Emily Shaw

Emily Shaw, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Interpretation and Translation at Gallaudet University, where she has taught since 2015. Her research focuses on ASL etymology, sociolinguistics, and discourse analysis. She co-authored A Historical and Etymological Dictionary of American Sign Language, tracing ASL's roots to French Sign Language. Dr. Shaw's work bridges historical linguistics and applied interpreting studies, emphasizing embodied discourse and corpus development. She teaches courses such as Discourse Analysis for Interpreters and Introduction to Sociolinguistics. She received the 2015 Rachel Hartig Award for Research Excellence and has contributed to Gallaudet's Faculty Senate and the Gallaudet University Documentation of ASL (GUDA) initiative. Her research also explores interpreter-mediated interactions and sign language variation documentation.