Cross-modal perspectives on grammaticalization: Aspect markers in creoles and sign languages

语法化的跨模式视角：克里奥尔语和手语中的体标记

• 批准号: AH/X002438/1
• 负责人: Nicholas Palfreyman
• 金额: $ 34.13万
• 依托单位: University of Central Lancashire
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FX002438%2F1
• 关键词: Cross; modal; perspectives; grammaticalization; Aspect

Our research compares two often overlooked types of languages: creoles, and sign languages. These languages work in different ways (they use different modalities) so we say that our research is 'cross-modal'.Creoles are a type of spoken language that emerged in the context of European colonial expansion, where the language varieties of small but dominant groups of traders or colonists were acquired and restructured to differing degrees by a large number of dominated people.Sign languages are not spoken languages at all, but are produced using the hands and other elements such as facial expressions and head movements. Most sign languages emerged naturally where a critical number of deaf people have had regular contact. Researchers have often noted similarities between creoles and sign languages in their social settings, for example in terms of how they emerge, how they are passed on to new generations of users. In the past, creoles and sign languages have also been stigmatised, and thought of as 'lesser' than languages such as English and German.Intriguing similarities have been noted, too, in how the grammars of these languages have developed. In particular, it is claimed that creole and sign language grammars have changed quickly - but that they do not have some of the more 'mature' features that other languages have (such as affixes and fixed positions for certain function words). However, these observed similarities have never been examined in a way that takes into account large numbers of languages.In the CrossMoGram Project, we compare creoles and sign languages systematically in a particular area of grammar: aspect. Aspect is to do with how events are presented (as a simple example, consider the differences in the way the English verbs 'eat' and 'arrive' appear in the following sentence 'I was eating when my friend arrived').We look to see how similar creoles and sign languages really are in how they use aspect - are they more similar to each other than to other spoken languages, for example, and is it true that creoles and sign languages don't have the more 'developed' features that other languages have? And when the parts of language that show aspect change, do they change in similar ways for creoles and for sign languages?To do this, we review large amounts of research on aspect in creoles, including sources that show us how words have changed over time. There is much less research on sign languages (which, in any case, cannot be written down) so we use a different method here: we look at seven corpora (collections of sign language data) to see how signers express aspect in those sign languages.As well as academic publications, we disseminate our findings in the form of a database of languages that can be used and added to by other researchers, and for other areas of grammar as well as aspect. We make this database as easy-to-use as possible, and link it to other language resources.The project is led by an unusual pairing of researchers - a specialist on creoles and language diversity, who is hearing; and a deaf researcher with experience of sign language research. Our backgrounds mean that we can work in parallel. We also take the time to look at each other's data, so that we learn more about our own language specialisms.Sign language users and creole speakers have both faced oppression in the past because of misunderstandings about their languages, and to share our findings, we bring together some of the people we have worked with before - speakers of Seychelles Creole and deaf Indonesian Sign Language users - for an online event. We invite them to share their experiences of language, and from this, we produce a 5-minute video that raises awareness about sign languages and creoles. This enables us to explain our findings in an easy-to-understand way, and gives signers and creole speakers the chance to correct some misconceptions that people have about their languages.

我们的研究比较了两种经常被忽视的语言类型：克里奥尔语和手语。这些语言以不同的方式工作(它们使用不同的方式)，所以我们说我们的研究是“跨模式”的。克里奥尔语是在欧洲殖民扩张的背景下出现的一种口语，在这种情况下，为数不多但占主导地位的商人或殖民者群体的语言变体被大量被统治的人以不同的程度获得和重组。手语根本不是口语，而是用手和其他元素产生的，比如面部表情和头部运动。大多数手语都是自然而然地出现的，有相当数量的聋人经常接触。研究人员经常注意到克里奥尔语和手语在社交环境中的相似之处，例如，在它们如何出现、如何传递给新一代用户方面。在过去，克里奥尔语和手语也被污名化，被认为比英语和德语等语言“低级”。在这些语言的语法发展过程中，人们也注意到了惊人的相似之处。特别是，据说克里奥尔语和手语的语法变化很快--但它们没有其他语言所具有的一些更成熟的特征(例如某些虚词的词缀和固定位置)。然而，这些观察到的相似性从来没有被考虑到大量的语言。在CrossMoGram项目中，我们在一个特定的语法领域--体--对克里奥尔语和手语进行了系统的比较。体貌与事件的表达方式有关(举个简单的例子，想想英语动词‘吃’和‘到达’在下面的句子‘当我朋友来的时候在吃东西’中的不同)。我们来看看克里奥尔语和手语在体的用法上到底有多相似--例如，它们彼此之间是不是比其他口语更相似？克里奥尔语和手语真的没有其他语言所具有的更‘发达’的特征吗？而当语言中表示体的部分发生变化时，克里奥尔语和手语的变化方式是否相似？为此，我们回顾了大量关于克里奥尔语体的研究，包括向我们展示单词如何随时间变化的资料。关于手语的研究要少得多(无论如何，手语都不能写下来)，所以我们在这里使用了一种不同的方法：我们查看了七个手语语料库(手语数据的集合)，看看手语者如何在这些手语中表示体。除了学术出版物，我们以语料库的形式传播我们的发现，其他研究人员可以使用和添加这些语料库，语法和体的其他领域也可以使用。我们使这个数据库尽可能易于使用，并将其与其他语言资源链接起来。该项目由一对不同寻常的研究人员领导--一名克里奥尔语和语言多样性专家正在听力方面，一名具有手语研究经验的聋人研究人员。我们的背景意味着我们可以并行工作。我们还会花时间查看彼此的数据，这样我们就可以更多地了解我们自己的语言专长。西语用户和说克里奥尔语的人过去都因为对自己的语言的误解而面临压力。为了分享我们的发现，我们召集了一些以前合作过的人--说塞舌尔语的克里奥尔人和失聪的印度尼西亚手语用户--参加一个在线活动。我们邀请他们分享他们的语言经验，并由此制作了一段5分钟的视频，提高人们对手语和克里奥尔语的认识。这使我们能够以一种简单易懂的方式解释我们的发现，并让签名者和说克里奥尔语的人有机会纠正人们对他们的语言的一些误解。