Austin German, PhD

Austin German, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow in Linguistics at the University of Chicago

Research

Journal articles

  • Austin German (2024). Metalinguistic discourse in an emerging sign language. Languages 9(7):240. doi.org/10.3390/languages9070240 (Part of special issue “Coexpressivity, Gesture, and Language Emergence: Modality, Composition, and Creation”)

  • Austin German. (2023). Abrupt grammatical change in an emergent sign language: the expression of motion in Zinacantec Family Homesign. Diachronica. doi.org/10.1075/dia.22039.ger

  • Laura Horton, Lynn Hou, Austin German, & Jenny Singleton. (2023). Sign language socialization and participant frameworks in three indigenous Mesoamerican communities: A qualitative comparative study. Research on Children and Social Interaction. doi.org/10.1558/rcsi.24314

  • Cornelia Loos, Austin German, Richard P. Meier. (2022) Simultaneous structures in sign languages: acquisition and emergence. Frontiers in Psychology 13:992589. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.992589.

  • Gabriela Caballero & Austin German. Grammatical tone patterns in Choguita Rarámuri (Tarahumara). (2021) International Journal of American Linguistics 87:2, pp. 149-178. doi.org/10.1086/712980.

Book chapters

  • Austin German. (under review). Serial verb constructions in Zinacantec Family Homesign.

Dissertation

  • Austin German. The emergence of linguistic structure in Zinacantec Family Homesign.

Conference presentations

  • Austin German. (2023). Convencionalización lexica en una lengua de señas emergente de Zinacantán. Tenth Conference on Indigenous Languages of Latin America (CILLA-X). The University of Texas at Austin. November 9-11.

  • Austin German. (2022). The emergence of combinatorial structure in Zinacantec Family Homesign. Paper presentation at the 96th Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Society of America. January 6-9. Washington, D.C.

  • Austin German. (2021). The emergence of segmentation in Zinacantec Family Homesign. Paper presentation at the 20th meeting of the Texas Linguistics Society. March 5-6. The University of Texas at Austin.

  • Austin German. (2019). Grammatical development in a Mayan sign language. Paper presentation at the Ninth Conference on Indigenous Languages of Latin America (CILLA-IX). The University of Texas at Austin. October 10-12.

  • Gabriela Caballero & Austin German. (2019). Grammatical tone patterns in Choguita Rarámuri (Tarahumara). Paper presentation at the Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA). January 6-12. New York, NY.

Conference Posters

  • Austin German. (2022). Evidence of an emergent classifier system in Zinacantec Family Homesign. 14th conference on Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research (TISLR14). National Museum of Ethnology (MINPAKU). Osaka, Japan. September 27-29.

  • Austin German. (2022). The roots of spatial grammar in Zinacantec Family Homesign. 14th conference on Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research (TISLR14). National Museum of Ethnology (MINPAKU). Osaka, Japan. September 27-29.

  • Lynn Y.S. Hou, Laura Horton, Austin German, & Jenny Singleton. (2021). Sign Language Socialization in Three Indigenous Mesoamerican Communities: A Qualitative Comparative Study. 46th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. Virtual Conference. November 4-7.

  • Austin German. (2019). Emerging functions of manual holds in Zinacantec Family Homesign. 13th conference on Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research (TISLR13). Universität Hamburg. Hamburg, Germany. September 26-28.

  • Austin German. (2018). Eye gaze and simultaneous constructions in Zinacantec Family Homesign. 8th annual meeting of the International Society for Gesture Studies (ISGS8). Cape Town, South Africa. July 4-8.

Workshop presentations

  • Austin German. (2023). Discurso metalingüístico en la Z: el rol de la coexpresividad en la emergencia del lenguaje. Workshop on Co-expression and Multimodality in Linguistic Interaction in Mesoamerica. Centro de Investigaciones Multidisciplinarias sobre Chiapas y la Frontera Sur, Universidad Autónoma de México (CIMSUR-UNAM). San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico. April 12-14.

  • Austin German. (2022). Simultaneity and sequentiality in signed languages: with examples from an emerging signed language. The Study of Signed Languages: Implications of Linguistic Typology. Workshop at the 2022 Conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology (ALT2022).

  • Austin German. (2022). Evidence of an emergent classifier system in Zinacantec Family Homesign. Cognitive and Cultural Influences on Language Emergence. Virtual workshop. May 25-27. Video of presentation in English with auto-captions and International Sign interpretation.

  • Austin German. (2020). Estructura secuencial en la interacción Z. Workshop on Co-expression and Multimodality in Linguistic Interaction in Mesoamerica. Virtual meeting. September 2-3.

  • Austin German. (2020). Canales articulatorios y espacios conceptuales en la interacción Z. Workshop on Co-expression and Multimodality in Linguistic Interaction in Mesoamerica. Centro de Investigaciones Multidisciplinarias sobre Chiapas y la Frontera Sur, Universidad Autónoma de México (CIMSUR-UNAM). San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico. February 1-6.