Marah Jaraisy

Are there studies on research methods for investigating historically marginalised communities that emphasise the need to adapt every aspect (and I mean every aspect, if needed, including ethics, consent, etc) of the research to the community’s context and priorities?

This project wouldn't have been possible without the collaboration and support of the Kufr Qassem deaf community, and many many others.

I would also like to thank my supervisors @adamcschembri.bsky.social and @mperlman.bsky.social for their incredible support!

THE LINGUISTIC LIFE OF THE KUFR QASSEM DEAF COMMUNITY LANGUAGE EMERGENCE, VARIATION, CHANGE, AND PERSISTENCE by MARAH JARAISI A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Supervised by Professor Adam Schembri and Dr. Marcus Perlman Department of Linguistics and Communication School of English, Drama, and Creative Studies College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham September 2025

Dedication This thesis is dedicated to the resilient Palestinian people. (poem) Because I am not like match sticks, I light up once… and die. but I am like the fires of the Magi: I burn… from my cradle to my grave and from my predecessors to my descendants. Long as the horizon is my breath, and I have mastered the craft of ants, gently for history is written the way we dictate By - Tawfiq Ziad -

Very excited to announce that yesterday I submitted my PhD thesis: The Linguistic Life of the Kufr Qassem Deaf Community: Language Emergence, Variation, Change, and Persistence.

I dedicate this thesis to my people: the resilient Palestinian people

Finally! Super excited to share that our paper on morphological 'complexity' is out!!

Ohh fab!! Is there a version in English?

I have a couple of micro-community sign languages in mind, which the community itself refers to as "old sign language", "local sign language", "Arab sign language", etc, not necessarily the name of the town or village where it emerged. It varies, really, even within the community.

Are there any studies that discuss the naming of languages? particularly in the sign language field.

I noticed that there are some sign languages for which researchers have chosen names, but the community refers to their language differently.

Pleased that my new chapter that will be published in the International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics has now been published online: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Currently wrapping up work on a Statistical Consultancy project for @marahjaraisy.bsky.social's investigation into the Kufr Qassem deaf community, focusing on semiotic strategies used for tracking referents in signed narratives, part of @adamcschembri.bsky.social's ERC-funded SignMorph grant. (1/4)

New preprint paper (to appear in Journal of Linguistics) with @fbisnath.bsky.social, Hannah Lutzenberger, @marahjaraisy.bsky.social, and Rehana Omardeen
'Deconstructing notions of morphological ‘complexity’: Lessons from creoles and sign languages'
Proud to be part of this team! osf.io/tmkrw

This Friday 4pm is my professorial inaugural "From Birds to Words: Onomatopoeia, Metaphor, and the Language of Birdsong" (w/ BSL interpretation).

There'll be a lot of iconicity in it! If you're interested, you can register for the webinar under this link:

www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/edac...

TISLR15 sketchbook #TISLR15

SignGPT - Project awarded £8.45m to build a BSL Large Language Model to achieve end-to-end translation English/BSL and build "the largest sign language dataset in the world". Good to see there is emphasis on deaf capacity building www.surrey.ac.uk/news/signgpt...

The image shows a conference or presentation stage with a large screen displaying the presenter Felicia Bisnath in the left top corner, the IS interpreter in the left bottom corner, ASL interpreter in the right top corner, and Ethiopian Sign Language interpreter in the right bottom corner. In the middle, there is a slide with text reading "by prioritising nativeness we are not describing the majority of DHH sign language use," accompanied by an illustration of multiple figures of people with one figure highlighted in yellow. The audience is partially visible at the bottom of the photo.

I love @fbisnath.bsky.social last slide of her #TISLR15 presentation!

Congratulations, Felicia, on winning a student award for one of the best presentations at the conference!

Here is a summary of my #TISLR15 presentation, "Exploring the heterogeneity of DHH users of ASL in the US outside of nativeness" #linguistics 1/n

Top photo 2019: my first conference, UKLVC in London
I was an MA student, supervised by Dr. Rose Stamp. We took a photo with her former PhD supervisor, Prof @adamcschembri.bsky.social

Bottom photo 2025: at TISLR15 in Ethiopia, the first TISLR in Africa, Adam is now my PhD supervisor!

A research poster titled 'Reference tracking, the use of space, and sociolinguistic ecologies in the Kufr Qassem and British signing communities' by Marah Jaraissy and colleagues from the University of Birmingham. The poster compares language structures in two deaf communities: Kufr Qassem (using KQSL/ISL) and British (using BSL). It explores the effects of social structure, language contact, and language age on semiotic diversity in storytelling. Key sections include: 1. Background: Discusses influences on language use, including community size, network density, and language contact, with simpler sign types used in smaller communities. 2. Methodology: Includes narrative retellings of a silent film clip by participants (12 bilingual KQSL/ISL signers and 12 BSL signers). 3. Results: Highlights differences in the use of lexical signs, pointing, classifier constructions, and overt constructed action between the two communities. Signers of KQSL/ISL use overt constructed action more, while BSL signers use more classifier constructions 4. Discussion and Conclusion: Links findings to social and linguistic factors, but also suggesting influences of methodology and researcher background. 5. Future Directions: Proposes studying referent's animacy and narrative viewpoints effects on storytelling Charts and diagrams provide data on sign type proportions, while logos and QR codes for references appear at the bottom."

Very much enjoyed presenting my poster at #TISLR15 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia today!

One important message in our poster is that factors like methodology, researcher's background, and language documentation may affect one's result.

Happy to share/discuss more via DM or Email!

I absloutely LOVE this thread by @cborstell.bsky.social
who had a very similar experience to mine.

I’m a multilingual, hardworking, enthusiastic linguist passionate about sociolinguistics, language contact, sign languages & gestures
Ready to contribute my skills to a hybrid, remote (UK/Europe), or onsite (UK only) position

Let’s chat if you know of opportunities!
Let's turn Dr. into hireable 👩‍🎓💼

🎉 Big news! I'm submitting my PhD thesis this September! 📝✨
It's been a wild ride of research, resilience, and way too many snacks to fuel me, and now I’m officially on the hunt for my next adventure. 🚀

In UK slang they say: "they're taking the mick" 😅

Need help making sense of your data? 📊 Starting in 2025, I’ll be offering statistical consultancy services, specialising in Bayesian and frequentist mixed models, descriptive statistics, and data visualization tailored to your needs. ⬇️

People around world associate rolled R with a jagged line, study finds Speakers of 28 languages linked sound and shape at least 88% of the time, in ‘strongest case of sound symbolism to date’

Congratulations to our very own @bodowinter.bsky.social @mperlman.bsky.social and their co-authors! Great to see their work on spoken language iconicity in the news.
www.theguardian.com/science/2024...

Leeds has a fully funded scholarship program for undergraduate and Masters study for Gaza students.

**Tell Everyone**

www.leeds.ac.uk/masters-scho...

Can I be added as well? Thanks!

A screenshot of the article: Word of Mouth: Mouthing patterns in a bimodal multilingual deaf community. (Click on the link to read the abstract and the full article)

Hi BlueSky!

Check out our new paper on mouthing patterns in the bimodal multilingual deaf community of Kufr Qassem

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...