Supporting and Providing Access for Deaf Students in Signed Language Research

该项目支持从事手语研究的研究人员及其用户社区的多样化。从历史上看，大多数手语研究者都是听力正常的人，其中大多数是手语的成年学习者。然而，在手语研究者的队伍中，很少有聋人和听力障碍者（以下简称聋人）。该项目采用导师模式，为来自美国各地的一小群聋哑学院和大学生提供专业发展活动，并支持他们参加国际手语研究理论问题会议。TISLR是世界上首屈一指的手语研究会议。该项目的目的是为来自美国的聋人学生提供重要的机会，支持他们在研究生工作中取得进展，并支持他们将来参与手语研究领域。第一，被选中的聋哑学生（通过严格的申请程序）成为会前和会后导师活动的一部分，将与当前的聋人研究人员进行虚拟会面，讨论从事学术研究的方法，在会议上展示自己的发现，在学术期刊上发表自己的工作成果，并与聋人社区接触，以分享研究成果，并促进今后在该领域招收聋人学生。第二，聋人学生将参加TISLR会议（无论是亲自或虚拟），由美国手语翻译英语翻译服务的支持。口译服务至关重要，因为许多会议介绍和活动将以（口语）英语进行。口译支持将使项目支持的聋人候选人能够获得口头语言，并充分参与会议计划和该领域的其他研究人员。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。

This project supports the diversification of researchers who work on signed languages and their communities of users. Historically, the majority of signed language researchers have been hearing people, most of whom are adult learners of a signed language. However, there are few deaf and hard of hearing (hereafter deaf) signers among the ranks of signed language researchers. This project uses a mentorship model to provide a small group of deaf college and university students from throughout the United States with professional-development activities and support for attending the international Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research (TISLR) conference. TISLR is the premier conference for signed language research in the world. The aim is to provide key opportunities for deaf students from the United States that will support their progression in graduate work and future involvement in the field of signed language research.The project will accomplish its goals in two key ways. First, deaf students who are chosen (via rigorous application process) to be part of pre- and post-conference mentorship activities will meet virtually with current deaf researchers, to discuss methods for engaging in academic research, presenting one’s findings at conferences, publishing the results of one’s work in scholarly journals, and engaging with the deaf community in order to share research findings and promote future recruitment of deaf students to the field. Second, deaf students will attend the TISLR conference (either in person or virtually), supported by American Sign Language-English interpretation services. The interpretation services are crucial because many conference presentations and activities will occur in (oral) English. Interpretation support will allow the deaf candidates supported by the project to access oral language and engage fully with the conference program and with other researchers in the field.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.