarkable is the fact that participant 3 repeats many arguments: subjects, objects, verbs

as well as other signs (e.g. repetition of the sign for “always”). In addition, this participant established

the pointing signs in a disorganized manner as well and they hesitate very often when signing. These

three factors result in much disorganized speech patterns, which are difficult to follow and

comprehend.

Because this participant has executed all three various examination questions, it becomes

clear that there are differences noticeable. Firstly, the narratives are much more disorganized than

the final examination question, in which the participant has to introduce someone. It seems that,

when introducing a person, the participants pay more attention to the organization of their story and

want to make sure everything is clear. Whereas this participant repeats various arguments (among

others pointing signs) many times in the other examination questions, they don’t do that here. Of

course, this question in fact needs fewer pointing signs because only one person is the subject here.

In addition, because introducing a person can be done quite sequentially, the used structures lean

more towards Dutch than is the case in the other narratives, making it again easier for the signer

because they don’t have to think about simultaneity and many polycomponential constructions. The

fact that this examination question is better executed than the others is therefore not that

surprising.

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5.3.4. Participant 4

For participant 4, only three examination tapes were analysed. All three are part of the permanent

evaluation.

Word order in reversible sentences

The examination tapes of participant 4 include 82 analysed word order patterns. Only 7 of them are

reversible sentences.

SVO SOV O/SV SVOV SV (S)VO (S)OV O/(S)V (S)VOV (S)V Other

0 1 0 1 0 2 1 0 1 0 1

Once more, it is remarkable that the subject is mostly implied. Only one sentence is subsumed under

the “others”-category (because of the presence of an indirect object (IO):

(i) S V O IO: FIKSKE TAKE PRESENT FOR GIRL

Word order in non-reversible sentences

75 of the 82 analysed sentences are non-reversible sentences.

SVO SOV O/SV SVOV SV (S)VO (S)OV O/(S)V (S)VOV (S)V Other

4 0 0 5 24 3 2 1 0 28 8

Again, there are more sentences with an implied subject than with an explicitly mentioned subject.

For the first time, an O/(S)V-pattern occurred:

WHAT NOW DO (with lacking subject “PS-4”)

Again, 8 of the 82 non-reversible sentences couldn’t be subsumed under any of the enlisted word

order patterns. Some of them have already been discussed, three of them, however, new and worth

taking a more elaborate look at:

(i) SVO or SVO/SV(O) FAMILY OF PS-4 GO TO ZOO TRAIN GO TO

In this example, it remains unclear whether the second “go to” is only a repetition of the verb,

resulting in an SVO-pattern with both “zoo” and “train” being analysed as the objects or whether the

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following is meant: PS-4 GO TO ZOO / TRAIN GO TO (ZOO) following a SVO / SV(O)-pattern. Therefore,

this sentence hasn’t been added to the table.

(ii) V: LOOK

In this example, the verb can occur completely on its own because it expresses an order.

(iii) SV + Apposition: VS:RIKSKE BOY NAME SIGN NG RIKSKE

VS: FIKSKE WHAT WHO DOG NAME SIGN NG FIKSKE

In these sentences, “VS: RIKSKE BOY” and “VS: FIKSKE WHAT WHO DOG” are considered SV-patterns,

with “boy” and “dog” functioning as predicates. The subsequent name signs are considered

appositions and therefore not concluded in the word order patterns.

Placement of pointing signs and their localization

When establishing the locus for the first time, these are the results for the placement of the pointing

signs:

Before the referent After the referent Before + after the referent

3 11 0

The outcomes with this participant are remarkable. This participant placed the pointing sign

remarkably more often after the referent than before the referent. The narratives are, however, the

same as the other ones, so it cannot be attributed to the narrative itself. It is also notable that this

participant not always places the pointing sign immediately after the referent, sometimes the

pointing sign for the particular referent already occurs in the subsequent sentence. This makes the

reception more confusing.

When the locus is already established, the placement of the pointing signs is the following:

Beginning of the

sentence

Middle of the

sentence

End of the sentence Beginning + end of the

sentence

19 1 1 0

The fact that the pointing sign (when the locus has been established) is placed mostly in the

beginning of the sentence agrees with the results of the other participants (except for participant 1).

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This participant, however, has a clear preference for the beginning of the sentence, whereas this is

less clear-cut with the other participants.

Finally, participant 4 is quite consistent when localizing the referents. They were also considerate

to the fact that a man is taller than a dog, localizing the man up-high and the dog down. One time,

they made a clear mistake (changing the locus from left up to right up) and also the large amount of

referents being localized and some of the loci being too near to one another could be avoided. Apart

from that, localizing the referents doesn’t seem to have caused many difficulties.

Placement of adjective and noun

Adjective before noun Adjective after noun Adjective before + after noun

17 4 0

In accordance with the other participants, participant 4 places the adjective notably more often

before the noun than after the noun. Placing the adjective both before and after the noun never

occurs. One case wasn’t clear:

REAL ELEPHANT BIG

ECHT OLIFANT GROOT

It remained unclear whether “echt” (“real”) functions (1) as an adjective to “elephant” with “big”

being a predicate (“it is a real elephant and he is big”), (2) as an adjective to “elephant” together with

“big” (being both positioned differently) (“it is a real big elephant”), (3) as an adverb with “big” being

a predicate (“it is really an elephant and he is big”) or (4) whether it functions as an adverb with “big”

being the adjective to “elephant” (“it is really a big elephant”). Because I couldn’t decide on which

option being the most plausible, I didn’t take this example into account.

Additional remarkable constructions + comments

Participant 4 used 15 polycomponential constructions. Two of them are new (and include both object

and verb):

(i) gc: HOLD-HANDS-WITH-CHILD-AND-WALK

(ii) gc: WALK-PROUDLY-WITH-RABBIT-IN-MOUTH

One case shows clear interference from Dutch. Participant 4 commences the narrative by signing

“STORY OVER RABBIT”. In VGT, the sign “over” is, however, almost solely used as a preposition, to

indicate a certain place or movement. In Dutch, the word “over” can both be used to indicate a place

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or movement and as a translation of the English “about” (e.g. een verhaal vertellen over “to tell a

story about”). Therefore, this sentence is believed to be a significant example of interference from

Dutch in VGT. Alternatively, the signer could have used the sign for “theme” to indicate that the story

is about a rabbit.

