The Effects of Language, Culture, and Embodiment on Signed Stories.
Paula Marentette, Natasha Tuck, Elena Nicoladis & Simone Pika
University of Alberta
Recent research in our lab has demonstrated that signers tell longer stories than speakers.
That is, monolingual ASL signers recall more scenes than monolingual English speakers
(Tuck, Marentette & Nicoladis, in prep). This supports a similar conclusion reached by
Rayman (1999).
We have explored two possible explanations for this result: first, that signers show this
advantage due to their language, and second, that signers show this advantage due to Deaf
culture. It is possible that signers tell longer stories because of the ideal fit between the
language and the task: sign languages are highly visuospatial (see e.g., Emmorey, 1996) and
story recall is considered a highly visuospatial task (Rubin, 1995). It may be, therefore, the fit
between the medium of the language and the nature of the task that allows greater recall
(Rayman, 1999; West & Bauer, 1999). However, it is also possible that signers recall more
because they come from a culture in which face-to-face storytelling is valued (Lane,
Hoffmeister & Bahan, 1996). In cultures in which face-to-face storytelling is valued,
storytellers have been shown to perform remarkable feats of memory (Rubin, 1995).
One purpose of this paper is to disentangle the linguistic and cultural influences on
storytelling in Deaf signers. To do this, our study compares story recall by three distinct
groups of signers: a) Deaf signers who learned ASL from their Deaf parents from birth
(native signers), b) Deaf signers who learned ASL as their first language but not until school
entry (childhood signers), and c) Hearing signers (CODAs) who learned ASL from their Deaf
parents from birth. In addition we examined story recall in two groups of speakers: a)
Hearing speakers who learned English from their parents (and are monolingual), and b)
Hearing CODAs (the same individuals from whom we collected sign stories described above)
who learned English in very early childhood. Note that the CODAs told these stories twice,
once in ASL and once in English.
If linguistic factors are important, all signers should recall more than speakers. In addition,
we might expect CODA signers to recall more than childhood signers as CODAs are native
signers. If cultural factors are important, then we might expect the CODAs to tell shorter
stories than either the native or childhood signers as CODAs are typically less central
members of Deaf culture (Preston, 1996). Importantly, though CODA children may be
TOLD many sign stories in their childhood, they are less likely to be TELLERS of sign
stories in their adulthood. We asked 8 native signers, 8 childhood signers, 8 CODAs and 8
English speakers to watch a Pink Panther cartoon and tell it back to us.
We found that the native signers recalled more episodes than the native English speakers.
Furthermore, our results showed that both linguistic and cultural factors play a role in story
recall. That is, a language effect is demonstrated because the signed stories included more
scenes than English stories. We also found evidence to support a cultural effect in that
CODAs told shorter stories in ASL than either the native or childhood learners. We think this
result might be due to lack of experience or practice in storytelling in ASL. On surprising
result was that the longest stories tended to be told by the childhood signers.
Mean Episodes Recalled
30.0
25.0
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
ld
-A
SL
hi
C
A(
AS
L)
O
C
O
C
D
D
A(
En
g)
-E
ng
iv
e
at
N
N
at
iv
eAS
L
0.0
Other research in our lab suggests a high correlation between length of stories and gesturing
for speakers (Pika, Nicoladis & Marentette, in prep). That is, storytellers that include more
scenes in a story are also frequent gesturers. A second purpose of this presentation is to
provide a qualitative analysis of the gestures and direct action (or mimetic elements, see
Metzger, 1995) of the various groups of signers in our study. Childhood signers produced
more gestures and direct action components in their stories than did native signers. In turn,
native signers produced more of these elements than the CODAs.
We interpret these two pieces of data, first that signers tell longer stories than speakers, and
second that the length of a story can be correlated with the frequency of gesture production,
to suggest that memory for stories is facilitated by bodily involvement in general, and gesture
in particular. Possible explanations for this result will be explored
References
Emmorey, K. (1996). The confluence of space and language in signed languages. In P.
Bloom, M.A. Peterson, L. Nadel, & M.F. Garrett (Eds.), Language and space (pp. 171-210).
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lane, H., Hoffmeister, R., & Bahan, B. (1996). A journey into the DEAF-WORLD. San
Diego, CA: Dawn Sign Press.
Metzger, M. (1995). Constructed dialogue and constructed action in American Sign
Language. In C. Lucas (Ed.), Sociolinguistics in Deaf communities (pp. 255-268).
Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.
Preston, P.M. (1996). Mother father deaf: Living between sound and silence. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Rayman, J. (1999). Storytelling in the visual mode: A comparison of ASL and English. In E.
Winston (Ed.), Storytelling and conversation: Discourse in Deaf communities (pp. 5982). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.
Rubin, D. C. (1995). Memory in oral traditions: The cognitive psychology of epic, ballads,
and counting-out rhymes. New York: Oxford University Press.
West, T. A. & Bauer, P. J. (1999). Effects of language modality on preschoolers’ recall of
spatial-temporal sequences. First Language, 19, 3-27.