Naomi Shin
University of New Mexico, NM·Social Science
Every language has words like 'this' and 'that', called demonstratives. Speakers use them to steer a listener's attention, as in 'this book is heavy.' Because all languages have them and they serve the same basic job, demonstratives are a useful window into what all languages share and why they differ.
- Fields
Social Science
Psychology
- Topics
linguistics
demonstratives
bilingualism
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Test whether the listener's location affects a speaker's choice of demonstratives ('this/that'), predicting stronger effects in languages with more demonstrative terms, through experiments that vary where the listener is.
- Test whether the listener's attention to an object shapes demonstrative choice across languages, through experiments that vary shared attention, to see whether this effect is universal.
- Compare bilinguals in three communities, tested in both languages with a language dominance assessment, to learn how dominance predicts the way their two languages interact.
More about the research
Languages differ in how many demonstratives they have. English has two, while Spanish has three (este, ese, aquel). One puzzle is the role of the listener, or addressee. Does a speaker choose 'this' or 'that' based only on where an object is relative to herself? Or does it also depend on where the listener stands and what the listener is looking at? Past studies found such listener effects in some languages but not others.
Why it matters
Comparing demonstratives across languages helps reveal which features of language are universal and which vary, and how bilinguals' two languages shape each other. The project could improve methods for studying bilingual speakers worldwide. Bilingual communities and educators may benefit from the workshops, teaching materials and plain-language newsletters that share the findings.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Kyle Mahowald
University of Texas at Austin, TX·Social Science
Measure how speakers of a variety of languages choose deictic words such as "this," "that," "here," and "there" to refer to objects and locations, using cross-linguistic behavioral experiments.
Eleonora Rossi
University of Florida, FL·Psychology
Test whether the composition and structure of heritage Spanish speakers' personal social networks, mapped through network interviews, predict their written and oral fluency in Spanish and English.
Diti Bhadra
University of Minnesota, MN·Social Science·Early-career
Analyze how modal discourse particles, small words signaling possibility, necessity or evidence, combine with the clauses they attach to, using fieldwork with speakers of four understudied languages.
The school
University of New Mexico: 27 labs on PI Pages, $355M a year on research, 182 research doctorates a year.
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