ABSTRACT
Sign language acquisition research is still a fairly new discipline, which means that there have been preliminary studies on a great many topics, but comparatively few follow-up studies or attempts to replicate preliminary findings for other populations or sign languages. That said, there are several areas which have enjoyed a higher degree of research attention than others, or which have benefited from parallel investigations across multiple sign languages and/or multiple populations. This chapter will focus on four such areas of research: phonology, nonmanual markers, fingerspelling and spatial components of narratives. For readers new to sign language research, Section 1 will provide some background information on the structure and organization of sign languages. Section 2 will survey the literature on the development of sign language as a first language by children, by far the most frequently studied group in the sign language acquisition literature. Section 3 will discuss our four focus areas as they pertain to adult second language learners, before moving on to Section 4, where we will address language decline due to Parkinson’s disease. Finally, I will conclude in Section 5 by suggesting some directions for further research.