Participant 4 repeated many arguments (mostly subject and verb), but, in contrast with

participant 3, this led to a better understanding of the narratives, which in my opinion is precisely the

purpose of repeating certain arguments. They also used their mimetic expressions well to stress

certain elements and to support the narrative. Finally, in some cases participant 4 decided not to

point at the established locus for the elephant and the lion in the zoo-narrative, but instead used the

“full” sign. This was probably also in order to make the narrative easier to follow and better

understandable. In this, participant 4 seems to have succeeded.

5.3.5. Participant 5

For participant 5, six examination tapes were analysed. Again, two of them are the “imitations”,

three are part of the permanent evaluation and in the last examination tape they introduce

someone. As always, the first two “imitations”, however, don’t offer many additional results.

Word order patterns in reversible sentences

The examination tapes of participant 5 include 109 analysed word order patterns. Only 6 of them are

reversible sentences.

SVO SOV O/SV SVOV SV (S)VO (S)OV O/(S)V (S)VOV (S)V Other

0 0 0 2 0 2 1 0 1 0 0

Even though it is only a small difference (because almost no reversible sentences are found), the

sentences with an implied subject are still more frequent (4 to 2) than the ones with an explicitly

mentioned subject.

All reversible sentences that were found have already been discussed.

Word order patterns in non-reversible sentences

103 out of 109 analysed sentences are non-reversible sentences.

SVO SOV O/SV SVOV SV (S)VO (S)OV O/(S)V (S)VOV (S)V Other

7 6 0 2 31 6 1 0 1 34 15

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Once more, the resentences with an implied subject occur more frequently. This time however, the

difference is not that big. This is the result from the fact that in one of the examination tapes, a

person is being presented (note the exceptionally high amount of SV-patterns). In this tape, the

subject is repeated almost every time (which deviates from all other tapes).

15 of the 103 non-reversible sentences couldn’t be subsumed under any of the enlisted word

order patterns. Some of them also occurred in the examination tapes of other participants (both in

the exact same form and in another, but resembling form) and are therefore not elaborately

discussed anymore (see previous results):

(i) S(V)O: PS-3Kras no brother or sister (with lacking verb “have”)

(ii) S(V): SUN (with lacking verb “shine”)

(iii) V: DO NOT DO (order)

(iv) S(V)O: PS-6(2) BLACK FURR (with lacking verb “have”)

(v) (S)(V)O: BEAUTIFUL WHITE STAR (with implied subject “Ton” and implied verb “see”)

(vi) S(V?): MANY ANIMAL SWEEP (sweep being the predicate: “many animals were

everywhere)

(vii) SV/SV: PS-2 KNOW / PS-1 CAN (meaning “you know that I can”)

Finally, four others are considered necessary to discuss somewhat more elaborately:

(viii) (S)(V)(O)V?: G: DESIRE PLAY FLY KITE

This sentence and how to analyse it remains unclear. There is the implied subject “PS-3Tom”,

followed by the gesture that he has a great desire, followed by the signs “play” and “fly kite”. The

sentence could therefore be analysed as SVOV. However, the gesture could also be analysed as

“want”, resulting in a possible (S)(V)V-pattern. Even though the former option seems the most

plausible, the sentence remains too vague and is therefore not part of the actual analysis.

(ix) (S)VO / (S)(V)O: ALSO HAVE GOAT / BROWN BODY/WHITE HEAD

The first sentence lacks the subject “they”. The signer wrongfully used the “last mentioned subject”-

rule, because the last mentioned subject is the “PS-6(2)” that refers to the two cats.

In between the sentences above, the signer took a clear break, which elucidates that “brown body /

white head” isn’t tied to “goat” as in “(they) also have a goat (with a) brown body and white head”,

but that a new sentence has begun with a new (implied) subject. This sentence then lacks the subject

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“goat” and the verb “have”. The subject “goat” is in fact implied, but this happened in the wrong

way. The signer made use of the “last mentioned subject”-rule, the goat was, however, not the

subject of the sentence, but the object (whereas the last mentioned subject actually is the “PS-6(2)”

that refers to the two cats, expressed two sentences before).

(x) S/SV: BOY NAME WHAT /OF-3Kras MOTHER PS-3b NAME

WHAT/ OF-3Kras FATHER PS-3c NAME WHAT

In my opinion, four options are to be considered here.

The first option (1) is that these sentences follow an S(V)O+apposition-pattern with a lacking verb

“have” and “name” being the object. The announcement of the name is then considered an

apposition to “name”.

The second option (2) is that the sentences follow an S(V)O + V-pattern, with the name itself being a

predicate, this is supported by the presence of the question sign “what”: e.g. “the boy has a name.

(What is his name?) It is …”.

A third possibility (3) would be the following: “the boy’s name (what is it?) is …” but the signer didn’t

make a possessive sign, therefore this option is not considered.

Finally, the fourth possibility (4) would be that “boy”, “OF-3Kras mother” and “OF-3Kras mother” are

topicalised. The signer then first indicates about whom they are going to talk, followed by “his/her

name is…”. This would mean that the “name” functions as the subject and the actual name as the V

(functioning as predicate).

Since the latter seems the most plausible, I decided to go with that option.

(xi) SV: WORK DAD WHAT GARDENING

In other examples, the signer makes a possessive sign when talking about the person’s job. This time,

however, they do not, which results in the occurrence of two subjects subsequently. Since it is clear

that the signer wants to express a possessive relation (as they did before), the sentence is considered

following an SV-pattern, “his dad’s work (what is it?) is gardening”.

Placement of pointing signs and their localization

When establishing the locus for the first time, these are the results for the placement of the pointing

signs:

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Before the referent After the referent Before + after the referent

7 9 1

Participant 5 places the pointing sign most often after the referent. A possessive pronoun was

uttered three times (“OF-3Kras PARENTS”, “OF-3Kras MOTHER”, “OF-3Kras FATHER”), these were

always placed before the referent (“parents”, “mother”, “father”). These aren’t taken into account

and therefore not included in the table.

When the locus is already established, the placement of the pointing signs is the following:

Beginning of the

sentence

Middle of the

sentence

End of the sentence Beginning + end of the

sentence

20 0 1 4

In accordance with the other participants, participant 5 shows a clear preference for placing the

pointing sign in the beginning of the sentence.

