Marie Coppola

Professor

Psychological Sciences and Linguistics

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Education

Ph.D., 2002, University of Rochester

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Research Interests

Dr. Coppola studies language acquisition and language creation as well as the relationship between language and cognition, as revealed by D/deaf individuals who vary in their experience with language. She is particularly interested in how early exposure to language fosters typical development in social cognition and numerical cognition. Interests include:

• Language emergence
• Homesign
• Cognitive development
• Number cognition
• Sign language structure
• Language acquisition

Research Websites

• Language Creation Lab
  
• Student of Language and Math
  
• Signs and Smiles

Research Funding

SF (Education and Human Resources, Linguistics) 1553589
CAREER: The impact of language experience on the development of number representations in deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing children
2016-2021

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Teaching

• PSYC 2400. Developmental Psychology
• PSYC 3470. Modality Issues in Development (Current Topics in Developmental Psychology)
• PSYC 5440. Development of Language
• PSYC 5441. Language Modality, Neural Plasticity, and Development

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Publications

Recent

Goodwin, C., Carrigan, E., Walker, K., & Coppola, M. (2021). Language not auditory experience is related to parent‐reported executive functioning in preschool‐aged deaf and hard‐of‐hearing children. Child Development., 0.

Gagne, D. & Coppola, M. (2020). pdf Literacy in Emerging Sign Language Communities: The Impact of Social, Political, and Educational Resources. The Oxford Handbook of Deaf Studies in Literacy. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197508268.013.25

Russell, R., M.L. Hall, P. Whan Cho, & M. Coppola. (2020). pdf Converging evidence: Network structure effects on conventionalization of gestural referring expressions. Language Dynamics and Change, 10, 259-290. DOI: 10.1163/22105832-bja10008

Abner, N., M. Flaherty, K. Stangl, M. Coppola, D. Brentari, & S. Goldin-Meadow. (2019).pdf. The noun-verb distinction in established and emergent sign systems. Language, 95(2), 230-267. DOI: 10.1353/lan.2019.0030 *Awarded Best Paper in Language, 2019

Representative

Coppola, M. and D. Brentari. (2014). From iconic handshapes to grammatical contrasts: Longitudinal evidence from a child homesigner. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 830. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00830. Also published as an E-book: Language by mouth and by hand.

Coppola, M., E. Spaepen, and S. Goldin-Meadow. (2013). Communicating about number without a language model: Number devices in homesign grammar. Cognitive Psychology, 67: 1-25. doi: 10.1016:j.cogpsych. 2013.05.003

Coppola, M. and A. Senghas. (2010). Deixis in an emerging sign language. In Sign Languages: A Cambridge Language Survey, 543-569. D. Brentari, ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Coppola, M. and E. L. Newport. (2005). Grammatical Subjects in home sign: Abstract linguistic structure in adult primary gesture systems without linguistic input. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102(52): 19249-19253. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0509306102

Additional Publications

Sign Language Typology Book Series, Editors: Coppola, M., Crasborn, O., and U. Zeshan, Berlin: DeGruyter Mouton.

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Honors and Awards

Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (PECASE), 2019

American Association of University Professors, UConn Chapter Excellence in Research and Creativity Early Career Award, 2016