Spatial Language across Signers and Speakers

Sign languages use real space and iconic structures as means to express spatial descriptions. For example, to represent a pencil next to a piece of paper, signers may use one hand to represent the shape of the paper sheet, the other to represent the pencil, and configure both hands next to each other in analogue way as the actual referent. Spoken languages, in contrast, do not use such iconic structures but they may do so in their accompanying gestures.

The aim of my research is to investigate whether using different languages form birth changes the way signers and speakers communicate spatial information. More specifically, I investigate whether using multimodal means of communication as in sign and co-speech gesture provides more information about spatial relations above and beyond what can be conveyed via speech alone.

This project is supported by a Vici Grant (2015-2020) for the project "Giving cognition a hand: Linking spatial cognition to linguistic expression in native and late learners of sign language and bimodal bilinguals", awarded to Prof. Aslı Özyürek.