Welcome!
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Welcome to the Sign Language Research Lab (SLRL), directed by Ted Supalla, PhD. The SLRL is part of the Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery and the Department of Neurology at Georgetown University. Research under Dr. Supalla includes studies of American Sign Language acquisition, processing and history, and the evolution and structure of homesign, international pidgin sign and signed languages of the world.
The Sign Language Research Lab (SLRL) functions as a place of advanced study where students, faculty and invited fellows of Georgetown University conduct research on a range of issues regarding the history, structure, processing and acquisition of signed languages. |
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About Us
Our mission statement is to understand the nature of language and what signed language, in particular, tells us about how the human brain processes linguistic information in the visual-gestural medium.
At the Sign Language Research Lab, we are working towards two major goals: first, to better understand the forces that contribute to language change in signed languages; and second, to identify the underlying mechanisms in the brain responsible for the human ability to learn and use language.
The research projects conducted by the SLRL study questions pertaining to:
We also want to contribute to the growing body of data available to researchers by building an expandable database which includes tools for effective data collection & experimental design, as well as a digital library containing historical and modern sign language data from a variety of related sign languages. This system will constitute not only a unique database of historical ASL data, but a powerful comparative tool for use by researchers from disciplines such as linguistics, cognitive sciences, and social sciences.
The research projects conducted by the SLRL study questions pertaining to:
- Language change and language variation
- Cross-linguistic variation
- Factors that influence language change across time
- How different grammatical structures are processed in the brain
- Emergent properties of new languages grounded in gesture
- How humans transform gesture into linguistic systems
- How signed language is acquired
We also want to contribute to the growing body of data available to researchers by building an expandable database which includes tools for effective data collection & experimental design, as well as a digital library containing historical and modern sign language data from a variety of related sign languages. This system will constitute not only a unique database of historical ASL data, but a powerful comparative tool for use by researchers from disciplines such as linguistics, cognitive sciences, and social sciences.