Abstract
Deaf learners' language histories are often described in terms of two broad pathways. One is a spoken-language pathway associated with hearing technology and mainstream education, and another one is a sign-language pathway associated with limited technology use and schooling in schools for the deaf. This study examined how well this binary distinction represented the experiences of 48 college-educated deaf adults in Chinese mainland. Questionnaire data were used to examine associations among self-reported first language, hearing-aid use, school-placement history, and sign-language repertoire. A timed Chinese sentence-reading task was included as an auxiliary measure. Self-reported first language, hearing-aid use, and school placement were significantly associated, but their joint distribution did not separate participants into two discrete groups. Two aligned configurations were relatively common, whereas 41.7% of participants reported cross-cutting combinations of linguistic, technological, and educational experience. Nearly all participants reported using a natural sign language, and the two first-language groups did not differ significantly on the auxiliary reading measure. The findings indicate patterned but substantial heterogeneity within this college-educated deaf sample and caution against using any single category as a proxy for language proficiency, language access, or educational need.