Dr. Marie Coppola's Research
Marie Coppola is a sign language, homesign, and gesture researcher in the Goldin-Meadow Laboratory at the University of Chicago. Since 1994, she has conducted psycholinguistic research in Nicaragua with deaf children, adolescents, and adults. These individuals represent a unique population because they are unable to hear the spoken language around them and they do not have access to special education schools where they would be able to learn Nicaraguan Sign Language. The gestures such individuals use to communicate with their friends and family, called 'home signs,' are created spontaneously, without any language input. Homesign systems show many language-like properties: at the word-level (morphological), sentence-level (syntactic), and discourse level. By examining homesign systems, Marie and her colleagues have furthered our understanding of which aspects of language structure can develop without the benefit of linguistic input and which must be acquired through exposure to a language model.
Homesigns provide a fascinating glimpse into human beings' innate drive and ability to communicate. Home sign systems were the raw materials of Nicaraguan Sign Language, which emerged from the interaction of homesigners in Managua in the late 1970s, and which is now one of Nicaragua’s official languages.
Websites About NSL Research:
Ann Senghas’ Language Acquisition and Development Laboratory
History of Nicaraguan Sign Language
Research Articles by Coppola & Colleagues
Grammatical Subjects in home sign: Abstract linguistic structure in adult primary gesture systems without linguistic input (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
Intergenerational influence and ontogenetic development in the emergence of spatial grammar in Nicaraguan Sign Language (Cognitive Development)
The Seeds of Spatial Grammar in the Manual Modality (Cognitive Science)
Children Creating Language: How Nicaraguan Sign Language Acquired a Spatial Grammar (Psychological Science)