Richard P Meier
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 739169 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Richard P Meier |
| NOMBRES | Richard P |
| APELLIDO | Meier |
| FIRMA | MEIER R P |
| AFILIACIONES | The University of Texas at Austin |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0852-1954 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 18 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 21 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 18 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1990 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 3 |
New insights into nineteenth-century ASL
The study of language change in American Sign Language (ASL) has been constrained by a limited historical record. Here we present five case studies that demonstrate how applying a broad set of historical methods, together with the consultation of underutilized sources of sign data, can shed new light on ASL in the 19th century. These case studies cover aspects of two subsystems of ASL, (i) the fingerspelling alphabet and (ii) the numeral system, …
Diachrony and Diachronica
The Structure and Geography of the ASL Signing Community in the Mid-Nineteenth Century
In the early decades of the 19th century, the deaf population in the eastern US and Canada was distributed across a vast area. After the 1817 founding of the American School for the Deaf (ASD) in Hartford, CT and the subsequent establishment of schools for the deaf in New York City (NYSD), Philadelphia, and many other US states, hundreds of deaf students called these schools home for several years. After leaving school, the early American Deaf co…
A case study of the American Sign Language patterns of a natively-exposed Deaf autistic signer
Research on the acquisition of American Sign Language (ASL) by deaf autistic children has documented similarities to the linguistic profile of hearing children on the autism spectrum and has identified sign-specific phenomena that could serve as clinical markers of autism in the deaf population. However, the acquisition of a signed language by deaf autistic individuals whose language use appears to be at age-level is not well documented. Here we …
The historical demography of the Martha’s Vineyard signing community
The deaf population of Martha’s Vineyard has fascinated scholars for more than a century since Alexander Graham Bell’s research on the frequent occurrence of deafness there and since Groce’s book on the island’s signing community (Groce, N. E. (1985). Everyone here spoke sign language: Hereditary deafness on Martha’s Vineyard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.). In Groce’s work, and in that of subsequent scholars, the Vineyard signing comm…
Demographics in the formation of language communities and in the emergence of languages
How may the structure of a new linguistic community shape language emergence and change? The 1817 founding of the US's first enduring school for the deaf, the American School for the Deaf (ASD) in Hartford, Connecticut, heralded profound changes in the lives of deaf North Americans. We report the demographics of the early signing community at ASD through quantitative analyses of the 1,700 students who attended the school during its first fifty ye…
Reproducible research in linguistics
This paper is a position statement on reproducible research in linguistics, including data citation and attribution, that represents the collective views of some 41 colleagues. Reproducibility can play a key role in increasing verification and accountability in linguistic research, and is a hallmark of social science research that is currently under-represented in our field. We believe that we need to take time as a discipline to clearly articula…
Genie’s middle-finger points and signs
The ubiquity of index-finger pointing, and its early emergence in child development, has suggested that such pointing may be biologically-determined. However, cross-cultural variation in the form of pointing has also been noted, with some observations of middle-finger pointing. Here we examine the limited corpus of publically-available video data on the signs and gestures of Genie, a child who suffered severe social and linguistic deprivation thr…
"We Communicated That Way for a Reason"
Families with deaf parents and hearing children are often bilingual and bimodal, with both a spoken language and a signed one in regular use among family members. When interviewed, 13 American hearing adults with deaf parents reported widely varying language practices, sign language abilities, and social affiliations with Deaf and Hearing communities. Despite this variation, the interviewees' moral judgments of their own and others' communicative…
Language and modality
On the linguistic status of ‘agreement’ in sign languages
In signed languages, the arguments of verbs can be marked by a system of verbal modification that has been termed "agreement" (more neutrally, "directionality"). Fundamental issues regarding directionality remain unresolved and the phenomenon has characteristics that call into question its analysis as agreement. We conclude that directionality marks person in American Sign Language, and the ways person marking interacts with syntactic phenomena a…
