Ceil (Kovac) Lucas (born March 19, 1951) is an American linguist and a ''

professor emerita ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...

'' of

Gallaudet University Gallaudet University ( ) is a private federally chartered university in Washington, D.C., for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing. It was founded in 1864 as a grammar school for both deaf and blind children. It was the first school ...

, best known for her research on

American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that i ...

Early life and education

Lucas was born in the United States but raised from ages five through twenty-one in

Guatemala City Guatemala City (, also known colloquially by the nickname Guate), is the Capital city, national capital and largest city of the Guatemala, Republic of Guatemala. It is also the Municipalities of Guatemala, municipal capital of the Guatemala Depa ...

and in

Rome, Italy Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

. Lucas studied at

Whitman College Whitman College is a private liberal arts college in Walla Walla, Washington. The school offers 53 majors and 33 minors in the liberal arts and sciences, and it has a student-to-faculty ratio of 9:1. Founded as a seminary by a territorial l ...

Walla Walla, Washington Walla Walla ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Walla Walla County, Washington, United States. It had a population of 34,060 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, estimated to have decreased to 33,339 as of 2023. The combined populat ...

, and received her BA in French and art history. Later, she earned her M.S. and PhD (1980) in

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

from

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

. (She also holds an M.A. from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

Career

In 1973, Lucas started teaching Italian and continues to do so. Lucas began teaching at Gallaudet University in 1981 and, alongside Robert Johnson and Scott Liddell, was one of the inaugural faculty to teach in the university's new linguistics graduate program. Lucas was a professor in the Department of Linguistics at Gallaudet University until her retirement in 2014. During her tenure at Gallaudet, Lucas served as principal investigator on two research projects in the field of sign language linguistics. The first of these was the large-scale project ''Sociolinguistic Variation In ASL'' (funded by the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

Grant Numbers: SBR 9310116, SBR 9709522).The results of this study are summarized in the book ''Sociolinguistic Variation In ASL'' (Lucas et al. 2001). (Results of its pilot study are discussed in the introductory chapter of ''Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities'' (Lucas 1995).) The second project became titled ''The History and Structure of Black ASL'' (funded by

The Spencer Foundation The Spencer Foundation was established in 1962 by Lyle M. Spencer. This foundation makes grants to support research in areas of education that are widely construed. It is currently led by Na'ilah Suad Nasir. Founder Lyle M. Spencer was the fou ...

and NSF, Grant Numbers: BCS-0813736, DRL-0936085). The results of this study are summarized in the book ''The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL: Its History and Structure'' (McCaskill et al. 2011).

Honors

Lucas was editor of ''

Sign Language Studies ''Sign Language Studies'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering basic and applied research relating to sign languages used throughout the world. It was established in 1972 with William Stokoe of Gallaudet University as founding edi ...

'' at

Gallaudet University Press Gallaudet University Press (GUPress) is a publisher that focuses on issues relating to deafness and sign language. It is a part of Gallaudet University in Washington D.C., and was founded in 1980 by the university's board of trustees. The press is ...

from 2009 to 2021. In 2022, Lucas was one of the recipients of the LSA's Linguistics, Language and the Public award. In 2023, she was inducted as a

Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned or professional societies, the term refers ...

Bibliography

* Kovac, Ceil. 1980. Children’s Acquisition of Variable Features. PhD dissertation, Georgetown University. * Lucas, Ceil (ed.). 1990.
Sign Language Research: Theoretical Issues
'. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. * Lucas, Ceil, and

Clayton Valli Clayton Valli (May 25, 1951 – March 7, 2003) was an American prominent deaf linguist and American Sign Language (ASL) poet whose work helped further to legitimize ASL and introduce people to the richness of American Sign Language literatu ...

. 1992.
Language Contact in the American Deaf Community
'. Academic Press. * Lucas, Ceil (ed.). 1995.

'. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. , . * Lucas, Ceil (ed.). 1996.

'. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. . * Lucas, Ceil (ed.). 1998.

''. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. , . * Lucas, Ceil, Robert Bayley, and

. 2001.
Sociolinguistic Variation in American Sign Language
'. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. , . * Lucas, Ceil (ed.). 2001. ''The Sociolinguistics of Sign Languages''. Cambridge University Press. * Lucas, Ceil, Robert Bayley, and

. 2003.
What's Your Sign for Pizza?: An Introduction to Variation in American Sign Language
'. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. . * Lucas, Ceil (ed.). 2002.

''. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. , . * Lucas, Ceil (ed.). 2003.

'. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. . * Valli, Clayton, Ceil Lucas, Kristin J. Mulrooney, and Miako N.P. Rankin. 2011.
Linguistics of American Sign Language: An Introduction
'. 5th edition. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. . * McCaskill, Carolyn, Ceil Lucas, Robert Bayley, and Joseph Hill. 2011.
The Hidden Treasure of Black ASL: Its History and Structure
''. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. . * Bayley, Robert, Richard Cameron, and Ceil Lucas. 2013.
The Oxford Handbook of Sociolinguistics
'. Oxford University Press. * Schembri, Adam C., and Ceil Lucas. 2015.
Sociolinguistics and Deaf Communities
'. Cambridge University Press.

References

External links

Gallaudet Video Library, Linguistic Video Collection
(This collection contains video data from both the Sociolinguistic Variation In ASL and The History and Structure of Black ASL projects.) {{DEFAULTSORT:Lucas, Ceil 1951 births Living people Linguists from the United States Linguists of sign languages People involved with sign language American women linguists Whitman College alumni Gallaudet University faculty American academic journal editors Georgetown University alumni Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America