When analyzing the consistence of the localizations, participant 5 shows to be very consistent. They

place the pointing signs and loci very clearly and often use eye contact to stress the locus. Only one

example caused confusion:

PS-3b MONKEY gc: SWING ON LIANE

PS-3c TREE gc: MONKEY-SIT-IN-TREE

PS-3d MONKEY FLEA gc: EAT-FLEA

These monkeys are considered three different monkeys, because each of them does something

different. However, participant 5 chooses to stress the fact that the monkey is linked to that certain

locus for the first and the third monkey, but not for the second monkey, resulting in the suspicion

that the second monkey is in fact not another monkey but the same as the first one. In theory, it

would be possible that the first monkey first swung on a liana and then sits in a tree, but the pointing

sign of the second monkey isn’t the same as the one for the first, nor the third.

Placement of adjective and noun

These are the results on the placement of adjective and noun:

Before noun After noun Before + after noun

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21 1 0

Participant 5 is very consistent when placing adjectives. They always place the adjective before the

noun, except from one case:

PS-3Dog gc: GRAB-WITH-MOUTH SMALL BEAUTIFUL WHITE RABBIT SMALL gc: GRAB-WITH-MOUTH

Since the participant wanted to repeat the adjective “small”, they had no other chance than to put it

after the noun as well. Since the two signs for “small” aren’t the same (the second one stresses the

shape of the rabbit when holding it in both hands), I considered the adjective being placed after the

noun and not both before and after the noun.

One additional case is disputable:

OF-PS-3Father CAP PLUS SHIRT CHEQUERED / WITH DIAMONDS ON

In this example, it is unclear whether the term after “shirt” is an adjective (leading to 2 adjectives

placed after the noun) or whether it means “shirt with diamonds on”, which would make it part of

the predicate. Since participant 5 clearly prefers to place the adjective before the noun, it seems

more likely that the latter option is meant. Therefore, it is analysed in this way.

Additional remarkable constructions (comments)

Participant 5 used 13 polycomponential constructions (in 6 examination tapes). Only one of them is

new (and includes both object and verb):

(i) gc: NAVIGATE-BOAT

Participant 5 uses fewer polycomponential constructions than the other participants, e. g. the

possible construction gc: GRAB-PERSON-WITH-MOUTH (by the lion) is expressed as “CAN GRAB

PERSON GRAB CAN” (with repetition of both verbs).

Again, in the task of presenting someone no polycomponential constructions or any kind of manual

simultaneity were detectable.

5.3.6. Participant 6

For participant 6, (again) six examination tapes were analysed (imitations (2), permanent evaluation

(3), introducing someone (1)). Once more, the first two imitation-tapes didn’t supply that much

information, but in this case, especially the first tape of the permanent evaluation didn’t, since the

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interpreter and I found it very difficult to analyse this one. Some of the signs were signed incorrectly,

leading to the narrative being very hard to understand. Therefore, only few full sentences that made

sense were deducted from this narrative.

Word order in reversible sentences

The examination tapes of participant 6 include 98 analysed word order patterns. Only 7 of the 98

sentences are reversible sentences. Since 6 examination tapes have been analysed, this is

remarkably less (than e.g. the outcome of participant 5), which is a result from the disorganized

structure of the utterances, making some of the sentences not-understandable and therefore not

analysable.

SVO SOV O/SV SVOV SV (S)VO (S)OV O/(S)V (S)VOV (S)V Other

0 0 0 0 0 5 1 0 1 0 0

One of the sentences is disputable:

(i) SVO/SV: SEE DEER WALK

This is a clear extension of the “last mentioned subject”-rule. This participant used the object of the

previous sentence ((WE) SEE DEER) as the subject of the subsequent sentence (DEER WALK). The

example sentence is therefore considered as: SVO / SV.

Word order in non-reversible sentences

91 out of 98 analysed word order patterns are non-reversible sentences.

SVO SOV O/SV SVOV SV (S)VO (S)OV O/(S)V (S)VOV (S)V Other

6 2 1 1 28 5 4 0 2 29 13

Once more, the resentences with an implied subject occur more frequently. Since some of the

examination tapes were quite disorganized and difficult to follow, some sentences couldn’t be

analysed, sometimes because it was unclear what was meant with the sentence, other times because

the signs that were made weren’t recognized as existing signs and therefore couldn’t be translated.

In these cases, I put two question marks in the tier for the established word order patterns.

Twelve sentences are subsumed under the “other”-category. The following three don’t need

to be discussed elaborately anymore (see previous results):

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(i) S(V)O: THE FIRST PS-3b VOLLEYBALL (lacking verb “play”)

THE SECOND PS-3c FOOTBALL (lacking verb “play”)

(ii) S(V)O: PERSON SWEEP ALWAYS COAT THICK HAT GLOVE BOOT THICK (lacking verb

“wear”)

(iii) S/SV PS-3Firstbrother NAME PIETER

PS-3Secondbrother BIEBEN (the pointing signs are topicalised, “name” is S and

“Pieter” and “Bieben” are predicates, see participant 5)

Other examples, however, are:

(iv) (S)(V)O: IDEA

It is common that the verb “have” is not uttered when someone has an idea. It is, however, quite

uncommon and confusing that it is not clear who in fact has this idea and therefore who the subject

is. As stated above, some of the examination tapes are disorganized. Normally, the subject should

either be indicated by e.g. a pointing sign or be deductable from the context. This is not the case in

this example.

(v) SV(?): PS-6(2) LOST

This sentence is analysed as following a SV-pattern, with “lost” being the predicate: “they are lost”.

This is, however, not definite.

(vi) (S)(V)O/(S)V: HUNGER/HUNGRY (Dutch: honger)

In the zoo-narrative, participant 6 never established the (main) subject, which is therefore always

implied. This sentence lacks not only a subject, but also possibly a verb. In Dutch (in contrast with

English, therefore the Dutch subject should be referred to) there are namely two options: to be

hungry (hongerig zijn) or “to have hunger” (honger hebben). The latter is the most frequently used.

In this case, it isn’t clear which one is referred to. This means that either the verb “have” is missing

(wij hebben honger (S)(V)O-pattern) or only the subject is missing and the honger-part function as a

predicate (wij zijn hongerig, (S)V-pattern).

(vii) V/O: GOODBYE / NOW LEAVING / TRAIN / WALK FAST

In this example, the usage of “train” is not clear. The argument “train” could be considered a verb

“the train is coming” or an object “we are leaving by train”. Before, I have decided in favor of the SV-

pattern, therefore I continued to do so.

