Project Abstract/Summary
Human languages describe events in systematic ways. For example, one would say “Layla ate the apple” and not “The apple ate Layla” to describe an everyday eating event because, in active sentences, English and other languages place the doer of the action (the agent) before the verb and the affected entity (the patient) after. Where do concepts like agent and patient come from? Are they created gradually as a language develops over historical time and then passed down to children when they learn that language? Or are they basic features of human thought that shape the kind of languages that we can create and learn? To answer these questions, this research explores how deaf individuals with no access to an existing language think about events and how event concepts change as a new language evolves. This work contributes to our scientific understanding of the human mind and the origins of languages and provides specific insights into the creation of sign languages and the experiences of linguistically isolated people. This project will contribute to the training of a Deaf scientist, postbaccalaureate research assistants, and undergraduate interns.
The project examines two groups: 1) Homesigners: Deaf people who have not learned a sign language and cannot access the spoken language of their community. Each of these adults has created their own signed system to communicate. 2) Users of a new sign language (NSL) which emerged when Deaf children came together at school. Each group of children to enter the community introduces linguistic complexity that the adults they learn from seem unable to acquire. Accordingly, the NSL older signers represent earlier stages of the language, and younger signers represent later stages. This project will examine the performance of signers from the first three age cohorts, spanning almost 30 years of the language’s development. The tasks that are used assess the conceptualization of event roles (like agent, patient, source and goal) and the conceptualization of event dimensions (like manner and path of motion). If event concepts are available to all humans regardless of linguistic experience, then both homesigners and NSL signers should systematically differentiate these concepts and generalize them appropriately. If these concepts arise from historical processes that gradually shape languages, then these concepts should be absent in all of these groups. An intermediate pattern of emergence is also possible, whereby these concepts might be absent in homesigners and/or older NSL signers, but present in younger signers. This would suggest that such representations arise via a community of users who have the opportunity for iterated learning.
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.
Principal Investigator
Nicole Landi – University of Connecticut located in STORRS, CT
Co-Principal Investigators
Funders
Funding Amount
$244,364.00
Project Start Date
09/01/2022
Project End Date
02/28/2026
Will the project remain active for the next two years?
The project has more than two years remaining
Source: National Science Foundation
Please be advised that recent changes in federal funding schemes may have impacted the project’s scope and status.
Updated: April, 2025