Emergence of negation in a Turkish homesign system: Insights from the family context

The homesign systems, which are gestural communication invented by deaf individuals without access to any conventional language input (Goldin-Meadow, 2003), provide a unique context to comprehend what characteristics are fundamental in human language. The fact that these systems presented various characteristics of conventional languages in lack of a model raised questions about whether interlocutors of homesigners present any structure with their gestures. In the current study, I focused on a homesign system used by a Turkish homesigner child, Deniz, and his mother and sister. Specifically, I investigated the negation gesture patterns of the family to understand whether a consistent structure exists and how it affects the individuals in the family at different levels. The findings revealed that both the sister and the mother presented consistent negation structures but differed from each other. Deniz could follow these patterns and adapted the negation gestures based on his interlocutor. However, he presented a limited ability to concatenate gesture units linearly compared to his mother and sister. These similarities and differences between family members and the role of input are discussed in line with the research questions and previous studies.