Diane K Brentari
Areas of Study: Department of Linguistics Website: https://signlanguagelab.uchicago.edu/ Contact: Email
Dr. Diane Brentari’s research interests address the sign language grammars of Deaf communities around the world—how these languages emerge, and the degree of variation that exists among them. Throughout her career she has analyzed the formal, cognitive, and cultural dimensions that motivate the similarities and differences among these languages.
Her work focuses on sign language structure as a way to better understand the flexibility of the human language capacity in constructing spoken and signed languages, as well as the effects of communication mode (or modality) on language. Her current research has expanded to include analyses of a new protactile language that is emerging in DeafBlind communities in the USA, which includes the modalities of proprioception and touch.
Brentari is a fellow of the Linguistic Society of America, a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.