About

Lina Hou is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a faculty member in the Latin American & Iberian Studies Program. Her broad research areas include the documentation and description of sign languages, cognitive-functional and usage-based linguistics, linguistic ethnography focusing on language socialization and language ideologies, and child language acquisition of sign languages. Her current investigations involve multi-word expressions and complex constructions in American Sign Language, the use of internet data for understanding usage and communities of practice, and issues of inclusion and social justice within sign language linguistics.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Linguistics
• Philosophy
• Anthropology
• Psychology
• Mathematics

Selected publications

• How to crip your sign language linguistic theory

  The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education · 2025-05-02 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The language practices and experiences of racially and ethnically minoritized users of signed languages have been largely ignored or marginalized within signed language linguistics. We bring a critical disability raciolinguistic perspective to crip linguistics to interrogate the White colonial logics, including essentialized competence, boundedness, and homogeneity, that underlie the foundation of signed language linguistics. We then consider some assumptions which would need to be rejected and embraced to work toward a crip linguistic theory. We conclude that a critical disability raciolinguistic-compatible coalitional linguistic theory that enacts a crip ethos toward language is one that we can and must try to manifest.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Manifesting a Crip Linguistic Theory through a Critical Disability Raciolinguistic Perspective

  2024-05-02 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The language practices and experiences of ethnically and racially minoritized users of signed languages have been ignored and marginalized within sign language linguistics. We try to explain why, giving some historical grounding and locating the issue in the theoretical assumptions from socially dominant approaches to linguistics in North America. We bring a Critical Disability Raciolinguistic perspective (Cioè-Peña 2021) to Crip Linguistics (Henner & Robinson 2023), and show how this approach undoes the harmful logics inherited from hegemonic spoken language linguistic theories. We then consider some assumptions which would need to be rejected and embraced in order to work toward a Crip Linguistic Theory. We conclude that a linguistic theory which enacts Jon Henner’s ethos towards language is one that we can and must try to manifest.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Critically Examining Inclusion and Parity for Deaf Global South Researchers of Colour in the Field of Sign Language Linguistics

  2024-03-21 · 9 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract There is a problem with the inclusion of deaf researchers particularly when it comes to racial parity in sign language research. This chapter foregrounds the discussion to examine the particular case of some deaf researchers from the majority People of Colour Global South. The chapter uses a multipronged methodology, starting with auto-ethnographic data to describe how the authors arrived at the point of carrying out this research. Secondly, an analysis of the recent meetings of a major sign language conference was conducted. Finally, the authors conducted individual interviews of and group discussions among deaf researchers of colour in the Global South and examined certain emerging themes. The chapter ends with concrete suggestions and actions for improving equity and parity for these researchers, which the authors argue is critical for improving the field of sign language linguistics.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Giving oranges and puppies: Children’s production of directional verbs in an emerging sign language from Oaxaca

  First Language · 2024-01-27 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Children’s acquisition of directional verbs in sign languages has received a lot of attention, but less is known about the sociocultural process of using these verbs, especially in the context of emerging sign languages in diverse language ecologies. Directional verbs are a common grammatical phenomenon of many sign languages in which some verbs such as ‘to give’ and ‘to take’ can move in the direction of one or more of its arguments for indicating grammatical relations between agents and patients or recipients. I discuss the case study of one signing family who uses ‘making hands’, an emic term for the signing practices of deaf Chatino people and their families in the San Juan Quiahije municipality in Oaxaca, Mexico. The family in question consists of a first-generation adult signer and two second-generation child signers, aged 4;6 and 5;3. This article describes their usage of directional verbs for making explicit requests, asking questions, and talking about hypothetical events, including presenting or withholding gifts as part of the cultural understandings and practices of the allocations of goods. Ethnographic data reveals that the children’s production of verbs may be facilitated by directed input in the form of directives from a deaf adult signer, extensive peer play, and visual access to signed adult interactions. This case study offers insight about input and socialization for the children’s usage of directional verbs in an emerging sign language in a local Mesoamerican ecology.

  PublisherDOI

• “SORRY HARD UNDERSTAND STRONG ACCENT!”: Racial Dynamics of Deaf Scholars of Color Working with White Female Interpreters

  2023-02-21 · 1 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Luminos is University of California Press’ Open Access publishing program for monographs. With the same high standards for selection, peer review, production and marketing as our traditional program, Luminos is a transformative model, built as a partnership where costs and benefits are shared.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Deaf Communities

  2023-03-21 · 4 citations

  otherOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• L2 Learners’ Signed Language Processing Relates, in Part, to Perspective‐Taking Skills

  Language Learning · 2023-11-23 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract The comprehension of signed language requires linguistic and visual–spatial processing, such as perspective‐taking for correctly interpreting the layout of a spatial scene. However, little is known about how adult second‐language (L2) learners process visual–spatial constructions in a signed language that they are studying, including which angles of viewing are most challenging to process and whether there are relationships between perspective‐taking and the comprehension of non‐spatial (i.e., non‐scene based) constructions. We examine the performance of 95 intermediate signers of American Sign Language (ASL) on linguistic and non‐linguistic perspective‐taking tests. Half the participants completed a test of narrative comprehension that included visual–spatial scenes, and half took a test of signed phonological and morphophonological discrimination. Performance on linguistic perspective‐taking correlated moderately with performance on the narrative, but not with the discrimination test. These findings support the claim that perspective‐taking skills are yoked to some—but not all—aspects of signed language learning.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Usage-based grammar: Multi-word expressions in American Sign Language

  2023-07-10 · 3 citations

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• 8. “SORRY HARD UNDERSTAND STRONG ACCENT!”: Racial Dynamics of Deaf Scholars of Color Working with White Female Interpreters

  2023-04-17 · 1 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Sign language socialization and participant frameworks in three indigenous Mesoamerican communities

  Research on Children and Social Interaction · 2023-12-21 · 9 citations

  article

  This article provides a cross-cultural study of language socialization through sign language in three indigenous Mesoamerican communities. We explore whether child signers are socialized to use visual communicative practices as participants or observers. We present four conversations that illustrate how child signers are socialized into these practices. Child signers in our study acquire appropriate visual practices, even when they are primarily observers. But sign language socialization practices may be distinct from broader patterns of spoken language socialization in terms of participant frameworks. We find that recognition of child signers as full participants in sign conversation is shaped by a constellation of local child-rearing beliefs and language ecology dynamics.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Annelies Kusters

  Heriot-Watt University

  6 shared

• Kristian Ali

  University of the West Indies

  4 shared

• Ryan Lepic

  3 shared

• Jenny L. Singleton

  Stony Brook University

  3 shared

• Erin Wilkinson

  3 shared

• David Quinto‐Pozos

  The University of Texas at Austin

  3 shared

• Peter C. Hauser

  Rochester Institute of Technology

  2 shared

• Rezenet Moges

  2 shared

Labs

• Latin American & Iberian Studies ProgramPI