Diane Brentari

Linguist Diane Brentari is Mary K. Werkman Professor, Department of Linguistics and Co-Director of the, Center for Gesture, Sign, and Language at the University of Chicago.

Her research interests address the sign language grammars of Deaf communities around the world—how these languages emerge, and the degree of variation that exists among them. Throughout her career she has analyzed the formal, cognitive, and cultural dimensions that motivate the similarities and differences among these languages.

Her work focuses on sign language structure as a way to better understand the flexibility of the human language capacity in constructing spoken and signed languages, as well as the effects of communication mode (or modality) on language. Her current research has expanded to include analyses of a new protactile language that is emerging in DeafBlind communities in the USA, which includes the modalities of proprioception and touch.