Event Description in Sign Language and Gesture

人类交流的一个核心作用是谈论世界及其周围环境。这是真正的口语交流,但它也适用于手语沟通和发生在人类交流的姿态,自然的运动我们的手,脸,和身体当人类交流。这个项目研究了手语者和手势者是如何在日常活动和事件中交流的。该项目的潜在影响包括加强手语教学和口译教育的有效性，改善语言病理学家等其他服务提供者的培训，并为失聪儿童及其家庭创造更好的语言和交流干预措施。研究表明，说话者会系统地、持续地将事件的信息细节结合起来。这个项目调查了人类如何使用其他交流系统——特别是手语和手势——来谈论事件。研究人员将参与者的日常活动和事件的描述记录下来，并对这些记录进行注释和分析，以了解这些活动和事件的某些方面如何被纳入交际描述。该项目的范围包括聋哑人用手语交流，听力正常的人用手势交流，以及将手语作为第二语言学习的听力正常的人用手语交流。项目研究结果对语言学家、其他学科的手语和手势学者、语言教师和一系列领域的人类服务提供者都很有兴趣。这项研究有助于全面了解人类如何在多种可用系统中进行交流。该项目还为来自弱势背景的年轻学者提供研究机会，并与聋人社区开展研究活动。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。

A central role of human communication is to talk about the world and its surroundings. This is true of spoken language communication, but it is also true of sign language communication and of the human communication that takes place in gesture, the natural movements of our hands, face, and body when humans communicate. This project investigates how signers and gesturers communicate about everyday activities and events. Potential impacts of the project include strengthening the effectiveness of sign language instruction and interpreter education, improving the training available to other service providers such as speech language pathologists, and creating better language and communication interventions for deaf children and their families. Research has shown that speakers systematically and consistently incorporate informational details about events. This project investigates how humans talk about events using other communication systems -- specifically, sign language and gesture. Research participants are video recorded providing descriptions of everyday activities and events, and these recordings undergo annotation and analysis for how certain aspects of those activities and events are incorporated into the communicative description. The scope of the project includes communication in a sign language by deaf signers, communication in gesture by hearing speakers, and communication in a sign language by hearing individuals who are learning it as a second language. Project findings are of interest to linguists, sign language and gesture scholars in other disciplines, as well as language teachers and human service providers in a range of fields. This research contributes to a holistic understanding of how humans communicate in the multiplicity of systems available to them. The project also offers research opportunities for junior scholars from under-represented backgrounds and features research engagement activities with the Deaf community.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.