Protactile Research Network
Academic Publications
(2021) The Grammatical Incorporation of Demonstratives in an Emerging Tactile Language
In this article, we analyze the grammatical incorporation of demonstratives in a tactile language, emerging in communities of DeafBlind signers in the US who communicate via reciprocal, tactile channels—a practice known as “protactile.” In the first part of the paper, we report on a synchronic analysis of recent data, identifying four types of “taps,” which have taken on different functions in protacitle language and communication. In the second part of the paper, we report on a diachronic analysis of data collected over the past 8 years. This analysis reveals the emergence of a new kind of “propriotactic” tap, which has been co-opted by the emerging phonological system of protactile language. We link the emergence of this unit to both demonstrative taps, and backchanneling taps, both of which emerged earlier. We show how these forms are all undergirded by an attention-modulation function, more or less backgrounded, and operating across different semiotic systems. In doing so, we contribute not only to what is known about demonstratives in tactile languages, but also to what is known about the role of demonstratives in the emergence of new languages.
(2021) Intersubjectivity
Intersubjectivity is a relation between subjectivities, which for humans can involve sensory access to each other and the environment, a taken-for-granted sense that participants can adopt reciprocal perspectives in a shared world, the ability to narrow in on objects of attention and reference together, a reflexive grasp of how experiences and entities relate to types of experiences and entities, as well as the prospective and retrospective orientations that implies, language-use and embodied communication, which are useful in drawing attention to the relevant aspects of setting and expressing stances toward them, and finally, recognition of, or orientation to, social and institutional facts. Approaches to intersubjectivity in linguistic anthropology have been developed in response to a range of problems. Depending on the problem being addressed, the elements included, as well as their organization and weighting, will shift. In this entry, key approaches to intersubjectivity are discussed in relation to the main problems they address or presuppose.
(2021). A Protactile-Inspired Wearable Haptic Device for Capturing the Core Functions of Communication.
In this article, a novel wearable haptic device, to be worn on the hand and forearm, is introduced. Using the modalities of vibration, pressure, and heat application, the device attempts to replicate four core components of communication. The four components--co-presence, phatic communication, back-channeling, and direction-giving are simulated through haptic profiles individually unique to a section or combined as an encompassing system of the device. This paper evaluates the performance of the device through three testing phases with sighted-hearing and DeafBlind individuals. Results indicate that a strong majority of the tested haptic profiles show statistical significance in replication between individuals. This article is unique in its collaboration with the protactile DeafBlind community, individuals who communicate solely through touch, by furthering understanding on how to generate intuitive tactile profiles in wearable haptic devices.
(2020) Feeling Phonology: The conventionalization of phonology in protactile communities in the United States
A new phonological system is becoming conventional across a group of DeafBlind signers in the United States, who communicate via reciprocal, tactile channels--a practice known as "Protactile". The recent conventionalization of protactile phonology is analyzed in this paper. Research on emergent visual signed languages has demonstrated that conventionalization is not a single monolithic process, but a complex of principles involving patterns of distribution--discreteness, stability, and productivity of form--as form becomes linked with meaning in increasingly stable ways. Conventionalization of protactile phonology involves assigning specific grammatical roles to the four hands (and arms) of Signer 1 ("conveyer") and Signer 2 ("receiver") in "proprioceptive constructions" (PCs)--comparable to "classifier constructions" in visual signed languages. Analyzing PCs offers new insights into how the conventionalization of a phonological system can play out in the tactile modality.
(2019) Kink
“No doubt many of you will want to dismiss my whole argument as a futile exercise in bogus mathematics. I don’t accept that.” –E.R. Leach
In some places, the surface of the world is smooth. Everyday life unfolds and existence is affirmed. In others, it is riddled with gaps, loops, sink holes, and insurmountable blockades. Just being in the world feels like a full time job, and at some point, it becomes impossible to cope. At this limit, existence itself is threatened. Drawing on more than a decade of ethnographic research in DeafBlind communities where the surface of the world is not smooth, this paper asks: What if, using algebra, topology, and a little bit of calculus, this limit could be represented mathematically, and transposed, universally, onto any landscape containing humans in order to localize (and prevent!) existential crisis.
In some places, the surface of the world is smooth. Everyday life unfolds and existence is affirmed. In others, it is riddled with gaps, loops, sink holes, and insurmountable blockades. Just being in the world feels like a full time job, and at some point, it becomes impossible to cope. At this limit, existence itself is threatened. Drawing on more than a decade of ethnographic research in DeafBlind communities where the surface of the world is not smooth, this paper asks: What if, using algebra, topology, and a little bit of calculus, this limit could be represented mathematically, and transposed, universally, onto any landscape containing humans in order to localize (and prevent!) existential crisis.
