Curriculum Vitae
Carlo Geraci, Ph.D.
Curriculum Vitae
Current Position
Research Director DR-2, CNRS, Institut Jean-Nicod, Paris (2018 - Present)
Chair of the Sign Language Linguistic Society (2022-2025)
Director of the IJN Sign Language Group
Member of the Department of Cognitive Studies at the École Normale Supérieure, Paris
Research Interests
The main goal of my research is addressing the significance of sign languages in discovering the properties of the human ability for language. I am particularly interested in how sign languages manage complexity in the processing of the linguistic message both at the phono-morphological level and at the syntactic level.
My research develops along different paths trying to find empirical answers to the following questions:
Linguistic theory: what do the grammars of sign languages have to say about the Faculty of language?
Sociolinguistics: How are sign languages in use?
Cognition: what is the impact of sign language use on (language-related) cognitive abilities?
Artificial intelligence: Can we develop tools to increase accessibility for Deaf people?
Collaborations & Research Projects
Dep. of Psychology, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca: research on SL and cognition
Dep. of Computer science, Università degli Studi di Torino: research on automatic translation (project ELISIR)
Dep. of Computer science, Politecnico di Torino: research on automatic translation (project LIS4ALL) and robot hand for Deaf-blind signers (project: PAROMA)
Centro Ricerche e Innovazione Tecnologica RAI (Radio Televisione Italiana): research on signing avatars
Research Experience
Since 2013
Politecnico di Torino: Mentor of the project PARLOMA.
The project aims to develop a system for remote communication between: deaf-blind people, via tactile-sign language (TSL). (http://www.parloma.com/en/)
Project PI: Dr. Marco Indaco. Within the project, my activities include: consultancy and supervision of the validation process by end users.
Goals of the project: engineering and realize a system capable to let tactile-sign language users to remotely communicate by using a robotic hand.
Since 2012
Politecnico di Torino: Consultant for the project LIS4ALL, automatic translation from Italian into Italian sign language.
Project PI: Prof. Paolo Prinetto. Within the project, my activities include: coordination of interpreters, first level annotators and second level annotators; revision and validation of the signing product.
Goals of the project: engineering and realize a system capable to translate from spoken Italian into Italian Sign Language. Developing a full chain of modules that allows the translation system to work in the domain of train announcements.
2011 Feb-Sept
Università degli Studi di Torino: Post doc.
Title of the research project: Automatic translation from Italian into Italian Sign Language. Aim of the project: a) Development of the syntactic module Italian/LIS for automatic translation and b) Development of the planner module (for hand positioning)
2010
Politecnico di Torino: Consultant for the project ATLAS, automatic translation from Italian into Italian sign language (http://www.atlas.polito.it/).
Project PI: Prof. Paolo Prinetto. Within the project, my activities include: coordination of interpreters, first level annotators and second level annotators; revision and validation of the signing product.
Goals of the project: engineering and realize a system capable to translate from spoken Italian into Italian Sign Language. Developing a full chain of modules that allows the translation system to work in various contexts.
2008-2010
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca: Researcher
Title of the research project: National Research Project PRIN 2007: ‘Dimensions of variation in Italian Sign Language’
Project PI: Prof. Caterina Donati, Università Statale di Roma-La Sapienza (local coordinator Prof. Carlo Cecchetto, Università Statale di Milano-Bicocca). Within the project, my activities include: project counseling, supervising for the procedures of data collection and transcription (with ELAN). Person in charge for maintenance of the database, data coding, statistic analysis and interpretation of the results.
Goals of the project: investigating sociolinguistic variation in Italian Sign Language by creating a corpus of annotated data in Italian Sign Language. The corpus includes data from 10 cities distributed across the Country (about 200 hours of recordings) and one special section of data from Tactile Italian Sign Language (about 15 hours of recordings), the variety of sign language used by Deaf-blind people.
2007-2010
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Post doc.
Title of the research project: Language in the visual modality. The aim of project is twofold: on the one hand, it aims at studying the strategies of subordination in Italian Sign Language, on the other hand, it aims at investigating the role of sign language in the use of other cognitive abilities (e.g. short-term memory).