Response to Commentaries
Channeling language
Prelinguistic Gesture Predicts Mastery and Error in the Production of Early Signs
We explore the predictors of early mastery versus error in children's acquisition of American Sign Language. We hypothesize that the most frequent values for a particular parameter in prelinguistic gesture will be the most frequent in early signs and the most likely sources of substitution when signing children make errors. Analyses of data from a longitudinal study of the prelinguistic gestures of five Deaf and five hearing children and a longit…
The Language Instinct
The Phonetics of Fingerspelling
Universal Grammar and American Sign Language
1. Universal Grammar and American Sign Language.- 1. Introduction.- 1.1 Rationale.- 1.2 Syntax.- 1.3 Acquisition.- 1.4 Summary.- 2. The Theoretical Framework: Government and Binding.- 2.1 General Directions.- 2.2 Principles and Sub-Theories.- 2.2.1 Government Theory.- 2.2.2 Theta-Theory (and the Projection Principle).- 2.2.3 Binding Theory.- 2.3 Empty Categories.- 2.3.1 The Syntactic Reality of Empty Categories.- 2.3.2 Typology of Empty Categorie…
Out of the Hands of Babes
Recent research has examined the early stages of language development in signed and spoken language. In this paper we discuss claims that, in the timing of early language milestones, there is an advantage for the acquisition of signed languages. In particular, we will review the evidence that the emergence of the first signs and of the first twosign combinations is precocious in signing children as compared to the appearance of the first words an…
Reproducible research in linguistics
This paper is a position statement on reproducible research in linguistics, including data citation and attribution, that represents the collective views of some 41 colleagues. Reproducibility can play a key role in increasing verification and accountability in linguistic research, and is a hallmark of social science research that is currently under-represented in our field. We believe that we need to take time as a discipline to clearly articula…
Out of the Hands of Babes
Recent research has examined the early stages of language development in signed and spoken language. In this paper we discuss claims that, in the timing of early language milestones, there is an advantage for the acquisition of signed languages. In particular, we will review the evidence that the emergence of the first signs and of the first twosign combinations is precocious in signing children as compared to the appearance of the first words an…
Prelinguistic Gesture Predicts Mastery and Error in the Production of Early Signs
We explore the predictors of early mastery versus error in children's acquisition of American Sign Language. We hypothesize that the most frequent values for a particular parameter in prelinguistic gesture will be the most frequent in early signs and the most likely sources of substitution when signing children make errors. Analyses of data from a longitudinal study of the prelinguistic gestures of five Deaf and five hearing children and a longit…
Demographics in the formation of language communities and in the emergence of languages
How may the structure of a new linguistic community shape language emergence and change? The 1817 founding of the US's first enduring school for the deaf, the American School for the Deaf (ASD) in Hartford, Connecticut, heralded profound changes in the lives of deaf North Americans. We report the demographics of the early signing community at ASD through quantitative analyses of the 1,700 students who attended the school during its first fifty ye…
Out of the Hands of Babes
Recent research has examined the early stages of language development in signed and spoken language. In this paper we discuss claims that, in the timing of early language milestones, there is an advantage for the acquisition of signed languages. In particular, we will review the evidence that the emergence of the first signs and of the first twosign combinations is precocious in signing children as compared to the appearance of the first words an…
Universal Grammar and American Sign Language
1. Universal Grammar and American Sign Language.- 1. Introduction.- 1.1 Rationale.- 1.2 Syntax.- 1.3 Acquisition.- 1.4 Summary.- 2. The Theoretical Framework: Government and Binding.- 2.1 General Directions.- 2.2 Principles and Sub-Theories.- 2.2.1 Government Theory.- 2.2.2 Theta-Theory (and the Projection Principle).- 2.2.3 Binding Theory.- 2.3 Empty Categories.- 2.3.1 The Syntactic Reality of Empty Categories.- 2.3.2 Typology of Empty Categorie…
The Phonetics of Fingerspelling
The Language Instinct
Prelinguistic Gesture Predicts Mastery and Error in the Production of Early Signs
We explore the predictors of early mastery versus error in children's acquisition of American Sign Language. We hypothesize that the most frequent values for a particular parameter in prelinguistic gesture will be the most frequent in early signs and the most likely sources of substitution when signing children make errors. Analyses of data from a longitudinal study of the prelinguistic gestures of five Deaf and five hearing children and a longit…
