Collaborative Research: Function and form in the 'what' family of signs in American Sign Language

这个合作项目研究了美国手语（ASL）中用法和语法之间的关系，这是一种相对较新的类型：在公共空间在线发布的ASL视频。了解手语使用者倾向于使用特定手势的语境，对于手语的语言描述以及人类语言的认知、心理语言学和社会语言学理论的发展至关重要。除此之外，评估在线视频的可访问性和可用性要求研究人员理解并尊重发布视频的人可能拥有的隐私期望。通过对在线视频中美国手语使用情况的系统研究，该项目还为聋人和手语研究人员提供了指导和更多参与社会科学研究的渠道。这个项目的目标是：1)通过研究不同个体的手语来促进对美国手语语法的理解；2)建立一个将互联网数据转化为可重复研究的管道；3)增加聋人语言学家对美国手语语言研究的参与。为了实现这些目标，该项目挑选出一类涉及美国手语符号的语法结构，这些语法结构可以翻译成英语中的“什么”（如“你说什么？”或“他们告诉我的是什么”）。一个基本的问题是手语使用者如何在美国手语语篇中使用这些不同的符号：特定的符号是否始终与特定的语法功能一起出现，比如形成一个直接或间接的问题，或者这些形式的使用是否受到语法和社会背景的限制？该项目通过从各种在线ASL视频中收集和注释这些特定符号的大量实例来解决这个问题。这些视频主要来自聚合型网站，如美国手语新闻媒体、公开讲座和信息的录音以及商业视频。与此同时，该项目寻求确定处理在线视频的最佳实践，并使最终的注释可用于未来的研究。这不仅包括在数字存储库中提供结果注释，还包括联系在线发布视频的个人子集，以调查他们对这一努力的看法和兴趣。最后，这是一个聋人主导的项目；美国聋人是美国手语的主要使用者，然而聋人在从事研究事业时经常遇到系统障碍。该项目允许聋人和听力研究人员合作研究美国手语的语言结构，为指导和研究经验提供无障碍的环境。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This collaborative project studies the relationship between usage and grammar in American Sign Language (ASL) in a relatively new genre: ASL videos posted to public spaces online. Understanding the contexts in which ASL signers tend to use particular signs is critical to the linguistic description of ASL and to the development of cognitive, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic theories of human language, more generally. In addition to this, evaluating the accessibility and availability of online videos requires that researchers understand and respect the expectations of privacy that the people who have posted them may have. Through systematic study of ASL usage in videos online, the project also formalizes a pipeline for the mentoring and increased participation of deaf and signing researchers in social science research.The goals for this project are 1) to contribute to understanding of ASL grammar through the study of ASL signing from a variety of individuals, 2) to establish a pipeline for transforming internet data into reproducible research, and 3) to increase the participation of deaf linguists in linguistic research on ASL. In the service of these goals, the project singles out one class of grammatical constructions involving ASL signs that can be translated as “what” in English (as in “What did you say?” or “That’s what they told me.”). A fundamental question is how signers use these different signs in ASL discourse: Do particular signs consistently appear with particular grammatical functions, such as forming a direct or indirect question, or is there variation in the use of these forms conditioned by the grammatical and social context? The project addresses this question by collecting and annotating a large sample of instances of these specific signs in context from a variety of ASL videos online. These videos are primarily from aggregate-type websites such as ASL news outlets, recordings of public lectures and messages, and commercial videos. At the same time, the project seeks to identify the best practices for working with online videos and making the resulting annotations accessible for future research. This involves making not only the resulting annotations available in a digital repository, but also contacting a subset of individuals who post videos online to survey their perception and interest in this endeavor. Finally, this is a deaf-led project; deaf Americans are the primary users of ASL, yet deaf people often experience systemic barriers to pursuing research careers. This project allows for collaboration between deaf and hearing researchers to study the linguistic structure of ASL, providing accessible environments for mentorship and research experience.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.