BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:ILLC Website X-WR-TIMEZONE:Europe/Amsterdam BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/Amsterdam X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/Amsterdam BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0200 TZNAME:CEST DTSTART:19700329T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0200 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:CET DTSTART:19701025T030000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:/NewsandEvents/Events/Upcoming-Events/newsitem /16327/13-October-2026-SignLab-Seminars-Anita-Slon imska DTSTAMP:20260909T110203 SUMMARY:SignLab Seminars, Anita Slonimska ATTENDEE;ROLE=Speaker:Anita Slonimska DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Amsterdam:20261013T151500 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Amsterdam:20261013T170000 LOCATION:Bushuis - Oost-Indisch Huis DESCRIPTION:On October 13, Anita Slonimska from th e Max Planck Institute will present during the bi- weekly SignLab Seminar. Here is the abstract of he r talk: Communicative efficiency, defined as the optimization of the cost–benefit trade-off in comm unication, has been central to understanding langu age structure and use (Levshina, 2022). Yet prevai ling accounts have largely treated language as a u nimodal and static system, focusing almost exclusi vely on written corpora or speech. Such approaches overlook an ongoing paradigmatic shift in our und erstanding of language, driven by insights into ho w language is actually used in interaction: multim odally and adaptively (Hagoort & Ozyurek, 2025; Ho ller & Bavelas, 2017). Drawing particularly on rec ent and ongoing work on sign languages, as well as on co-speech and silent gesture, I propose a theo retical framework that reconceptualizes communicat ive efficiency as an adaptive property of language use, one that flexibly exploits the expressive af fordances of communicative systems, including time and space, sequentiality and simultaneity, arbitr ary and iconic form–meaning mappings, and acoustic and visual modalities. I argue that communicative efficiency cannot be understood without accountin g for the multimodal and adaptive nature of langua ge. Building on these insights, I outline a multim odal communicative efficiency framework and discus s how it opens up new directions for future resear ch, which I look forward to exploring with the aud ience. X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:\n

On October 13, Anita Slonimska< /a> from the Max Planck Institute will present dur ing the bi-weekly SignLab Seminar. Here is the abstract of her talk:

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Comm unicative efficiency, defined as the optimization of the cost–benefit trade-off in communication, ha s been central to understanding language structure and use (Levshina, 2022). Yet prevailing accounts have largely treated language as a unimodal and s tatic system, focusing almost exclusively on writt en corpora or speech. Such approaches overlook an ongoing paradigmatic shift in our understanding of language, driven by insights into how language is actually used in interaction: multimodally and ad aptively (Hagoort & Ozyurek, 2025; Holler & Bavela s, 2017). Drawing particularly on recent and ongoi ng work on sign languages, as well as on co-speech and silent gesture, I propose a theoretical frame work that reconceptualizes communicative efficienc y as an adaptive property of language use, one tha t flexibly exploits the expressive affordances of communicative systems, including time and space, s equentiality and simultaneity, arbitrary and iconi c form–meaning mappings, and acoustic and visual m odalities. I argue that communicative efficiency c annot be understood without accounting for the mul timodal and adaptive nature of language. Building on these insights, I outline a multimodal communic ative efficiency framework and discuss how it open s up new directions for future research, which I l ook forward to exploring with the audience.

\n URL:/NewsandEvents/Events/Upcoming-Events/newsitem /16327/13-October-2026-SignLab-Seminars-Anita-Slon imska CONTACT:Jos Ritmeester at j.ritmeester2 at uva.nl END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR