We invite the UCLA community to meet Jenny Lu, a candidate for the first UCLA Disability Studies and Institute for Society and Genetics faculty position.

Lecture Description:

There are numerous ways to make a reference, such as directing one’s gaze to a pen on the table or pointing with an index finger towards the pen. These deictic forms are interpreted in context, and can carve up discrete categories between the self and others (e.g., I/ you) or represent abstract objects, time, and space (today/ tomorrow, here/ there). What aspects of a deictic system are learned, and what aspects are intuitive and developed on a fixed biological and maturational timetable? To understand these theoretical questions in cognitive science and linguistics, I first present a series of studies that analyze the use of deixis in naturalistic corpus data of deaf and hearing children acquiring ASL and English. The critical comparison is whether deaf children situated at home without input to a conventional language but innovate homesign show the same properties of deixis over time.

To better understand how language and the body are constructed in specific environmental and social-political contexts, I present a second line of research on a unique site of socialization during a historically unprecedented time when a new language is emerging. This language is called Protactile, which operates within contact space and adheres to a set of tactile principles of communication. I study socialization processes and interactions between DeafBlind children and adults, which lays the groundwork for a deictic system in the tactile channel.

This talk concludes with future directions in investigating how low-level interaction with space can co-develop with specific contingent systems of power in institutions through fieldwork at two distinct DeafBlind communities in the US. This multidimensional work has implications for understanding how social roles, language, and material factors construct disability and condition everyday behavior.

Biography:

Dr. Jenny Lu is a cognitive scientist who is interested in how the body and language are constructed across ontogenetic and historical time. Her early work focused on the emergence of pointing in communication – deixis – and how this system develops in a wide range of linguistic environments. To better understand the environmental and social foundations of language, her recent research has investigated socialization processes and interactions between DeafBlind children and adults at a unique site of Protactile language emergence. Her ongoing work explores how contingent systems of power and social roles, on the lower level, shape subjective embodiment, such as movement through space. Drawing from interdisciplinary methods, including analyses of naturalistic corpus data, ethnographic fieldnotes, experiments, and cross-linguistic typological comparisons, we can elucidate the cognitive and social mechanisms of human development.

Dr. Lu aims to apply cognitive science and anthropological theories to public policy, especially pertaining to disability rights. She currently works in public policy at the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, where she advocates for transportation designs that align with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) framework. She also organizes an ASL political education reading group on topics relating to labor, disability, and the political economy. Dr. Lu received her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Chicago, and did her postdoctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation was awarded the Saller Dissertation Prize at UChicago. She has numerous co-authored publications in Languages, Frontiers in Psychology, Developmental Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences, Handbook of Pronouns, and the Journal of Child Language. She has received generous funding from the National Science Foundation, Institute of Education Sciences, Fulbright, and American Psychological Association.

Event Details:

Lecture will be held from 12-1pm. The candidate will be available for additional Q&A and networking from 1-1:30pm. Lunch will be served, RSVP required.