Professor Adam Schembri BA, DipEd, M.Litt, PhD

Photograph of Dr Adam Schembri

Department of English Language and Linguistics
Professor of Linguistics

Contact details

Address
Frankland Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

I am a Professor of Linguistics in the Department of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Birmingham.  I teach modules on sociolinguistics, language and gesture, and linguistic diversity. My research focuses on the linguistics of sign languages, especially Australian Sign Language (Auslan) and British Sign Language (BSL).

Qualifications

  • Bachelor of Arts (English Literature), University of Sydney, 1988
  • Diploma in Education (English/English as a Second Language), Sydney College of Advanced Education, 1989
  • Master of Letters (Linguistics), University of Sydney, 1992
  • Diploma in Interpreting (Australian Sign Language/English), Sydney Institute of Technical and Further Education, 1996
  • PhD (Linguistics), University of Sydney. Title: “Issues in the analysis of polycomponential verbs in Australian Sign Language (Auslan)”, 2002

Biography

I began working at the University of Birmingham in January 2016. Prior to that, I was associate professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne (Australia) during 2011-2015, and Senior Research Fellow at the Deafness Cognition and Language (DCAL) Research Centre at University College London during 2006-2010. I was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Newcastle and Macquarie University (both in Sydney, Australia) during 2003-2006. I worked as a lecturer at the Centre for Deaf Studies at the University of Bristol during 2000-2002 while completing my PhD.

Teaching

I teach on the BA and MA programmes on the following modules: Sociolinguistics, Language and Gesture and Exploring Linguistic Diversity. 

Postgraduate supervision

I am currently working with PhD students conducting research into interpretation between African-American Vernacular English and American Sign Language (Sharon Hill), on co-speech gestures in Polish/English bilinguals (Paulina Poplawksa), on attitudes towards sign language variation in Algeria (Hadjira Cherif), and on the grammar of Kafr Qasem Sign Language in Israel (Marah Jaraisy). I am also co-supervising a PhD student in Psychology with Robin Thompson who is working on sign language attitudes in younger deaf people (Kate Groves), and another student at Ghent University in Belgium conducted research into the grammar of Serbian Sign Language (Dragana Raičević Bajić ).
I am primarily interested in supervising students with an interest in sign language linguistics, gesture studies, as well as sociolinguistic variation and change in both spoken and signed languages.


Find out more - our PhD English Language and Applied Linguistics  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

I am interested in research investigating the signed languages of deaf communities. I am currently working on the European Research Council SignMorph project, looking at the relationship between the grammar of signed languages and iconicity, language age, and social structure in signing communities. I am working on an Australian Research Council Linkage Project with Louisa Willoughby (Monash University) and Melbourne Polytechnic investigating individual differences in second language learners of Auslan (the majority sign language in Australia), see https://www.monash.edu/arts/languages-literatures-cultures-linguistics/teaching-sign-languages). I am also continuing to work with colleagues Kearsy Cormier, Gabrielle Hodge, Neil Fox, and Heidi Proctor (University College London) on the BSL Syntax Project (https://bslcorpusproject.org/projects/bsl-syntax-project/).

Other activities


Publications

Recent publications

Article

Lutzenberger, H, Mudd, K, Stamp, R & Schembri, A 2023, 'The social structure of signing communities and lexical variation: A cross-linguistic comparison of three unrelated sign languages', Glossa, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 1-40. https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.10229

Bajić, DR, Vermeerbergen, M, Schembri, A & van Herreweghe, M 2021, 'Constituent order in Serbian Sign language declarative clauses', Glossa, vol. 6, no. 1, 39. https://doi.org/10.5334/GJGL.1357

Hodge, G, Sekine, K, Schembri, A & Johnston, T 2018, 'Comparing signers and speakers: Building a directly comparable corpus of Auslan and Australian English', Corpora, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 63-76. https://doi.org/10.3366/cor.2019.0161

Schembri, A, Cormier, K & Fenlon, J 2018, 'Indicating verbs as typologically unique constructions: Reconsidering verb 'agreement' in sign languages', Glossa, vol. 3, no. 1, 89. https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.468

Fenlon, J, Schembri, A & Cormier, K 2018, 'Modification of indicating verbs in British Sign Language: A corpus-based study', Language, vol. 94, no. 1, pp. 84-118. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2018.0002

Schembri, A, Fenlon, J, Cormier, K & Johnston, T 2018, 'Sociolinguistic typology and sign languages', Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 9, no. FEB, 200. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00200, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00200

Johnston, T, van Roekel, J & Schembri, A 2016, 'On the conventionalization of mouth actions in Australian sign language', Language and Speech, vol. 59, no. 1, pp. 3-42. https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830915569334, https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830915569334

Stamp, R, Schembri, A, Evans, BG & Cormier, K 2016, 'Regional Sign Language Varieties in Contact: Investigating Patterns of Accommodation', Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 70-82. https://doi.org/10.1093/deafed/env043

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Schembri, A, Stamp, R, Fenlon, J & Cormier, K 2018, Variation and change in English varieties of British Sign Language. in N Braber & S Jansen (eds), Sociolinguistics in England. 1 edn, Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.

Chapter

Schembri, A, Stamp, R, Fenlon, J & Cormier, K 2018, Variation and change in varieties of British Sign Language in England. in N Braber & S Jansen (eds), Sociolinguistics in England. Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp. 165-188. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56288-3_7

Book/Film/Article review

Schembri, A 2017, 'Form, Meaning and Focus in American Sign Language by Miako N.P. Rankin (Review)', Sign Language Studies, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 281-284. <https://muse.jhu.edu/article/648907/pdf>

Comment/debate

Palfreyman, N & Schembri, A 2022, 'Lumping and splitting: sign language delineation and ideologies of linguistic differentiation', Journal of Sociolinguistics, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 105-112. https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12524

Entry for encyclopedia/dictionary

Stamp, R & Schembri, A 2019, Sociolinguistics of sign languages. in MJ Ball & JS Damico (eds), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Human Communication Sciences and Disorders. vol. 4, SAGE Publications. <https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/the-sage-encyclopedia-of-human-communication-sciences-and-disorders/book245001>

Schembri, A 2017, Australian Sign Language (Auslan). in MJ Ball & JS Damico (eds), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Human Communication Sciences and Disorders. SAGE Publications.

Schembri, A 2017, British Sign Language (BSL). in MJ Ball & JS Damico (eds), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Human Communication Sciences and Disorders. SAGE Publications.

View all publications in research portal