Channeling language
On the linguistic status of ‘agreement’ in sign languages
In signed languages, the arguments of verbs can be marked by a system of verbal modification that has been termed "agreement" (more neutrally, "directionality"). Fundamental issues regarding directionality remain unresolved and the phenomenon has characteristics that call into question its analysis as agreement. We conclude that directionality marks person in American Sign Language, and the ways person marking interacts with syntactic phenomena a…
Response to Commentaries
Language and modality
"We Communicated That Way for a Reason"
Families with deaf parents and hearing children are often bilingual and bimodal, with both a spoken language and a signed one in regular use among family members. When interviewed, 13 American hearing adults with deaf parents reported widely varying language practices, sign language abilities, and social affiliations with Deaf and Hearing communities. Despite this variation, the interviewees' moral judgments of their own and others' communicative…
Genie’s middle-finger points and signs
The ubiquity of index-finger pointing, and its early emergence in child development, has suggested that such pointing may be biologically-determined. However, cross-cultural variation in the form of pointing has also been noted, with some observations of middle-finger pointing. Here we examine the limited corpus of publically-available video data on the signs and gestures of Genie, a child who suffered severe social and linguistic deprivation thr…
Reproducible research in linguistics
This paper is a position statement on reproducible research in linguistics, including data citation and attribution, that represents the collective views of some 41 colleagues. Reproducibility can play a key role in increasing verification and accountability in linguistic research, and is a hallmark of social science research that is currently under-represented in our field. We believe that we need to take time as a discipline to clearly articula…
Demographics in the formation of language communities and in the emergence of languages
How may the structure of a new linguistic community shape language emergence and change? The 1817 founding of the US's first enduring school for the deaf, the American School for the Deaf (ASD) in Hartford, Connecticut, heralded profound changes in the lives of deaf North Americans. We report the demographics of the early signing community at ASD through quantitative analyses of the 1,700 students who attended the school during its first fifty ye…
A case study of the American Sign Language patterns of a natively-exposed Deaf autistic signer
Research on the acquisition of American Sign Language (ASL) by deaf autistic children has documented similarities to the linguistic profile of hearing children on the autism spectrum and has identified sign-specific phenomena that could serve as clinical markers of autism in the deaf population. However, the acquisition of a signed language by deaf autistic individuals whose language use appears to be at age-level is not well documented. Here we …
The historical demography of the Martha’s Vineyard signing community
The deaf population of Martha’s Vineyard has fascinated scholars for more than a century since Alexander Graham Bell’s research on the frequent occurrence of deafness there and since Groce’s book on the island’s signing community (Groce, N. E. (1985). Everyone here spoke sign language: Hereditary deafness on Martha’s Vineyard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.). In Groce’s work, and in that of subsequent scholars, the Vineyard signing comm…
Diachrony and Diachronica
The Structure and Geography of the ASL Signing Community in the Mid-Nineteenth Century
In the early decades of the 19th century, the deaf population in the eastern US and Canada was distributed across a vast area. After the 1817 founding of the American School for the Deaf (ASD) in Hartford, CT and the subsequent establishment of schools for the deaf in New York City (NYSD), Philadelphia, and many other US states, hundreds of deaf students called these schools home for several years. After leaving school, the early American Deaf co…
New insights into nineteenth-century ASL
The study of language change in American Sign Language (ASL) has been constrained by a limited historical record. Here we present five case studies that demonstrate how applying a broad set of historical methods, together with the consultation of underutilized sources of sign data, can shed new light on ASL in the 19th century. These case studies cover aspects of two subsystems of ASL, (i) the fingerspelling alphabet and (ii) the numeral system, …
Linguistics (15 obras) · Hearing Impairment and Communication (13 obras) · Philosophy (11 obras) · Psychology (11 obras) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (9 obras) · Computer Science (8 obras) · Sign language (8 obras) · Mathematics (7 obras) · American Sign Language (5 obras) · Sign (mathematics) (5 obras)