Topic > A critical review of Watkins & Thompson's research on British Sign Language

Communication is a fundamental foundation for life. Consequently, the effort by members of British society to create a world in which everyone could communicate regardless of their physical inabilities triggered the creation of British Sign Language (BSL). The language is specifically designed for the deaf and dumb people of the country. Although some scholars have concluded that the first users of sign language in the United Kingdom used dactylogy in the 16th century and the centuries preceding it, British Sign Language was created in the 18th century. One of the biggest changes the language has experienced is a contrast in the understanding and production of signs. Research psychologists have worked to advance the language by bridging the gap between finger spelling and lip reading. For example, Freya Watkins and Robin L. Thompson focused on the above-mentioned aspect in “The Relationship Between Sign Production and Sign Comprehension: What Handedness Reveals.” The research has been progressive, but the main challenge is understanding its credibility. As a result, the analysis delves into aspects of credible research such as its background, its objectives, its contents and how it fulfills them. It also delves into how aspects can be improved. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The two scholars' masterpiece delves into hand configuration and visual dominance. Its main focus is the correlation between sign production and sign comprehension, where the former is the independent variable and the latter the dependent variable. The primary hypothesis of the study is that there should be a difference between right-hand and left-hand signs during the processing of motor feedback, which occurs in the comprehension process, regardless of the processing signs that the two subjects use. Despite this, he had two other hypotheses (Watkins & Thompson, 2017). The first is that if the majority of the research subjects performed excellently on right-handed signs, a frequency effect would explain this result in sign comprehension. The second states that if the performance in case of congruence exceeded the right hand sign, it would highlight the active role of the production system in comprehension. Thus he focused on drawing results from hand dominance in a picture sign matching task. completed by both right-handed scorers (RHS) and left-handed scorers (LHS). The evidence provided by the researchers supported their hypothesis (Watkins & Thompson, 2017). Natives of both sides, i.e. left and right side signs, and non-natives reacted faster when they perceived the right side than the left. Furthermore, left-handed signers had a bias and performed exceptionally well on congruent hand input, something that was related to the motor language of perception. The theory proposes that people perceive phonetic information and gestures recognized by specialized distinct systems within the brain qualified to detect gestures intended by the articulator, which form the basis of phonetic categories. The structure contains various overlapping links between gestures and auditory patterns. Consequently, the unit mediates between the acoustic stimulus and the speech perception that localizes the sound. Methodology is one of the main things that can carry out research. The researchers used forty-three deaf participants who spoke fluent British Sign Language. Twenty-one of the subjectsthey were women and twenty-two were men. Their average age was thirty-three, while the age range ranged from nineteen to fifty-nine. Since the type of hand they used was important to effective results, they divided them into right-handed and left-handed scorers. Twenty-six of them were right while the other seventeen were left-handed. They also used language acquisition as a characteristic for defining subjects. Although all research participants had at least twelve years of exposure, eighteen had acquired it from birth and twelve had been exposed to British Sign Language through acquisition. The basic materials used by the researchers to carry out the research are black and white drawings which were combined with British Sign Language. They also used three categories of sign stimuli as follows: 2HA (n = 59), 2HS (n = 80), and 1H (n = 80). After setting up the experiment, the researchers developed the procedure by which they could manifest the results supported by the hypothesis. The procedure involved participants using as little time as possible to accurately determine whether a picture followed by a British Sign Language ideogram referred to the same object. They had to give their yes and no answers by pressing the J and F keys on a keyboard. The experiment, which began with ten practice items, presented stimuli using g E-Prime 2.0. All trials to which participants were subjected began with a fixation cross (400 ms). The image (1000 ms) and video of the sign were then taken. In the course of the research, the researchers were forced to discard the results of several participants. They excluded three due to errors in data collection and one due to accuracy issues, i.e. the participant's accuracy level was less than seventy percent. Based on their findings, the researchers concluded that using the right-hand model served as an important indicator of accuracy, meaning that study participants performed exceptionally well on the right-hand model, getting everything right. (Watkins & Thompson, 2017). They also considered a comparison of whether the native or non-native model was a factor in participants' response times in their analysis. In doing so, they concluded that native speakers were mercury in their response to right hand signs, demonstrating the fact that it is a dominant sign due to its prevalence. Research conducted on British Sign Language for almost one hundred and sixty years led to the conclusion that the majority of users of the language were right-handed as they account for seventy percent of the total population. Despite this. Perelle & Ehrman, 2015 suggested that there is a variable difference in left-handedness across different cultures. Regardless of the signal type (1H, 2HA, or 2HS), there is an overall faster retention time in identifying and understanding right-handed signals. These results imply the role of the production system. The study satisfies various aspects of authentic scientific research. He revealed all the parties that financed him to give his audience the opportunity to analyze whether or not he was linked to the interests of third parties. Funding came from the Birmingham Fellowship award to Robin L. Thompson of the University of Birmingham. It is also a peer-reviewed work that meets the principles of scientific research (Tracy, 2013). The fact that it has been peer-reviewed shows that experts in the fields of linguistics, psychology and education have looked into it and verified every aspect of the research. It also follows the.2017.03.019