As part of SALT34, the SALT Equity and Diversity Committee (SALTED) and the SALT34 organizing committee will hold a workshop: Spotlighting sign languages in semantics.

Sign languages have an important role to play in generative linguistics and especially in semantics. For instance, features of logical vocabulary that have been posited based on indirect evidence from spoken languages are overtly realized in sign languages, thus giving us key insights into foundational issues in semantics (Schlenker 2018a,b, Schlenker et al. 2023, Zucchi 2012; among many others).

At the same time, it is worth considering how to make academic spaces, such as conferences, more accessible to sign language users who are deaf or hard of hearing in order to facilitate more equitable participation in academic discourse. Providing access services for deaf participants is an important but challenging component of conference organization, often due to constraints of budget and qualified personnel.

The goals of this workshop are twofold. First, we aim to highlight the importance of sign language and signed modality within the field of semantics. Second, we will address questions of accessibility for members of the linguistic community who are deaf or hard of hearing in order to provide semanticists with information on how to make their academic presentations and conferences more accessible and how to access institutional support for access services.. We bring together panelists whose research focuses on sign languages to present some of their work.

Significance

• Which questions do signed languages raise for semantic theory?
• What have we, semanticists, learned from signed languages so far?
• What conclusions can we draw about modality independent language semantics?
• What are the unique challenges in conducting research on the semantics of signed languages? And how can these be mitigated?

Accessibility

• What pathways are there for deaf participants to receive quality access to academic conferences?
• What barriers stand in the way of providing these access services?
• How can conference organizers make their conferences as accessible as possible?
• What resources are available for academics wanting to make their presentations more accessible?

More information about the workshop will be available in the near future.