Doctoral Dissertation Research: Effects of Language Contact on Relative Clauses in Two Signed Languages

博士论文研究：语言接触对两种手语关系从句的影响

• 批准号: 2217731
• 负责人: David Quinto-Pozos
• 金额: $ 1.88万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2217731&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Effects; Language

In communities with extensive spoken language bilingualism, the grammars of the languages speakers use can converge, becoming more similar to each other over time. Very little is known about what happens in communities where more than one signed language is used. Do signed languages in contact converge over time? The goal of this dissertation research is to document and describe how monolingual and bilingual signers in different communities differ in their use of grammatical structures in their languages. The project seeks to shed light on the grammatical properties of vulnerable and understudied signed languages, as well as provide insight into how multilingualism impacts the structure of language more generally.This research project focuses on the use of relative clauses in predominantly monolingual and bilingual signing communities. Relative clauses are sentences that modify nouns to help distinguish a person or thing from a group or add more information about it. For example: "The girl who read the book" or "The cat that I was petting" are nouns with relative clauses that provide more information about those nouns. How languages mark relative clauses varies: with a specialized linking word such as "who" or "that", with changes in word order, or with prosody/tone. In spoken languages, grammatical structures like relative clauses can be impacted by extensive language contact and multilingualism, leading to new varieties of the languages in contact that are distinct from monolingual language varieties. However, relative clauses are under researched in signed languages, as is bilingualism and language contact. This project uses existing assessment tools to determine if relative clauses in two signed languages are becoming more similar to each other in communities with high levels of bilingualism in those signed languages. Narrative, conversation, description, and grammaticality data from two signed languages will be collected with monolingual and bilingual signers in different communities. Relative clause grammatical structure and use will be compared across monolingual and bilingual signers in each language in order to identify community-specific grammatical patterns and to determine whether any differences between monolingual and bilingual language use are due to grammatical convergence in bilingual communities. Together, this project aims to tease apart subtle distinctions in the use of grammatical structure to identify outcomes of signed language bilingualism on grammar. This research contributes to our understanding of language as a human faculty by increasing scientific knowledge about signed languages and how they are used by communities and individuals, as well as increasing language infrastructure.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.

在具有广泛语言双语的社区中，说话者使用的语言语法可以融合，随着时间的流逝，彼此变得越来越相似。关于使用多种签名语言的社区中发生的情况，知之甚少。签名语言是否会随着时间的推移收敛吗？这项论文研究的目的是记录和描述不同社区中的单语和双语签名者在语言中使用语法结构的不同。该项目旨在阐明脆弱和研究的签名语言的语法特性，并提供有关多种语言如何更普遍地影响语言结构的洞察力。本研究项目着重于在主要单语言和双语签名社区中使用相对条款的使用。相对子句是修改名词以帮助将某人或事物与组区分开或添加更多信息的句子。例如：“读书的女孩”或“我要抚摸的猫”是带有相对条款的名词，可提供有关这些名词的更多信息。语言如何标记相对从句有所不同：具有专门的链接单词，例如“ who”或“ that”，单词顺序变化或韵律/音调。在口语语言中，语法结构（例如相对从句）可能会受到广泛的语言接触和多语言主义的影响，从而导致接触中的新品种与单语言品种不同。但是，相对条款正在以签名语言以及双语和语言联系方式进行研究。该项目使用现有的评估工具来确定在这些签名语言中具有高水平双语的社区中，两种签名语言中的相对条款是否变得越来越相似。来自两种签名语言的叙事，对话，描述和语法数据将与不同社区的单语和双语签名者一起收集。相对从句的语法结构和使用将在每种语言中的单语和双语签名者中进行比较，以识别社区特定的语法模式，并确定单语言和双语语言使用之间的任何差异是否是由于双语社区的语法融合所致。该项目共同旨在嘲笑使用语法结构的细微区分，以识别语法上签名的语言双语的结果。这项研究通过提高有关签名语言的科学知识以及社区和个人的使用方式以及增加语言基础架构的方式来有助于我们对作为人类教师的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子和更广泛影响的评估来通过评估来支持的。