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(viii) O/(V)S or O/S(V): GOOD IDEA PS-2

This example lacks a verb, “have”. There are two options here: either the O/(V)S-pattern with the

subject sentence-finally is meant or the O/S(V)-pattern with the verb sentence-finally. Since

Vermeerbergen stated that the pointing signs that “seem to function as the subject often occur at

the end of the sentence” (2010 : 19), the first option is preferred.

(ix) S(V) / (S)(V)O: MANY VARIOUS BIRD

This sentence could be analysed as a S(V)-pattern, meaning “many various birds (are flying)” or as a

(S)(V)O-pattern “(we)(see) many various birds”. The latter is a possibility, because the verb “see” was

used in one of the previous sentences. After long consideration, I decided to regard this sentence as

following the S(V)-pattern, because I think the verb “see” was mentioned too far away and therefore

should have been repeated when functioning as an implied verb.

(x) SVO / SV: TIGER PS-3b HAVE STRIPE / PS-3Tiger FAST gc: RUN-FAST-AS-A-TIGER

This sentence was problematic at first, because the signer didn’t make it clear, whether the PS-3Tiger

still belonged to the previous (SVO-) sentence (and was therefore repeated at the end of the

sentence) or already to the subsequent sentence (in which it functions as the subject). The signer

hasn’t established the link between the various arguments clearly enough in order to be sure about

this. I have, however, decided towards the second option (with the second pointing sign as the

subject), because there is a longer pause in between “stripe” and PS-3Tiger, suggesting that a new

sentence commences.

(xi) (S)(V)O: CHINA VS:CHINA THAILAND VS:THAILAND (and so on)

The signer sums up the countries the subject travels to. These were all analysed as objects, after the

implied subject “PS-3a” (only later on referred to as Ringo) and the lacking verb “travel to”.

(xii) O/VS: TRAVELLING DO PS-3a WITH PLEASURE (Dutch: REIZEN DOEN HIJ GRAAG)

This is one of the rare examples of topicalisation by the participants in this study. In addition, this

sentence is interesting because (1) this sentence doesn’t follow the more common O/SV-pattern, but

the less common O/VS-pattern and (2) because there is possible interference from Dutch. It seems

that the participant made a noun “the travelling” out of the verb “to travel”, which is common in

Dutch and not so much in VGT.

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(xiii) S/SV: PS-3Firstbrother height C:1 METER C:5^90

(PS-3Firstbrother C: 1 METER C:5^90)

Whereas the second sentence can easily be analysed as a sentence with an SV-pattern (with “1 meter

95” being the predicate: “he is 1 meter 95 (tall)”), the first cannot because the “height” is specifically

mentioned. As is the case in the examples with the names of the brothers, this could be analysed as

“The first brother has a certain height and that height is 1 meter 95” (S(V)O / (S)V). This seems,

however, quite fat-fetched. Therefore I would suggest to regard these sentences as sentences with a

topicalised subject “PS-3Firstbrother” (S), after which the sentence “his height is 1 meter 95” or even

“he is 1 meter 95 tall” follows.

Placement of pointing signs and their localization

When establishing the locus for the first time, these are the results for the placement of the pointing

signs:

Before the referent After the referent Before + after the referent

1 7 0

Participant 6 has a clear preference for placing the pointing sign after the referent when naming it

for the first time. In one case, the possessive pronoun “Of-1” is used, which is once more placed

before the referent “OF-1 FATHER”. This is not a part of the results in the table.

When the locus is already established, the placement of the pointing signs is the following:

Beginning of the

sentence

Middle of the

sentence

End of the sentence Beginning + end of the

sentence

16 1 1 3

As is the case with the five other participants, participant 5 clearly prefers placing the pointing sign in

the beginning of the sentence. The two cases, in which the pointing sign is placed in the middle of

the sentence (i) and at the end of the sentence (ii) are the already discussed, rare examples:

(i) TRAVELLING DO PS-3a WITH PLEASURE

(ii) GOOD IDEA PS-2

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Some of the examination tapes of participant 6 show that they experience quite some difficulties

with the usage of pointing signs and their localization. They experience not so much difficulties with

remembering where the referents are localized, rather do they experience difficulties with clearly

establishing loci for referents in time (and therefore remembering to do so), so the recipient is able

to follow the narrative. Participant 6 clearly struggled with this, making it difficult to analyse the data.

Placement of adjective and noun

Before noun After noun Before + after noun

20 7 0

Also participant 6 seems to prefer to place the adjective before the noun. However, participant 1 and

participant 6 place the adjective remarkably more often after the noun than the other participants

do.

Additional remarkable constructions (comments)

Participant 6 has only used polycomponential constructions 7 times, which it the least of all

participants (even though there are 6 examination tapes).

Four of constructions are new. Two of them include both object and verb:

(i) gc: TAKE-(PS-3a)-AND-PLACE-ON-WHEELBARROW4

(ii) gc: WALK-AND-PULL-WHEELBARROW

Two others include only the (implied subject and) verb:

(iii) gc: RUN-FAST-AS-A-TIGER

(iv) gc: SLEEP-IN-TRAIN5

As stated above, participant 6 obviously experienced difficulties with localizing the pointing signs and

structuring the narratives. In addition, the utterances were very sequential, showing almost no

examples of simultaneity or polycomponential constructions.

4 Note: Because this narrative is very disorganized, it is not clear which object is placed on the wheelbarrow.

5 The movement of the head of the signer shows that the children are sleeping on the train.

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5.3.7. Participant 7

For participant 7, four (or actually three, because one of the tapes got split up in two parts)

examination tapes were analysed. They are all part of the permanent evaluation.

Word order patterns in reversible sentences

The examination tapes of participant 7 include 67 analysed word order patterns. 7 of those 67 are

reversible sentences.

SVO SOV O/SV SVOV SV (S)VO (S)OV O/(S)V (S)VOV (S)V Other

0 0 0 1 0 3 2 0 1 0 0

As always, there are more sentences with an implied subject than with an explicitly mentioned

subject. All the sentences belonging to this type have already been discussed in the previous

sections.

Word order patterns in non-reversible sentences

SVO SOV O/SV SVOV SV (S)VO (S)OV O/(S)V (S)VOV (S)V Other

0 2 0 2 15 4 8 0 2 19 8

60 out of 67 analysed sentences are non-reversible sentences. A remarkably greater part of these

sentences have an implied subject. Once more, the (S)V-pattern is used most frequently.

