CUNY 2007 Conference: Mar. 29-31, in San Diego. The Psycholinguistics of Signed and Spoken Languages: How Biological and Social Factors Do (and Do Not) Affect Language Processing

人类语言从何而来？语言能力的哪些方面是与生俱来的，哪些是从过去的经验中学到的？语言的哪些特征是由思维和句子结构的“深层”特征塑造的，哪些是由“表层”特征塑造的，比如单词的发音或发音方式？这些都是关于语言的大问题，这些问题的答案不仅有助于洞察语言是如何学习的，应该如何治疗语言障碍，而且还可以洞察这一至关重要的人类能力的本质。在NSF的资助下，加州大学圣地亚哥分校语言研究中心的成员将聚集世界领先的研究人员，于2007年3月在加利福尼亚州拉霍亚举行的第20届CUNY年度人类句子处理会议的特别会议上解决这些基本问题。在这次特别会议中，将介绍和讨论比较手语和口语习得、理解和产出的最新研究。手语和口语之间的两个普遍差异为这些问题提供了前所未有的洞察力：第一，手语和口语的学习者早期的语言体验可能非常不同。这是因为儿童有时在童年后期才被诊断为耳聋，而且口语在日常环境中总体上更普遍。根据这些差异比较手语和口语的能力有助于深入了解语言机制的先天和后天本质，因为手语和口语是以截然不同的方式创造和感知的：主要是手语的手和眼，以及口语的主要嘴巴和耳朵。虽然由思维模式和句子结构组成的语言的深层特征在手语和口语中应该是相似的，但通过语言的感知或表达方式组织的语言特征在手语和口语中应该有所不同。纽约城市大学人类句子处理年度会议是世界上最著名的高级语言处理研究人员会议。通过国家科学基金会的支持，会议将包括完整的手语口译，向无法充分参与更广泛会议活动的聋人与会者开放会议。最后，纽约城市大学会议和特别会议特别针对初级研究人员的参与，包括初级教员、博士后研究人员和研究生，因此将使新一代研究人员--无论是听力障碍、听力障碍或聋人--进入语言科学。

Where does human language come from? Which aspects of linguistic ability are innate and which are learned from past experience? Which features of language are shaped by 'deep' features of thought and sentence structure, and which are shaped by 'surface' features like what words sound like or how they are articulated? These are the big questions about language, the answers to which promise insights not only into how language is learned and how language disorders should be treated, but into the very nature of this crucial human ability. With NSF funding, the members of the Center for Research in Language at the University of California, San Diego, will bring together the world's leading researchers to address these basic questions in a special session of the 20th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing in La Jolla, California in March, 2007. In this special session, the latest research that compares signed and spoken language acquisition, comprehension, and production will be presented and discussed. Two general differences between signed and spoken language promise unprecedented insights into these questions: First, learners of signed and spoken language can have very different early language experiences. This is because children are sometimes diagnosed with deafness only later in childhood, and because spoken language is overall more prevalent in everyday environments. Comparing signed and spoken language abilities in light of these differences promises insights into the innate versus learned nature of language mechanisms, since signed and spoken languages are created and perceived in starkly different ways: primarily with the hands and eyes for signed language, and primarily with the mouth and ears for spoken. While the 'deep' features of language, those that are organized by patterns of thought and sentence structure, should be similar between signed and spoken language, the features of language that are organized by how language is perceived or articulated should differ between signed and spoken language.The Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing is the most prominent meeting of high-level language-processing researchers in the world. Through NSF support, the conference will include complete sign-language interpretation, opening the meeting to Deaf participants who otherwise are unable to fully partake in broader conference activities. Finally, the CUNY Conference and the special session specifically target the participation of beginning investigators, including starting faculty, post-doctoral researchers and graduate students, and so will enable entry of new generations of researchers, whether hearing, hard-of-hearing or Deaf, into the language sciences.