Team
Hope's research focuses on the systemic properties of sign language lexicons, guided by the following questions. How do signs emerge and take on categorical formational properties in relation to other signs in a lexicon; that is, in their phonology and morphology? How are those forms constrained by communicative and learnability pressures, such as confusability, frequency, articulatory ease, and phonological complexity? How do meanings become encoded in form within a lexical network, at both the level of word meaning, as well as in the motivated sub-parts of words, such as iconic motivations and metaphoric reference?
Hope completed her PhD at University of California San Diego in 2017 in Linguistics with a specialization in Anthropogeny (via CARTA, the Center for Academic Research & Training in Anthropogeny). In 2022, an update of the thesis was published by Ishara Press/de Gruyter Mouton: A Phonological Grammar of Kenyan Sign Language [https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110765694]. She has held post-doctoral positions at (i) the University of Haifa, in Wendy Sandler's Grammar of the Body project, and Rama Novogrodsky's Lab; (ii) at Leiden University as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie COFUND Fellow and PI for the project Advancing the Lexicography of Sign Languages: Form, Meaning, and Motivation; and (iii) at Radboud University in the EASIER project and for Onno Crasborn's NWO VICI, Deaf Communication without a Shared Language. Currently, she leads the ERC Starting Grant project, Naming the world: Semantic Associations & Form-meaning Mappings in the Mental Lexicon across Sign languages or SemaSign (ERC-2023-STG no.101117395, 2024–2029) at Universität Hamburg.
Margaret Odhiambo is a deaf Kenyan Sign Language research specialist and PhD candidate in the SemaSign project at Institute of German Sign Language and Communication of the Deaf (IDGS), University of Hamburg. Her thesis work explores semantic networks, lexical variation and langua-cultural intersections in Kenyan Sign Language (KSL). As part of her research, she is investigates the intricate relationships between signs, meaning and cultural influences in Kenya, in order to contribute to a more complete documentation of KSL. SUB-PAGE: Research
Lisa Loy is a computational linguist and PhD candidate working in the SemaSign project at Institute of German Sign Language and Communication of the Deaf (IDGS) at the University of Hamburg. Her doctoral studies focus on computational respresentations of sign language semantics and phonology. More specifically, her work explores how data collection methods are reflected in resulting semantic networks, as well as how choices in notation systems affect the computational modelling of phonological distance in sign languages.
Mariana Martins is a PhD candidate at Leiden University and an external member of the SemaSign project team. Her current work focuses on describing the Portuguese Sign Language (LGP) grammar with deaf sign language teachers, and writing an analysis of the emerging sign language of Guinea-Bissau (LGG) with the deaf community of Bissau (thesis topic). She is interested in how the mind shapes language structure in the visual-manual modality, the relationship between gestures and signs, the visual and metaphoric motivations of sign creation, and how signs are organised lexically, morphologically and syntactically in a linguistic system.
Amy Isard, technical maven, worked part-time in the project February–December 2024.