Dr. Austin German’s research focuses on Zinacantec Family Homesign (“Z sign”), a sign language developed by three deaf siblings and their hearing extended family members in Zinacantán, a Tsotsil Maya community of highland Chiapas, Mexico. He is broadly interested in (i) the relationship between community structure and language structure, i.e. how the social composition of signing communities influences the grammatical structure of sign languages; and (ii) how variation in the learning environment (e.g., how many language models are available to a learner) influences an individual’s language development. His postdoctoral project, supervised by Professor Diane Brentari, focuses on the morphophonological and morphosyntactic structure of Z sign in comparison to other sign languages, homesign systems, and gestures of non-signing individuals.
Recent Publications
Austin German (2024). Metalinguistic discourse in an emerging sign language. Languages 9(7):240. doi.org/10.3390/languages9070240
Austin German. (2023). Abrupt grammatical change in an emergent sign language: the expression of motion in Zinacantec Family Homesign. Diachronica. doi.org/10.1075/dia.22039.ger
Laura Horton, Lynn Hou, Austin German, & Jenny Singleton. (2023). Sign language socialization and participant frameworks in three indigenous Mesoamerican communities: A qualitative comparative study. Research on Children and Social Interaction. doi.org/10.1558/rcsi.24314
Cornelia Loos, Austin German, Richard P. Meier. (2022) Simultaneous structures in sign languages: acquisition and emergence. Frontiers in Psychology 13:992589. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.992589.