THEORETICAL ISSUES IN SIGN LANGUAGE RESEARCH

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The investigation of signed languages is crucial to our understanding of the biological foundations of human language, as well as to our understanding of deafness and the designing and implementation of policies and programs for the deaf. To date, there is no existing forum that brings together investigators from different fields who have specific interests in deafness and sign language. There are no societies or organizations within the U.S. which support this kind of large interdisciplinary meeting on sign language research. Therefore, this conference will provide a needed forum for deaf and hearing researchers to present and discuss new developments concerning the structure of signed languages, their acquisition, and the neuropsychology of sign language and deafness. The audience will include researchers and students from several diverse fields: linguistics, social science, psychology, deaf studies, speech sciences, neuroscience, education, and cognitive science. Consequently, the conference will stimulate cross-disciplinary studies and encourage collaborative enterprises between researchers who might not otherwise have worked together. The structure of the meeting will be innovative with a variety of different formats for discussion, and both invited and submitted papers will be included. The program will include a broad range of topics, and papers will be solicited specifically for each topic area. Participants will be exposed to the most recent advances in our understanding of language development in deaf children, the phonological and morphological structure of sign"' d languages, the neural and psychological mechanisms underlying language function, the role of sign language in deaf culture and literacy, and bilingual/bicultural approaches to deaf education and policy. Several distinguished researchers who have contributed significantly to each of the topic areas of the conference have been invited to speak (and have accepted), and each will present their current research and participate in group discussions. Additionally, many efforts have been made to make the conference accessible and affordable to students. The papers from this conference will be included in a volume edited by the co-ordinators which will provide a permanent record of the conference. One important result of this meeting will be an increased awareness of the significance of sign language research to our understanding of language, deafness, and human cognition.