Judy Shepard-Kegl

Judy Shepard-Kegl
Born (1953-06-20) June 20, 1953 (age 71)
Evergreen Park, Illinois
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Linguist, full professor
Academic background
Alma materBrown University (BA, MA)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD)
Academic work
DisciplineLinguistics
InstitutionsUniversity of Southern Maine
Notable worksNicaraguan sign language

Judy Shepard-Kegl (born June 20, 1953) is an American linguist and University of Southern Maine professor, best known for their research on the Nicaraguan sign language.

Education

Kegl received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in anthropology and a Master of Arts in linguistics both in 1975 from Brown University. They received a Doctor of Philosophy in linguistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1985.[1]

Their master's thesis was entitled "Some Observations on Bilingualism: A Look at Data from Slovene-English Bilinguals." Their doctoral dissertation was entitled "Locative Relations in American Sign Language Word Formation, Syntax and Discourse."[1][2]

Career

Shepard-Kegl is currently a tenured professor of Linguistics and coordinator of the ASL/English Interpreting Program at the University of Southern Maine.[3]

They have worked and written extensively within their field and are best known for their work and multiple academic publishings on the Nicaraguan Sign Language (or ISN, Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua or Idioma de Signos Nicaragüense), a sign language spontaneously developed by deaf children in a number of schools in western Nicaragua in the 1970s and 1980s.[4][5][6][7]

Selected publications

  • Carol Neidle, Judy Kegl, Dawn MacLaughlin, Benjamin Bahan and Robert G. Lee. 1999. The syntax of American Sign Language. The MIT Press. ISBN ISBN 9780262140676
  • J Kegl, A Senghas, M Coppola. 1999. Creation through contact: Sign language emergence and sign language change in Nicaragua. In: Language Creation and Language Change, ed. by Michael de Graff. The MIT Press. ISBN 9780262041683

References

  1. ^ a b "Judy Kegl | University of Southern Maine - Academia.edu". maine.academia.edu. Archived from the original on 2023-02-03. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
  2. ^ "Alumni and their Dissertations – MIT Linguistics". linguistics.mit.edu. Archived from the original on 2019-03-29. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  3. ^ "Judy Shepard-Kegl Ph.D., NIC-M, SC:L, ED:K-12 | Department of Linguistics | University of Southern Maine". usm.maine.edu. Archived from the original on 2022-05-26. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  4. ^ "Judy Kegl". scholar.google.com. Archived from the original on 2022-03-11. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  5. ^ "The origin of Nicaraguan Sign Language tells us a lot about language creation". The World from PRX. Archived from the original on 2022-03-11. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  6. ^ "Jennie Yang '20 Interviews Judy Kegl about the Birth of a Language in Nicaragua — Linguistics". linguistics.princeton.edu. Archived from the original on 2023-02-03. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  7. ^ Writer, Kelley BouchardStaff (19 March 2018). "Seeing the signs: Renowned USM professor reflects on life-changing language discovery". Archived from the original on 2018-03-19. Retrieved 2022-03-11.