Corpus of grammar and discourse strategies of deaf native users of Auslan (Australian Sign Language)

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide to for the linguistic documentation of endangered language and knowledge. Grantees create multimedia collection of endangered languages. These collections are preserved and made freely available through the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) housed at the library of SOAS University of London.

Auslan (Australian Sign Language) is the native signed language of the deaf community in Australia. It has evolved from forms of British Sign Language, which were brought to Australia in the 19th century. The purpose of this project is to secure a corpus of digital video recordings of naturalistic, controlled and elicited Auslan from deaf native signers, before finding reasonable numbers of such signers becomes increasingly difficult. The number of deaf users of Auslan peaked in the early 1980s at approximately 6,500 and entered a period of decline in the mid 1990s. Predictions are that this decline is accelerating though aging and decreasing incidence rates of permanent early childhood severe and profound deafness and, thus, in the number of new signers. Within a generation the language community may cease to be viable and a relatively 'old' and established signed language will be permanently lost to linguistic science. The corpus will support initial and future corpus-based grammatical description of the language and serve as a basis for comparison with emerging signed languages in newly created deaf communities in the developing world. Primary investigator: Trevor Alexander Johnston

Project Details


Location: Australia, Australia and New Zealand, Oceania Organiser(s): Endangered Languages Documentation Programme Project partner(s): Macquarie University Funder(s): Arcadia Funding received: £73,586.00 Commencement Date: 01/2000
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