SPP 2392: Visual communication. Theoretical, empirical, and applied perspectives (ViCom)

Basic data for this project

Description

The Priority Programme "Visual Communication. Theoretical, Empirical, and Applied Perspectives (ViCom)" investigates the specific features and linguistic significance of visual communication. This comprises sign languages as fully developed natural languages, which exclusively rely on the visual channel for communication, and visual means that enhance spoken language such as gestures. It aims at disclosing the characteristics of the visual modality as a communication chan- nel and its interaction with other channels (especially the auditory channel) to develop a compre- hensive theoretical linguistic model of human communication and its cognitive foundations. Alt- hough ViCom focuses on the investigation of sign languages and gestures as prime examples of visual human communication, the research agenda comprises the investigation of gestures in didactic and therapeutic contexts, their significance for language acquisition, gestural aspects of vocal communication and in the written modality, pictorial narratives as well as visual communication strategies of non-linguistic species and in multimodal human-computer interaction systems.