Doctoral Dissertation Research: Effects of Language Contact on Relative Clauses in Two Signed Languages

在广泛使用双语口语的社区中，说话者使用的语言的语法可以趋同，随着时间的推移，彼此变得更加相似。对于使用一种以上手语的社区会发生什么，人们知之甚少。接触中的手语会随着时间的推移而融合吗？本论文研究的目的是记录和描述不同社区的单语和双语手语者在使用各自语言中的语法结构方面的差异。该项目旨在揭示易受伤害和研究不足的手语的语法特征，并对多种语言如何影响语言结构提供更广泛的见解。本研究项目主要关注以单语和双语为主的手语社区中关系从句的使用。关系从句是修饰名词的句子，用来帮助区分一个人或一件事，或增加关于它的更多信息。例如：“读这本书的女孩”或“我抚摸的那只猫”都是带有关系从句的名词，它们提供了关于这些名词的更多信息。语言标记关系从句的方式各不相同：使用特殊的连接词，如“Who”或“That”，改变词序，或使用韵律/语调。在口语中，关系从句等语法结构会受到广泛的语言接触和多种语言的影响，导致接触中的语言出现不同于单一语言变体的新的变体。然而，关系从句在手语中的研究还很少，双语和语言接触也是如此。该项目使用现有的评估工具，以确定在两种手语双语水平较高的社区中，两种手语的关系从句是否变得更加相似。来自两种手语的叙述、对话、描述和语法数据将与不同社区的单语和双语手语者一起收集。关系从句的语法结构和用法将在每种语言的单语和双语签名者中进行比较，以确定社区特有的语法模式，并确定单语和双语语言使用的任何差异是否源于双语社区的语法趋同。总之，这个项目旨在梳理语法结构使用上的细微差别，以确定手语双语在语法上的结果。这项研究通过增加关于手语以及社区和个人如何使用语言的科学知识，以及增加语言基础设施，有助于我们对语言作为人类教师的理解。这一奖项反映了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。

In communities with extensive spoken language bilingualism, the grammars of the languages speakers use can converge, becoming more similar to each other over time. Very little is known about what happens in communities where more than one signed language is used. Do signed languages in contact converge over time? The goal of this dissertation research is to document and describe how monolingual and bilingual signers in different communities differ in their use of grammatical structures in their languages. The project seeks to shed light on the grammatical properties of vulnerable and understudied signed languages, as well as provide insight into how multilingualism impacts the structure of language more generally.This research project focuses on the use of relative clauses in predominantly monolingual and bilingual signing communities. Relative clauses are sentences that modify nouns to help distinguish a person or thing from a group or add more information about it. For example: "The girl who read the book" or "The cat that I was petting" are nouns with relative clauses that provide more information about those nouns. How languages mark relative clauses varies: with a specialized linking word such as "who" or "that", with changes in word order, or with prosody/tone. In spoken languages, grammatical structures like relative clauses can be impacted by extensive language contact and multilingualism, leading to new varieties of the languages in contact that are distinct from monolingual language varieties. However, relative clauses are under researched in signed languages, as is bilingualism and language contact. This project uses existing assessment tools to determine if relative clauses in two signed languages are becoming more similar to each other in communities with high levels of bilingualism in those signed languages. Narrative, conversation, description, and grammaticality data from two signed languages will be collected with monolingual and bilingual signers in different communities. Relative clause grammatical structure and use will be compared across monolingual and bilingual signers in each language in order to identify community-specific grammatical patterns and to determine whether any differences between monolingual and bilingual language use are due to grammatical convergence in bilingual communities. Together, this project aims to tease apart subtle distinctions in the use of grammatical structure to identify outcomes of signed language bilingualism on grammar. This research contributes to our understanding of language as a human faculty by increasing scientific knowledge about signed languages and how they are used by communities and individuals, as well as increasing language infrastructure.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.