(2018) Re-channeling Language: The mutual restructuring of language and infrastructure at Gallaudet University
This article is concerned with the re-channeling of language. It asks: what role does the material environment play in turning a visual language into a tactile language? To pursue that question, I examine language and infrastructure among DeafBlind people at Gallaudet University. Since 2005, new walkways, buildings, furniture, and other aspects of the local urban landscape have been designed with the practices of Deaf people in mind. Recently, under the influence of the protactile movement, attention has turned to the tactile dimensions of design. As advisors, practitioners, and consultants contributing to these efforts, DeafBlind people seek not only to broaden the range of sensory channels linking them to their environment, but also to create environments that reinforce those connections across linguistic, sensory, and environmental domains. Drawing on the notion of “channel” as it has been applied and developed in linguistic anthropology, the study of signed languages, and among scholars interested in embodied interaction, I argue that the re-channeling of language among DeafBlind people at Gallaudet implicates channels of transmission. It cannot, however, be reduced to an effect of their affordances. Rather, the signer’s perceptions of what is possible in communication are shaped by more general perceptions of what is possible in life, and what is possible in life depends on infrastructure.
(2017) Sign-Creation in the Seattle DeafBlind Community: A triumphant story about the regeneration of obviousness
This article examines the social and interactional foundations of sign-creation among DeafBlind people in Seattle, Washington. Linguists studying signed languages have proposed models of sign-creation that involve the selection of an iconic gestural representation of the referent which is subjected to grammatical constraints and is thereby incorporated into the linguistic system. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork and more than 190 hours of video recordings of interaction and language use, I argue that a key interactional mechanism driving processes of sign-creation among DeafBlind people in Seattle is deictic integration. Deictic integration restricts the range of contextual values that the grammar can retrieve by coordinating systems of reference with patterns in activity. This process brings language into alignment with the world as it is perceived by the users of that language, making a range of potentially iconic relations available for selection in the creation of new signs.
(2015) Bridging the Gap between DeafBlind Minds: Interactional and social foundations of intention attribution in the Seattle DeafBlind community
This article is concerned with social and interactional processes that simplify pragmatic acts of intention attribution. The empirical focus is a series of interactions among DeafBlind people in Seattle, Washington, where pointing signs are used to individuate objects of reference in the immediate environment. Most members of this community are born deaf and slowly become blind. They come to Seattle using Visual American Sign Language, which has emerged and developed in a field organized around visual modes of access. As vision deteriorates, however, links between deictic signs (such as pointing) and the present, remembered, or imagined environment erode in idiosyncratic ways across the community of language-users, and as a result, it becomes increasingly difficult for participants to converge on objects of reference. In the past, DeafBlind people addressed this problem by relying on sighted interpreters. Under the influence of the recent “pro-tactile” movement, they have turned instead to one another to find new solutions to these referential problems. Drawing on analyses of 120h of videorecorded interaction and language-use, detailed fieldnotes collected during 12 months of sustained anthropological fieldwork, and more than 15 years of involvement in this community in a range of capacities, I argue that DeafBlind people are generating new and reciprocal modes of access to their environment, and this process is aligning language with context in novel ways. I discuss two mechanisms that can account for this process: embedding in the social field and deictic integration. I argue that together, these social and interactional processes yield a deictic system set to retrieve a restricted range of values from the extra-linguistic context, thereby attenuating the cognitive demands of intention attribution and narrowing the gap between DeafBlind minds.
(2014) From Compensation to Integration: The effects of the pro-tactile movement on the sub-lexical structure of Tactile American Sign Language
This article examines a divergence in the sublexical structure of Visual American Sign Language (VASL) and Tactile American Sign Language (TASL). My central claim is that TASL is a language, not just a relay for VASL. In order to make that case, I show how changes in the structure of interaction, driven by the aims of the ‘‘pro-tactile’’ social movement, contributed to a redistribution of complexity across grammatical sub-systems. I argue that these changes constitute a departure from the structure of VASL and the emergence of a new, tactile language. In doing so, I apprehend language emergence not as a ‘‘liberation’’ from context, but as a process of contextual integration.
(2014) Language Emergence in the Seattle DeafBlind Community (Dissertation)
This dissertation examines the social and interactional foundations of a grammatical divergence between Tactile American Sign Language (TASL) and Visual American Sign Language (VASL) in the Seattle DeafBlind community. I argue that as a result of the pro-tactile movement, structures of interaction have been reconfigured and a new language has be- gun to emerge. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic research, more than 190 hours of videorecordings of interaction and language use, 50 interviews with members of the community, and more than 14 years of involvement in a range of capacities, I analyze this social transformation and its effect on the semiotic organization of TASL.
Training and Educational Resources
Protactile Linguistics
Protactile Experts Jelica Nuccio and John Lee Clark discuss recent research findings.
Protactile Principles
aj granda and Jelica Nuccio explain the core principles of protactile communication, provide background about how the principles were developed, and explain how they are intended to be used as an educational resource. Videos and text descriptions are provided to illustrate proper and improper application of the principles.
John Lee Clark
Notes from a DeafBlind Writer
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