Anita Slonimska

My work integrates multimodality (speech+gesture and sign languages), pragmatics, and language evolution, combining experimental and corpus-based methods to investigate the adaptive and semiotically rich nature of human language structure, use, and processing.

I study how speakers and signers draw on the affordances of the visual modality, such as multiple bodily articulators and iconicity, to adapt their communication to different communicative contexts across spoken and signed languages. I am particularly interested in how linguistic systems and their adaptive and multimodal use may reflect evolutionary pressures toward communicative efficiency.

Currently, my research focuses on (1) how speakers and signers flexibly use the temporal and spatial dimensions of language to optimize communication in context, particularly in child-directed compared to adult-directed communication, and (2) the extent to which the simultaneous and iconic structure of linguistic encoding supports efficient information processing.

I hold a PhD in Linguistics (cum laude) from Radboud University in the Netherlands. Most of my doctoral research was conducted at the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technologies, CNR–Rome (Italy) as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Early Stage Research Fellow. During my PhD, I developed a new line of research investigating the role of iconicity and simultaneity in communicative efficiency.