Progress beyond the state of the art is foreseen in the following areas, with the associated concrete results: 1. Sign Language transmission for most deaf individuals is atypical and thus strongly impacted upon by the lack of comprehensive linguistic knowledge. The creation of online reference grammars and an interactive atlas of sign language structures addresses this challenge. 2. Very few tools are available for assessment of sign language deficits. The tests developed aim at overcoming some of the limitations in existing materials. 3. No systematic attempt at creating a digital archive of elderly signers’ linguistic and cultural heritage exists. The project fills this gap with an archive of their life narratives, thus documenting the recent history of European Deaf communities and the older forms of the sign languages involved, laying the ground for empirically solid micro-diachronic research and study of grammaticalization in the visual modality of language. 4. Assistive technology is still in its infancy especially when considering Deaf and Deafblind populations. We created a multi-accessible place to store, consult and recover information about sign language and Deaf culture.
The expected impacts of the project are diverse. The first one is scientific: (i) it will boost sign language grammar description and analysis; (ii) it will enhance our understanding of the language faculty, so far strongly biased towards spoken languages; (iii) it will trigger new insights into the cognitive processes associated with language acquisition; (iv) it will deepen our understanding of the factors at play in language change; (v) it will help reconstruct and better understand the recent history of European minorities.
The second impact of the project concerns knowledge which informs policies both at the European and the national level: (i) it will provide linguistic grounding of instruments and policies in education, health and social welfare (curricula, education professionals, interpreter training and monitoring, language assessment); (ii) it will inform critical choices for deaf individuals and communities (such as type of schooling or implants) on reliable knowledge; (iii) it will help integrate sign languages into the landscape of European multilingualism.
The third impact will be societal advance: it will support Deaf citizens and communities in exercising their rights, by increasing their visibility and social recognition, strive to change the social perception of signers by removing the stigma of disability, etc.
The fourth impact is concerned with methodology and research strategy: the many-sided approach to the study of European sign languages, their history and their cultural manifestations guarantees a rich and broad combination of methodological perspectives and research strategies.
The fifth impact is technological. The outcomes of the project will be made available online through the use of a customized platform for Deaf users.
The sixth one is the engagement of agents from civil society in research and policy forming at the local, regional, national and European level.