2005-2006
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Researcher for the National Research Project PRIN 2005: ‘Hierarchical structure and recursivity in natural language’ (PI Prof. Guglielmo Cinque, Università di Ca’ Foscari-Venezia, local coordinator Prof. Gennaro Chierchia, Università Statale of Milano-Bicocca). Within the project, my activities were focused on the structure of Italian Sign Language and included: data collection, transcription and analysis.
Teaching Experience
Summer 2014
COST SignGram Summer School
Course title: Syllables and Beyond: a Formal Approach to Sign Language Phonology.
Since 2013
École Normale Supérieure (Cog-Master and Ling-Master)
Course title: Language in the visual modality (4 ECTS). The course provides a deep understanding of the main issues of sign language linguistics at various levels. A selection of phenomena that are important for understanding the structure of sign languages and their relation to spoken languages is presented and discussed.
2006-2011
Università Ca' Foscari, Venice
Lecturer for the B.A. program in Linguistics.
Course title: Italian Sign Language 3 (third year)’ (12-15 ECTS). The course aims at providing a deep understanding of linguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of Italian sign language (LIS). The arguments of the sociolinguistic part cover phylogenesis, ontogenesis and language variation of sign languages as compared to spoken languages. The second part of the course is specifically devoted to syntactic phenomena and to their explanation within the Principles and Parameters framework.
2006-2010
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Lecturer for the European Master in Clinical Linguistics (EMCL).
Course title: ‘Theoretical Linguistics’ (20 hours, 5 ECTS). The course covers the following topics: Emergence of language, morphology, phonetics, phonology and syntax.
2009 Feb-Mar
Università Ca' Foscari, Venice
Lecturer
Seminar title: Research Methodology in Italian Sign Language (12 hours). The seminar covered the following topics: issues in sign language corpora research and study in Italian Sign Language. Introduction to the use of the linguistic annotator software ELAN. Advanced uses of ELAN.
Fall 2008
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Lecturer for the European Master in Clinical Linguistics (EMCL).
Seminar title: ‘Second language acquisition’ (4 hours). The seminar provided an introduction to the issues and topics on Second Language Acquisition from a theoretical perspective.
Spring 2008
Università Ca' Foscari, Venice
Lecturer for the Advanced course in Theory and techniques of Italian / Italian Sign Language interpretation
Seminar title: 'Sign languages, memory and interpretation' (8 hours). Topics of the seminar: 'Human memory', 'short-term memory and natural language', 'short-term memory and sign languages', 'memory and sign languages during interpretation activities'.
Spring 2006
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Lecturer for the MA program in Clinic Psychology and Neuropsychology.
Course title: ‘Sign Language Structure’ (30 hours, 3 ECTS). The course aims at providing the basics of sign language linguistics with a particular focus on Italian Sign Language.
Spring 2003
Università degli Studi di Milano
Lecturer for the Erasmus students program (exchange students’ program).
Course title: Italian Course for Erasmus students. The course aims at providing the basics of Italian for exchange students within the Erasmus Project.
Education
Summer 2009
Université de Bordeaux
21st European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI), Bordeaux July 20-31, 2009
2003-2006
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Ph.D. QUA_si, Program in quality of life in the Information Society. The focus was on the main issues of Information Society with particular reference to the impact and consequences of the Information Society on the study and research of sign languages and on the Deaf population. Special attention was due to data collection and analysis of Italian Sign Language and comparative studies on other sign languages. Evaluation and analysis of problems connected with digital data and the annotation software.
Ph. D. in Information Society: 30, May, 2006
Title of the dissertation: ‘Italian Sign Language: research and results’ dissemination’
2005 Feb-May
Boston University & MIT
Visiting student
2003 Sept-Dec
Boston University & MIT
Visiting student
1997-2002
Università degli Studi di Milano
Program: ‘Modern Literature’. In particular, the focus was on: sociolinguistics, theoretical linguistics, formal linguistics, historical linguistics and Romance philology.
Degree: Doctor in ‘Lettere e Filosofia’ (110/110).
Title of the thesis: ‘Word order in Italian Sign Language’ (15, Nov., 2002).