Hope Morgan

Hope Morgan is a graduate student in linguistics at UC San Diego and in 2013 successfully completed the program requirements of the Anthropogeny Specialization. Her research focuses on the sub-lexical structure (i.e., phonology) of sign languages. Similar to spoken languages that use the tongue and vocal tract to create words, sign languages use configurations of the hands and face in structured, systematic, and language-specific ways. Hope is interested in the composition of signs and how articulations are mapped to meanings—both in highly iconic signs (e.g., “eat”) and in fully abstract, arbitrary signs (e.g., “experience,” “international”).  Currently, Hope is working on an analysis of Kenyan Sign Language (KSL), which is approximately 50 years old. KSL is a language indigenous to Kenya, borrowing only a small proportion of its vocabulary from American and British Sign Languages. Her recent research reveals that this young language is even more constrained in the complexity of its phonological form than older, more mature sign languages like ASL and BSL.