8 of the 67 non-reversible sentences couldn’t be subsumed under any category. Most of these

sentences have already been discussed. Some of them are, however, new:

(i) O/VS: WHAT DO PS-2

This sentence follows an O/VS-pattern, which is one of the six generally accepted word order

patterns (see 3.1.). In VGT, however, the O/SV pattern is used more frequently: WHAT PS-2 DO. Since

pointing signs that seem to function as the subject are placed both in the beginning and/or at the

end of the sentence (Vermeerbergen 2011 : 2), this is equally as correct. It is, however, plausible that

the participant experienced interference from Dutch, because in questions with a question word (e.g.

what), the word order pattern is exactly the same in Dutch.

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(ii) SV(O): PS-3a BETTER GO TO

In this sentence, the subject is explicitly mentioned but who this person is, is not indicated clearly. In

addition, the person (probably the father-in-law, see other examination tapes) or place that they go

to, is not mentioned, so the object is lacking.

(iii) S(V)OV: PS-6(2) DESIRE GO TO

This sentence is analysed as an S(V)OV-pattern, because the verb “have” is lacking. Also the

subsequent sentence PS-6(2) ZIN lacks this verb and is therefore analysed as S(V)O.

(iv) V: LOOK

Again, in one of the sentences a sole V-pattern is detected. This is only possible when the signer

utters an order, as is the case here.

Placement of pointing signs and their localization

When establishing the locus for the first time, these are the results for the placement of the pointing

signs:

Before the referent After the referent Before + after the referent

2 0 0

It becomes clear that participant 7 didn’t establish many loci. Maybe (and presumably) this is the

reason why the narratives were so clear and easy to follow.

The possessive pronoun “OF-1” was uttered twice. Such as before, they weren’t into account in this

table. Once, the possessive pronoun was placed before the noun “OF-1 FATHER”, whereas the other

time it was placed after the noun “2 CHILD OF-1”. This has of course to do with the fact that the

position before the noun was already taken by the numeral. Placing the possessive pronoun for the

noun as well would, however, be equally correct.

When the locus is already established, the placement of the pointing signs is the following:

Beginning of the

sentence

Middle of the

sentence

End of the sentence Beginning + end of the

sentence

8 0 0 0

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The reason for the greater amount of pointing signs when the locus is already established, is because

the PS-1, PS-2, PS-4 and PS-6(2) are taken into account here, since they (except for sometimes PS-4

and particularly PS-6(2)) don’t need to be localized anymore. It is, however, clear that participant 7

didn’t use many pointing signs either, which also resulted in the easy comprehension of the

narratives.

Since participant 7 only established few loci and only used few pointing signs, it is no surprise that

they had no difficulties with localizing the referents and remembering the position of the locus.

Placement of adjective and noun

Before noun After noun Before + after noun

18 4 1

In accordance with all the other participants, participant 7 placed the greater part of the adjectives

before the noun.

In four cases, the adjective was placed after the noun, but in fact this was only one case and it is still

doubtful:

(i) FIND SAME RABBIT SWEET WHITE SMALL SAME

In this example, the adjectives “sweet”, “white”, “small” and (again) “same” are placed after the

noun. It is, however, still not sure that these are in fact adjectives and no predicates. Usually, this

should be clear because of the presence or absence of a break in between the various arguments, it

has, however, come to my attention that this is an element of VGT that the participant are not yet

very proficient in. Therefore, there is still reasonable doubt on whether these are adjectives or

predicates.

Finally, in one case, the adjective was placed both before and after the noun:

(ii) LOOK FOR MORE OR LESS SAME RABBIT MORE OR LESS SAME

Thus, the only example of an adjective being placed after the noun by participant 7 is a clear

repetition of the same adjective. This leads to the conclusion that participant 7 is very consistent in

placing the adjective before the noun, and not after it.

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Additional remarkable constructions (comments)

Participant 7 has used polycomponential constructions 17 times. This is the highest number of all

participants, which isn’t surprising, since this participant clearly is more proficient in using their

mimetic expressions and body (movements) to add information to the narratives and make them

easier to follow and understand.

7 of the constructions are new. 5 of them include both object and verb:

(i) gc: PLACE-FOUR-PIECES-OF-PAPER-ON-THE-FLOOR (x2)

(ii) gc: PAINT-PIECES-OF-PAPER

(iii) gc: OPEN-DOOR

(iv) gc: PUT-PAW-ON-PAPER

(v) gc: PLACE-RABBIT-IN-GRAVE

The two final constructions include the ((implied) subject and) verb

(vi) gc: PAW-STICK-TO-PAPER

(vii) gc: DRIVE-TO

In conclusion, the narratives signed by participant 7 are in my opinion the most easily

comprehendible of all narratives, this is not only because of the lack of pointing signs and referents

being localized, but also because participant 7 is very proficient in using the mimetic expressions that

clarify the meaning of a narrative, as well as in repeating certain arguments (mostly S and V) to

ensure the recipient gets the point.

5.4. Results and discussion

Finally, before drawing a final conclusion, the results are being discussed. This is done in three steps.

Firstly, some final remarks on the comparison are expressed (5.4.1.). Secondly, the final tables that

include the results for all the participants for the word order patterns in reversible sentences and

non-reversible sentences as well as the final tables for the placement of pointing signs and adjective

and noun are presented (5.4.2.). These final results are compared with the results of the studies on

the word order patterns of signers with VGT as L1 by Vermeerbergen (2010) and Vermeerbergen et

al. (2007). Thirdly, the answers the participants have given to the asked questions, as well as the

“facilitating conditions of second language acquisition”, being age and motivation (see subsection

2.4.), are briefly discussed for the participants in 5.4.3.

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5.4.1. Some final remarks on the comparison

Before proceeding, two important notes should be kept in mind. Since Vermeerbergen et al. (2007)

elicited almost solely utterances with two arguments tied to the verb, their results are interesting but

not really referential for the comparison of the word order patterns found in the data of these

participants with the word order patterns found in the analysis of participants with L1 Dutch,

whereas those of Vermeerbergen (2010) did. Vermeerbergen (2010) presented some general

conclusions on spontaneous language data. These conclusions led to the expectation that I would

obtain quite different results than the ones of Vermeerbergen et al. (2007):

“[…]there are only few sentences in which a verb is combined with 2 arguments; less than 1 out of 100

utterances in the analysed material had 2 arguments and 1 of those 2 was often a personal pronoun,

most often I” (2010 : 17; own translation).

