Research at the Sign Language Centre

History of sign language research

Sign languages have been studied within the framework of modern linguistics since the 1950s. Sign language research in Finland began in the 1980s, and the University of Jyväskylä has been conducting sign language research since the 1990s. Since 2010, sign language research has been carried out by the Sign Language Centre, which is based on a special national task granted to the University of Jyväskylä by the Ministry of Education and Culture. 

General aim of the research

The Sign Language Centre is an internationally recognized research unit in the field of sign language. The main objective of the research carried out at the Centre is to promote the study and documentation of the diversity of sign languages and thereby increase the participation of sign language users in society and its activities. The results and resources of this research are shared openly and transparently.

Research areas

Research at the Centre has two main areas of focus. These are basic research on the structure and use of sign language and applied research on sign language acquisition and multilingualism. These areas are motivated by the strategic research goals of the University of Jyväskylä and the Department of Language and Communication Studies on the one hand, and the concrete information needs of the sign language field on the other.

Infrastructures

The Sign Language Centre is building an open research infrastructure, the multimedia corpus of the Sign Language's of Finland. The corpus contains computer-readable material on both Finnish and Finland-Swedish Sign Languages. The corpus will increase the generalizability of research data and also serve as a documentation of both languages. The Centre has developed a comprehensive web-based assessment tool to evaluate children's sign language skills.

Methods and technologies

Through its networks, the Centre is actively involved in the development of new qualitative and quantitative research methods. The Centre's research also makes use of the latest technologies, such as motion capture and brain imaging. Through the development of methods and the use of technologies, a whole new understanding of sign language, and ultimately of the phenomenon of language itself, will be gained.