Ryan Lepic, PhD

My primary research interest is language description using cross-linguistically transparent  terminology. In other words, I am interested in how languages work, and I like it when linguists can define our terms clearly.

The language that I work with the most is ASL. Despite decades of research on ASL, linguists actually know very little about ASL as it is used. This is for a few reasons, two of them are that 1) many terms and examples have been uncritically recycled since 1970s, and 2) much of the research that has been done has been through a specific psychological/developmental frame.

I adopt a usage-based, construction grammar approach. Construction grammar defines linguistic knowledge in terms of constructions as conventional function-form pairings of varying sizes, and usage-based linguistics highlights the relative frequency of occurrence for constructions as they are experienced in actual use.

In my recent single-authored work, I have sought to describe initialized signs, compounds, and idioms in ASL as constructions (Lepic 2021, 2023, 2025, respectively). In my recent co-authored work, I have helped to define an empirical base for analyzing ASL in actual use (Hou, Lepic, Wilkinson 2020; Hochgesang, Lepic, and Shaw 2023).

Earlier in my career, I was most interested in defining the advantages of a usage-based, construction grammar approach relative to other, structuralist approaches (Lepic 2016, Lepic and Occhino 2018; Lepic 2019; Wilkinson, Lepic, and Hou 2023), and in understanding the theoretical problem of iconicity in linguistics (Lepic, Börstell, Belsitzman, and Sandler 2016; Lepic and Padden 2017).