Thus, I expected to find fewer sentences with 2 arguments tied to the verb and many more with only

1 argument tied to it. The results of Vermeerbergen et al. (2007) are therefore not an ideal

reference, but, since the conclusions on spontaneous language data in the research report are very

general (and since the fact that aside from these there are no other results on spontaneous language

data, because of the complexity of this methodology, e.g. because of the observer’s paradox) , the

conclusions on the general word order patterns of VGT (also when only obtained from elicitation

tasks) are taken into account when drawing conclusions.

Secondly, in contrast with Vermeerbergen et al. (2007) and Vermeerbergen (2010), I

distinguished the sentences with an implied subject and an explicitly mentioned subject. I decided on

this because the analysed data are narratives, which means there is a great chance that the signers

omit the last mentioned subject (in the subsequent sentence). Thus, I made this distinction and (in

the previous subsection) analysed whether the students correctly execute “the last mentioned

subject”-rule or not (which has shown not to be the case) and which difficulties they experience with

it. The final tables show once more that the students omit the subject more often than they express

it explicitly. Since I decided to compare the results of this study with the general word order patterns

of VGT, I decided to add the sentences with implied subjects and those with explicitly mentioned

subjects, in order to fully establish the comparison. The word order patterns in both types are of

course not equal, but because (1) the most unsure cases of doubt aren’t taken into account and (2)

the subject is in fact present in the sentences with the implied subject( it is only implied), the

decision to add both results is considered a proper decision. This doesn’t, however, in any way

discard the importance of the differences in occurrence between each pair (see previous subsection).

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5.4.2. Final results

Firstly, I would like to refer to the additional documents on the CD, on which all results can be found

in various tables. In total, 605 sentences have been analysed. Some of them were of course more

complete and clear than others, but I made an attempt at analyzing all of them correctly. The

difficulties with some of the sentences have been discussed in the previous subsections.

5.4.2.1. Word order patterns in reversible sentences

Research on the word order patterns in VGT has shown that the generally most frequently used

word order patterns in reversible sentences are SVO, SOV and SVOV (Vermeerbergen et al. 2007 :

50).

Only 49 of the 605 analysed sentences appeared to be reversible sentences. For all 7

participants, these are the general results on the reversible sentences:

SVO SOV O/SV SVOV SV (S)VO (S)OV O/(S)V (S)VOV (S)V Other

1 3 0 4 0 21 9 0 8 1 2

When having added the results, 46 on 49 analysed reversible sentences seem to follow the most

frequent word order patterns: SVO (22 on 49), SOV (12 on 49) and SVOV (12 on 49). This means that

only three results deviate from the most frequent word order patterns. One of them is an (S)V-

pattern with the dog being the implied subject (participant 1):

(i) (S)V: gc: LET-GO-OF-RABBIT

Two results couldn’t be subsumed under any category:

(i) S V O IO: FIKSKE TAKE PRESENT FOR GIRL (participant 4)

(ii) VSO: YESTERDAY MORNING SEE PS-1 RABBIT (participant 2)

Since the usage of a VSO-pattern in VGT is very uncommon (both in reversible as in non-reversible

senstences), this example is significant. As stated above, it can, however, be attributed to

interference from Dutch. In Dutch, when using an expression of time, there is inversion. It is believed

that this participant (wrongfully) transferred (see negative transfer, 3.3.2.) the construction from

Dutch into this VGT-construction.

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These results mostly agree with my expectations beforehand, since I expected that the

participants would use the SVO- and SOV-patterns most frequently, not only since they are most

common in VGT itself, but also because these are also the most frequently used in Dutch. However, I

expected that the students would often omit the lexical verb when expressing both a lexical verb and

a polycomponential construction, resulting in fewer SVOV-patterns. The results above show,

however, that the SVOV-pattern occurred equally as often as the SOV-pattern, so for reversible

sentences, this expectation turned out to be incorrect.

5.4.2.2. Word order patterns in non-reversible sentences

The extremely low amount of reversible sentences equals of course a remarkably great amount of

non-reversible sentences, namely 556 out of 605 sentences. These are the general results on the

non-reversible sentences for all 7 participants:

SVO SOV O/SV SVOV SV (S)VO (S)OV O/(S)V (S)VOV (S)V Other

27 19 5 13 164 29 34 1 11 181 72

In VGT, the generally most frequently used word order patterns in non-reversible sentences are SOV

(13 of 24 sentences), SVO and SVOV/vc (both 4 occurrences) as well as SV (3 occurrences)

(Vermeerbergen et al. 2007 : 38). Also the O/SV-pattern is possible (Vermeerbergen 2010 : 19).

Vermeerbergen et al. stress that, in clear contrast with reversible sentences, in non-reversible

sentences, an SVO-order is indeed “possible but used less frequently” (2007 : 38). Since

Vermeerbergen et al. elicited only utterances with almost always two arguments tied to the verb, the

fact that the SOV-, SVO- and SVOV/vc-patterns occur more often than SV is obvious.

For the reasons explained above, the results on both the sentences with an implied and with

an explicitly mentioned subject are added. As expected, the SV-pattern is the most frequently used

(345 of 556 sentences), followed by the SVO-pattern (56 of 556 sentences) and the SOV-pattern (53

sentences). The SVOV-pattern (24 sentences) and the O/SV-pattern (6 sentences) are less frequently

used. The “other”-category (with 72 sentences) is actually the second largest category, but since

these are a compilation of cases of doubt and other categories, these are not enlisted.

