Event Description in Sign Language and Gesture

A central role of human communication is to talk about the world and its surroundings. This is true of spoken language communication, but it is also true of sign language communication and of the human communication that takes place in gesture, the natural movements of our hands, face, and body when humans communicate. This project investigates how signers and gesturers communicate about everyday activities and events. Potential impacts of the project include strengthening the effectiveness of sign language instruction and interpreter education, improving the training available to other service providers such as speech language pathologists, and creating better language and communication interventions for deaf children and their families. Research has shown that speakers systematically and consistently incorporate informational details about events. This project investigates how humans talk about events using other communication systems -- specifically, sign language and gesture. Research participants are video recorded providing descriptions of everyday activities and events, and these recordings undergo annotation and analysis for how certain aspects of those activities and events are incorporated into the communicative description. The scope of the project includes communication in a sign language by deaf signers, communication in gesture by hearing speakers, and communication in a sign language by hearing individuals who are learning it as a second language. Project findings are of interest to linguists, sign language and gesture scholars in other disciplines, as well as language teachers and human service providers in a range of fields. This research contributes to a holistic understanding of how humans communicate in the multiplicity of systems available to them. The project also offers research opportunities for junior scholars from under-represented backgrounds and features research engagement activities with the Deaf community. 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.