Research Interests
Corpus and usage-based approaches in sign linguistics (see BSL Corpus & BSL SignBank)
British Sign Language (BSL), American Sign Language (ASL), and other signed languages
Language typology & language modality: similarities & differences between languages, spoken and signed
Sign language technology
Sign languages and linguistic theory
Grammaticisation, lexicalisation & nativisation
The role of gesture in signed and spoken languages
Non-native foreign vocabulary
Visual motivation, iconicity & indexicality
Phonology, morphosyntax, syntax
Sociolinguistics
Language acquisition
Funding
Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), UK. 2026 - 2030. UK-Japan grant awarded to Richard Bowden (PI), Annelies Kusters (CI), Robert Adam (CI), Mathini Sellathurai (CI), Kearsy Cormier (CI), Mayumi Bono (CI), Yutaka Osugi (CI), Hideki Nakayama (CI), Koji Inoue (CI). Understanding Multilingual Communication Space (UMCS). £3.5million.
Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), UK. 2025 - 2029. Research Programme Grant awarded to Richard Bowden (PI), Kearsy Cormier (CI), Bencie Woll (CI), Andrew Zisserman (CI). SignGPT: Building Generative Predictive Transformers for Sign Language. £8.45 million.
Horizon 2020, EU. 2021-2023. EASIER: Intelligent Automatic Sign Language Translation. PI: Martel Switzerland. Consortium of 13 academic, industry and community organisation partners from Switzerland, Greece, Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium, and UK. 101016982. Approx €4million.
Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC), UK. 2019-2024. Legacy Centre Status awarded to Mairead MacSweeney (PI), Kearsy Cormier (CI), Bencie Woll (CI), Robert Adam (CI), Manjula Patrick (CI). Deafness Cognition and Language Research Centre: ESRC Legacy Centre. ES/T001461/1. Approx £100,000.
Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC), UK. 2019 - 2022. Research Grant awarded to Simon Kirby (PI), Kearsy Cormier (CI). From natural to conventional word order: iconicity, simplicity and the mechanisms of linguistic evolution. ES/R011869/1. Approx £632,000.
Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC), UK. 2019 - 2021. Research Grant awarded to Kearsy Cormier (PI), Gabrielle Hodge (CI). The use of mimetic actions by deaf signers of British Sign Language: A corpus-based study. ES/R011672/1. Approx £130,000.
Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), UK. 2018 - 2022. Research Grant awarded to Richard Bowden (PI), Kearsy Cormier (CI), Bencie Woll (CI), Andrew Zisserman (CI). ExTOL: End to End Translation of British Sign Language. EP/R03298X/1. Approx £1.2million.
Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC), UK. 2017 - 2019. Research Grant awarded to Kearsy Cormier (PI), Kate Rowley (CI), Jordan Fenlon (CI). Language attitudes in the British deaf community: Evidence from the British Sign Language Corpus, ES/P002323/1. Approx £200,000.
Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), UK. 2016 - 2021. Research Grant awarded to Kearsy Cormier (PI), Adam Schembri (CI), Jordan Fenlon (CI). A broadly usage-based account of British Sign Language syntax, AH/N00924X/1. Approx £615,000.
Digging into Data Challenge. June 2014 - May 2015. Research Grant awarded to Kearsy Cormier (PI, UK) and Onno Crasborn (PI, Netherlands). Digging into signs: Developing standard annotation practices for cross-linguistic quantitative analysis of sign language data. Approx £100,000 (UK) + €100,000 (Netherlands)
Australian Research Council (ARC). June 2014 - June 2017. Discovery Project Research Grant awarded to Trevor Johnston & Adam Schembri (Chief Investigators) and Kearsy Cormier & Onno Crasborn (Partner Investigators). When do gestures become linguistic? Understanding the gesture-language interface through a corpus-based study of pointing signs in sign languages, DP140102124. ASD$345,000.
Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC). Dec 2012 - May 2014. Research Grant awarded to Kearsy Cormier (PI), Adam Schembri (CI). Describing sociolinguistic variation in verb directionality in British Sign Language: A corpus-based study, ES/K003364/1. Approx GBP£197,000.
Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC). Nov 2010 - June 2011. Research Grant extension awarded to Kearsy Cormier (PI), Adam Schembri, Margaret Deuchar, Frances Elton, Donall O Baoill, Rachel Sutton-Spence, Graham Turner, Bencie Woll (CIs). British Sign Language (BSL) Corpus Project, ES/F017251/1.
Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC). Jan 2008 - Nov 2010. Research Grant awarded to Adam Schembri (PI), Kearsy Cormier, Margaret Deuchar, Frances Elton, Donall O Baoill, Rachel Sutton-Spence, Graham Turner, Bencie Woll (CIs). British Sign Language (BSL) Corpus Project, ES/F017251/1. Approx GBP£1.2million.
European Science Foundation (ESF). 2007. Funding for Exploratory Workshop on Sign Language and Gesture. Co-convenor with Gary Morgan, City University. EUR€15,000.
Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), UK. 2006-2011. Research Grant awarded to Kearsy Cormier (PI) and Sandra Smith (CI). Expression of Perspective Location and Motion (PALM): Structure and Acquisition of Classifiers and Role Shift in British Sign Language, 119360/2. Approx GBP£152,000.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. 2005-2009. Small grant awarded to David Quinto-Pozos (PI), Kearsy Cormier (CI) and Amanda Holzrichter (CI). Constructed Action in American, British and Mexican Sign Languages. Approx USD$20,000.
National Science Foundation (NSF), USA. 2000-2002. Doctoral Dissertation Grant awarded to Richard P. Meier (PI) and Kearsy Cormier (CI), #BCS000145. How American Sign Language Expresses Numerosity. Approx USD$11,000.