In conclusion, the remarkably greater amount of the SV-pattern in these results is mostly due

to the fact that semi-spontaneous language data were analysed and not elicited data. When

narrating a story, it is plausible that the subject is omitted more frequently than when producing

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certain elicited sentences. The fact that the subject in these patterns was most often implied (181 to

164) is an interesting counter-result of the results by Van Herreweghe et al. (2003). To recap, on the

subject of the use of anaphoric references by Flemish deaf pupils in their Dutch, Van Herreweghe et

al. (2003) revealed that these pupils seemed “to have problems with the use of pronouns” (2003 :

97). These problems are caused by the great differences between Dutch and VGT on the use of

pronouns: In VGT, a non-present referent can be referred to by among others establishing a locus

and pointing at it. In contrast, in Dutch, a full personal pronoun is used, in which the three types of

contrast always are included (2003 : 97). The deaf pupils appeared to have problems with these

contrasts, so the solution of most of the pupils was to avoid the use of pronouns and repeat the

complete subject over and over again, resulting in stories with “very rigid structures” that were

“grammatically correct” but “not very enjoyable to read” (2003 : 97). However, as I expected, some

of the pupils also appeared to extend the “last mentioned subject”-rule and omitted the subject

completely after having expressed it once (2003 : 101). Thus, in order to avoid the use of pronouns,

they could go either way. Beforehand (see subsesction 4.1.), I expected that the participants might

overly use full noun phrases when referring to the subject (and not use a pointing sign every time), in

order to keep track of the narrative and its progress. This appeared to be wrong, the participants in

this study, in contrast with the deaf pupils, didn’t excessively express the subject (not even in the

form of a pointing sign), but rather completely omitted it6. This is supposed as a convenient solution,

because it seems easier to omit the sign for the subject or a pointing sign than to express it. Also

here, the sentence isn’t incorrect, but, in contrast with the rigid structures of the deaf pupils, this

leads to incomprehensible and disorganized structures.

Secondly, it is remarkable that the SVO-pattern (56) is more often used than the SOV-pattern

(53), while signers with L1 VGT use it remarkably less frequently. This can be attributed to a variety of

factors, resulting from the L1 of the participants, Dutch. Firstly, Vermeerbergen states that SOV tends

to occur more often than SVO, especially when a polycomponential construction is used, since that

construction is most frequently placed at the end of the sentence (2010 : 19), whereas regular lexical

verbs most often are not. Since there are no such constructions as polycomponential constructions in

Dutch, it is plausible that the participants would avoid using them. This assumption is supported by

the results on the usage of polycomponential constructions: only a small amount (94) of the verbs

used is polycomponential constructions. This could have resulted in the lower amount of SOV.

Secondly, the fact the participants use the SVO-pattern more frequently than the SOV-pattern could

also be linked to the Dutch basic word order pattern. In Dutch, the most basic word order pattern is 6 Only when executing the task in which they had to introduce someone, the participants repeated the

complete subject (and no pointing signs) over and over again. This occurred in all three examples of this task, so every subject found it necessary to do so here. In all other tasks, the subject was rather omitted than repeated.

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SOV with V2, because this covers both main and subordinate clauses (see 4.2.). In main clauses,

however, the SVO-pattern is the most frequently used. Since the participants only made use of

simple, declarative sentences, it is plausible that they copied the Dutch word order pattern that is

most frequently used in main clauses, being SVO. The SVO-pattern is less frequently used by signers

with L1 VGT, but equally as correct as SOV, therefore this shouldn’t be regarded as negative transfer.

Thirdly, the small amount of SVOV-patterns can also be attributed to the possible avoidance

of polycomponential constructions as well as to the fact that in Dutch, verbs aren’t repeated.

Finally, the remarkably low amount of occurrences of the O/SV-pattern in comparison with

the others could be linked to the L1 of the participants as well. Since this pattern never occurs in

Dutch (not even in a question structure with a question sign, this follows an O/VS-pattern which

some of the participants also used in their production of VGT), it is supposed that it feels quite

unnaturally to the participants and is therefore avoided. This is, however, not problematic, since this

pattern doesn’t occur that frequently in VGT either.

These results partially agree with my expectations beforehand. I didn’t expect that the

participants would use that many SV-patterns (and certainly not (S)V-patterns). The possible

explanations stated above do, however, seem plausible. The fact that the SVO- and SOV-pattern are

quite frequently used as well agrees with my expectations, as well as the fact that the SVOV-pattern

and the O/SV-pattern are used less frequently. Beforehand, I expected that the SVOV-pattern would

rarely be used, since the repetition of a verb (except for auxiliaries and modal verbs) isn’t common in

Dutch. The same goes for the O/SV-pattern. Finally, the fact that the SVO-pattern is used more

frequently than the SOV-pattern (even though this is the other way around for signers with L1

Dutch), for the reasons explained above, agrees with my expectations as well.

5.4.2.3. Placement of pointing signs and their localization

The final results on the placement of pointing signs are the following:

When the locus is established for the first time:

Before the referent After the referent Before + after the referent

32 44 7

A locus has been established 83 times, out of which the pointing sign was placed before the referent

32 times, 44 times after the referent and 7 times both before and after the referent. These results

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show no remarkable preference, but the participants seem to prefer to firstly announce who is going

to be talked about and only then establish the locus for it.

When the locus has already been established and is referred to, the general placement of the

pointing signs is the following:

Beginning of the

sentence

Middle of the

sentence

End of the sentence Beginning + end of the

sentence

94 9 15 20

A pointing sign was used 138 times by the participants to refer to a locus that had already been

established. The participants clearly prefer to put the pointing sign in the beginning of the sentence

(94 times), whereas the other three positions were less favored. These pointing signs, however, can

be used not only for subjects, but also for objects and e.g. locations. The positions of the pointing

signs that seem to function as a subject are, however, the most important. Since Vermeerbergen first

concluded that “pointing signs that seem to function as a subject often appear at the end of the

sentence” (2010 : 19; own translation), but one year later stated that they can be placed both at the

beginning and/or at the end of the sentence (2011 : 2), it was considered of interest to analyse

where the participants in this study would place these pointing signs.

Out of the 138 references by means of a pointing sign, 129 of them seem to function as a

subject. These are the general results for all 7 participants:

Beginning of the

sentence

Middle of the

sentence

End of the sentence Beginning + end of the

sentence

88 9 23 9

The results are clear: the participants in this study place the pointing signs that seem to function as

subject most frequently at the beginning of the sentence. The end of the sentence is the second

most frequently chosen place, but it occurs much less frequently. It is very plausible that the

difference between signers with L1 VGT and these participants with L1 Dutch is linked to the L1. In

Dutch, apart from the question structures with a question word, the subject is never placed at the

end of the sentence and always in the beginning. It seems as if the Dutch word order patterns have

interfered with the VGT word order patterns. Because all options are more or less correct in VGT, the

one (e.g. the end of the sentence) only being used more frequently than the other (e.g. the

101

beginning), this cannot be regarded as negative transfer. These results completely agree with my

expectations beforehand.

The fact that the pointing sign is most frequently placed at the beginning of the sentence

agreed with my expectations beforehand, as does the fact that the pointing sign is more often placed

at the end of the sentence than both at the beginning and at the end of the sentence. Also the other

results don’t deviate much from what was expected, apart from some odd constructions, in which

the pointing sign was placed in the middle of the sentence without it being a question structure.

