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

在具有广泛口语双语的社区中，使用者使用的语言的语法可以趋同，随着时间的推移变得越来越相似。人们对使用一种以上手语的社区所发生的情况知之甚少。接触中的手语会随着时间的推移而收敛吗？本论文的研究目标是记录和描述不同社区的单语和双语签名者在使用其语言中的语法结构方面的差异。该项目旨在揭示脆弱和研究不足的手语的语法特性，以及提供洞察多语言如何影响语言结构更普遍。该研究项目的重点是在主要单语和双语手语社区的关系从句的使用。关系从句是修饰名词的句子，用来帮助区分一个人或一个事物，或者增加更多关于它的信息。例如：“The girl who read the book”或“The cat that I was petting”是带有关系从句的名词，提供更多关于这些名词的信息。语言标记关系从句的方式各不相同：使用专门的连接词，如“who”或“that”，改变词序，或使用韵律/语气。在口语中，语法结构如关系从句会受到广泛的语言接触和多语言的影响，导致接触中的语言出现新的变体，与单语语言变体不同。然而，关系从句在手语中的研究不足，双语和语言接触也是如此。该项目使用现有的评估工具，以确定是否在两种手语中的关系从句在双语水平高的社区中变得越来越相似。叙述，会话，描述和语法数据从两个签署的语言将收集与单语和双语签名者在不同的社区。关系从句的语法结构和使用将在每种语言的单语和双语签名者之间进行比较，以确定社区特定的语法模式，并确定单语和双语语言使用之间的任何差异是否是由于双语社区的语法趋同。总之，这个项目的目的是梳理除了语法结构的使用，以确定结果的手语双语语法微妙的区别。这项研究通过增加有关手语的科学知识以及社区和个人如何使用手语，以及增加语言基础设施，有助于我们理解语言作为人类的能力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值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.