Wendy Sandler, a distinguished professor of linguistics at the University of Haifa and Founding Director of the northern Israeli institution's Sign Language Research Lab, was inducted this week into the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Sandler is the fifth Israeli woman to be accepted as a member of the prestigious institution and the first Israeli in the humanities field since the academy was founded in 1780. In doing so, she joins a list of members that include notable figures such as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Alexander Graham Bell, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, and Nelson Mandela.
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Sandler has developed models of sign language phonology and prosody that exploit general linguistic principles to reveal both the similarities and the differences in natural languages in two modalities. More recently, her work has turned to the emergence of new sign languages and ways in which the body is recruited to manifest increasingly complex linguistic form within a community of signers.
"For me, this honor weaves together the different strands of my work into a coherent whole," said Sandler. "The study of sign languages illuminates the universal human genius for language – and it is only through language that we can formulate and share ideas, science, and art. Through this work, contact with the deaf world has taught me that in diversity there is unity if we can open our minds to both. Our sign language theatre of the body reaches across the barrier between deaf and hearing audiences, leading to profound shared experience."
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences describes itself as both an honorary society that recognizes and celebrates the excellence of its members, and an independent research center that convenes leaders from across disciplines, professions, and perspectives to address significant challenges.
"The mission and values of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences bring together seemingly disparate approaches to understanding and improving the human condition, and I am proud and deeply honored to become a member," Sandler said.
Sandler, who earned her PhD in linguistics from the University of Texas - Austin in 1987, has authored or co-authored three books on sign language: Phonological Representation of the Sign (Foris); A Language in Space: The Story of Israeli Sign Language, co-authored with Irit Meir; and Sign Language and Linguistic Universals, coauthored with Diane Lillo-Martin (Cambridge University Press).
With the recent completion of a multidisciplinary research project, "The Grammar of the Body," supported by an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council, Sandler co-edited, with Marianne Gullberg and Carol Padden, the ebook, Visual Language (Frontiers in Psychology), which brings together cutting edge research on sign language and the gestures that accompany speech.
"The University of Haifa warmly congratulates Wendy Sandler on this much-deserved honor, which will spread greater awareness about the pioneering research our community has already been privileged to witness up close," said University President Ron Robin. "As an American-Israeli scholar at the cutting edge of her field, Wendy advances the connection between the US and Israel through excellence in academics and research."
"The members of the class of 2020 have excelled in laboratories and lecture halls, they have amazed on concert stages and in surgical suites, and they have led in board rooms and courtrooms," said American Academy of Arts and Sciences President David W. Oxtoby.
"With today's election announcement, these new members are united by a place in history and by an opportunity to shape the future through the Academy's work to advance the public good."