Additionally, it remains unclear when the participants decide to use a pointing sign or a “full”

sign, it seems as if they sometimes “randomly” change to a full sign, e.g. to stress that that is the

subject now, but there seems to be no definite rule that is followed, because at other times they

don’t do that. The participants seem to act upon their own sense of when this is necessary.

Finally, regarding the localization of the pointing signs, it appears that most participants

don’t mind using more than 5 loci (even though this is confusing) and sometimes lose track of the

position they placed this pointing sign at. Overall, however, they seem to try to distinguish the

various pointing signs and regard the characteristics of the element being localized (e.g. localizing a

giraffe up-high, whereas a dog down).

5.4.2.4. Placement of adjective and noun

Researchers have come to the conclusion that in VGT, the adjective can be placed before, after and

both before and after the noun (Vermeerbergen 2010 : 19). All three analysed options are therefore

considered correct. It was, however, believed to be interesting to analyse whether the L1 Dutch

would also interfere in this matter and therefore whether the adjective will be placed remarkably

more often before the noun (as is the rule in Dutch) than after the noun.

151 adjective-noun-constructions were analysed, these are the general results for all 7

participants:

Before noun After noun Before + after noun

123 27 1

The participants show a clear preference for placing the adjective before the noun (123 out of 151).

The adjective is placed 27 times after the noun and remarkably, only one time is the adjective placed

both before and after the noun (by participant 7):

SAME RABBIT SWEET WHITE SMALL SAME

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All participants place the indefinite numeral adjectives and the adjectives that indicate time before

the noun.

These results show once more that there is possible influence from the L1 of the participants.

Again, since all options are correct, this result cannot be regarded as negative transfer. These results

agreed completely with the expectations.

5.4.2.5. Polycomponential constructions and simultaneity

The results for the use of polycomponential constructions by all 7 participants are the following:

Participant 1 13

Participant 2 14

Participant 3 15

Participant 4 15

Participant 5 13

Participant 6 7

Participant 7 17

These results show that the participants altogether have used polycomponential constructions 94

times. Most of them range from using them 13 to 15 times. Participant 6 uses the constructions the

least and participant 7 the most, which is not surprising: The narratives by participant 6 were very

disorganized and hard to follow, the structure wasn’t clear and it seems plausible that this coincides

with the avoidance of constructions such as these, since they request some specific structuring. The

fact that participant 7 used the most polycomponential constructions is precisely for this reason not

surprising either: The narratives by participant 7 were most easy to follow and well-organized. They

didn’t avoid using these constructions since they were perhaps more certain about the organization

of their VGT production.

Beforehand, I expected that the participants would avoid using polycomponential

constructions since its simultaneity deviates completely from the sequential principle in Dutch. Even

though, not that many constructions were found in the data, I think the results show that most

students nevertheless made an effort to use them.

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5.4.3. The “facilitating conditions of second language acquisition”: conclusion

In subsection 2.4., I discussed the various elements that can influence the proficiency of the learners

in the L2 they are learning. Age and motivation have been taken upon as important factors.

Since the conducted study is quite small, no big conclusions on the effects of age and

especially on the different motivations on the proficiency in VGT could be drawn.

Considering the age of the participants (who are supposed to be older than the optimal age to fully

acquire a language), beforehand it was expected that the students would experience more

difficulties with the VGT grammar than with the VGT vocabulary (see 2.4.1.3.). As far as this can be

told from the limited number of data, this expectation turned out to be correct. The participants did

sometimes struggle to find the correct sign or used an incorrect sign, most often this was because of

an incorrect orientation of the hands but in some cases there was clear interference from some

internationally known signs (e.g. for the adjective “dead”), which, however, are not to be used in

VGT. This can be considered as negative transfer. Additionally, the investigation question of this

dissertation was whether the knowledge of Dutch, as Saville-Troike states, can be considered one of

the advantages for older learners (2012 : 88) or whether it rather hampers the full acquisition of VGT.

Having indicated examples of both positive and negative transfer from Dutch into VGT, I would agree

with Saville-Troike and state that the greater knowledge of Dutch has proved to be more an

advantage than a disadvantage when learning VGT. Aside from the general advantages the

knowledge of the L1 brings along (grammatical sensitivity, cognitive ability etc.), the knowledge of

Dutch was also very specifically advantageous for learning VGT. Since the word order patterns in

both languages more or less are the same (the frequency of occurrence does, however, vary) and

since VGT appears to be very flexible towards various word order patterns, the participants were

able to transfer structures from Dutch that are correct in VGT as well (positive transfer).

As for the various ages of the participants, no big differences were uncovered between the

older participants 1 and 5 (45 years and 43 years) and the younger participants (varying from 24 to

27 years). At this stage in life, the ability of practicing the L2 plays a major role. Both of the older

participants work for deaf people and with deaf colleagues, so they are able to practice VGT every

day, which gives the learning process a great boost. All other participants but one can practice VGT

daily as well.

The main motivation is the same for all (but one) participants: learning VGT in order to use

this at their current work. Only one colleague doesn’t work with d/Deaf people yet, but is looking for

a job in which they can use VGT. As stated above, some have more practical and others more

104

emotional reasons, but the possible difference in proficiency that this brings along couldn’t be

analysed.

Even though no real results on the effects of age and motivation can be presented, it is still

considered of interest to take into account these factors when conducting a study like the one in

hand. However, for more results on the effects of age and motivation on the proficiency in VGT of

hearing adults with L1 Dutch, a more elaborate study is needed.

105

6. Conclusion

Even though this research analysed only a limited number of signers, I do believe to have presented

some interesting findings on the usage of word order patterns in VGT by hearing adults with L1

Dutch. This research has revealed influence of Dutch in their VGT. Consequently their VGT

compositions seem to be a mixture of VGT and Dutch. This influence is not to be regarded as

negative transfer, since most of the copied structures agree with those of VGT. However, even when

the structures are not incorrect, other structures may be more frequently used by native signers,

who therefore presumably would be able to recognize the structures by these participants as not

native-like. The students of VGT and their level in proficiency in VGT would benefit from educators in

deaf education who make their students (even more) aware of the grammatical differences between

VGT and Dutch, so the students can obtain the most native-like proficiency as possible. Obviously,

this research doesn’t provide conclusive answers, so further research is needed.

106

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