Supporting and Providing Access for Deaf Students in Signed Language Research

该项目支持研究手语及其用户社区的研究人员的多样化。从历史上看，大多数手语研究人员一直在听人说话，其中大多数人是手语的成人学习者。然而，在手语研究的队伍中，几乎没有聋人和重听人(以下简称聋人)。该项目使用导师模式，为来自美国各地的一小群聋人大学生提供专业发展活动，并为参加国际手语理论问题研究(TISLR)会议提供支持。TISLR是全球首屈一指的手语研究会议。该项目的目的是为来自美国的聋人学生提供关键的机会，以支持他们在研究生工作中的进步和未来参与手语研究领域。该项目将通过两个关键方式实现其目标。首先，(通过严格的申请程序)被选为会议前和会议后辅导活动一部分的聋人学生将实际上与目前的聋人研究人员会面，讨论从事学术研究的方法，在会议上展示自己的发现，在学术期刊上发表自己的工作成果，并与聋人社区接触，以便分享研究成果，并促进未来在这一领域招募聋人学生。其次，聋人学生将参加TISLR会议(面对面或虚拟)，由美国手语-英语口译服务提供支持。口译服务至关重要，因为许多会议报告和活动将以(口头)英语进行。口译支持将允许该项目支持的聋人候选人获得口头语言，并充分参与会议计划和该领域的其他研究人员。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project supports the diversification of researchers who work on signed languages and their communities of users. Historically, the majority of signed language researchers have been hearing people, most of whom are adult learners of a signed language. However, there are few deaf and hard of hearing (hereafter deaf) signers among the ranks of signed language researchers. This project uses a mentorship model to provide a small group of deaf college and university students from throughout the United States with professional-development activities and support for attending the international Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research (TISLR) conference. TISLR is the premier conference for signed language research in the world. The aim is to provide key opportunities for deaf students from the United States that will support their progression in graduate work and future involvement in the field of signed language research.The project will accomplish its goals in two key ways. First, deaf students who are chosen (via rigorous application process) to be part of pre- and post-conference mentorship activities will meet virtually with current deaf researchers, to discuss methods for engaging in academic research, presenting one’s findings at conferences, publishing the results of one’s work in scholarly journals, and engaging with the deaf community in order to share research findings and promote future recruitment of deaf students to the field. Second, deaf students will attend the TISLR conference (either in person or virtually), supported by American Sign Language-English interpretation services. The interpretation services are crucial because many conference presentations and activities will occur in (oral) English. Interpretation support will allow the deaf candidates supported by the project to access oral language and engage fully with the conference program and with other researchers in the field.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.