About the project

Planet Word visitors, both adults and children, participate in language studies as part of a “living language laboratory." We collect the kinds of data that are often hard to do in the laboratory, but that are crucial to the field, including from more diverse populations and real-world environments. 

We engage visitors in activities that introduce them to active science about language as a part of their visit to the museum. This raises the profile of linguistics and allied fields among the general public, and promotes scientifically informed attitudes about language. Placing language research inside a language museum allows visitors to see how discoveries about language are made.  

Many of the studies and engagement experiences are conducted by undergraduate and graduate students, who enroll in an innovative course in public-facing research, held at Planet Word. See more on our training course here. 

Through our multi-university partnership (UMD, Gallaudet, Howard) and recruitment efforts, we encourage participation of minority students who are traditionally underrepresented in the language sciences. The project's unique setting trains students in multiple skills that are valuable for their future careers, including social science research and science communication. 

Our network of researchers tests models for effective and scalable partnerships between our universities and the museum. We develop recommendations for conducting language-based research in institutions such as museums, removing barriers for future researchers to engage in public-facing work. In doing so, we build infrastructure for language research and education in public settings.

Conducting social science research in public settings is a relatively new but growing area. There are some existing recommendations about best practices for engagement and outreach with the public, but few regarding the research itself. As we design our studies to be fun and interactive, while still being adequately powered and rigorous, we will share our strategies with the larger research community. 

Our research team and research studies come from diverse subdisciplines, and utilize a range of methodologies, contributing to knowledge in many areas, from psycholinguistics to (English and ASL) language development to sociolinguistics. 

We measure how well our research studies and engagement efforts teach visitors about language science, and the scientific process more generally, contributing to the understanding of informal science learning.