Confluence of Space and Language in ASL

要在语言上表示和编码视觉世界(即谈论我们所看到的)，需要在语言和空间认知之间建立一个至关重要的接口。手语可以提供对这一界面的独特见解，因为物理空间直接用于编码语言和空间关系。美国手语(ASL)与口语的不同之处在于，它是在空间中用手表达的，由视觉系统感知。因此，ASL还提供了一个机会来探索语言的表达方式如何影响语法编码的性质(例如，语言如何表达不同的语言关系)和语言处理的性质(人们如何实时地解释和产生语言)。目前，人们对ASL中的语言加工知之甚少，本研究将是第一批研究视觉语言如何被在线感知和理解的研究之一。这些研究探索了使用空间来表达指称域和空间域中的语言对比的后果。具体地说，这些实验侧重于使用空间来表达共指关系、参照系和空间信息。本研究的主要目的是探讨手语中空间的语法化及其对语言加工的影响。该项目包含两条主要的调查路线：1)在线跟踪空间回指和2)使用空间来表示空间。第一组实验探讨了签名者在实时处理过程中如何理解和维持所指物体与其空间轨迹之间的联系。这些实验的结果将有助于深入了解手语所需的加工机制的性质，并有助于确定指涉加工的哪些方面适用于语言通道。第二个实验考察了聋人手语者如何从手语篇中创建空间L心理模型，手语者如何选择空间参照系，以及手语者如何将物理手势空间与空间的心理表征相结合，从而考察了使用空间表征空间的后果。这些实验将阐明物理空间是如何在语言上被操纵以传达方位信息的，并将阐明这种空间结构在加工过程中是如何被解释的。综上所述，这些结果将阐明语言和空间认知之间接口的性质。

To linguistically represent and encode the visual world (i.e., to talk about what we see) requires a crucial interface between language and spatial cognition. Signed languages can provide unique insight into this interface because physical space is used directly to encode linguistic and spatial relations. American Sign Language (ASL) differs from spoken languages in that it is expressed with the hands in space and perceived by the visual system. Thus, ASL also presents an opportunity to explore how the modality in which a language is conveyed affects the nature of grammatical encoding (e.g., how languages express different linguistic relations) and the nature of language processing (how people interpret and produce language in real time). Currently, very little is known about language processing in ASL, and the proposed studies will be some of the first to investigate how a visual language is perceived and understood on-line. The studies explore the ramifications of using space for expressing linguistic contrasts in referential and spatial domains. Specifically, the experiments focus on the use of space to express coreference relations, frames of reference, and spatial information. The major goal of the research is to explore the grammaticization of space in sign language and its impact on language processing. The project contains two primary lines of inquiry: 1) on-line tracking of spatial anaphora and 2) the use of space to represent space. The first group of experiments explore how signers understand and maintain the association between referents and their spatial loci during real time processing. The results of these experiments will provide insight into the nature of the processing mechanisms required for sign language and will help determine what aspects of referential processing hold across language modalities. The second line of experiments investigate the consequences of using space to represent space by investigating how deaf signers create spatia l mental models from signed discourse, how signers chose a spatial reference frame, and how signers integrate physical signing space with a mental representation of space. These experiments will illuminate how physical space is manipulated linguistically to communicate locative information and will clarify how such spatial structure is interpreted during processing. Together, these results will elucidate the nature of the interface between language and spatial cognition.