Marah Jaraisy
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marahjaraisy.bsky.social
Marah Jaraisy
@marahjaraisy.bsky.social
150 followers 110 following 17 posts
M4C-AHRC PhD student at the University of Birmingham.
Sign language sociolinguistics is my passion, working hard to make it a full-time job!

Palestinian from Nazareth living in the UK
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marahjaraisy.bsky.social
Pleased to announce that I passed my PhD viva today!
November 12, 2025 at 2:38 PM
marahjaraisy.bsky.social
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?
October 21, 2025 at 3:54 PM
marahjaraisy.bsky.social
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
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 -
September 26, 2025 at 9:08 AM
marahjaraisy.bsky.social
Finally! Super excited to share that our paper on morphological 'complexity' is out!!
Deconstructing notions of morphological ‘complexity’: Lessons from creoles and sign languages | Journal of Linguistics | Cambridge Core
Deconstructing notions of morphological ‘complexity’: Lessons from creoles and sign languages
www.cambridge.org
September 12, 2025 at 6:52 PM
marahjaraisy.bsky.social
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.
August 15, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Reposted by Marah Jaraisy
gregwoodin.bsky.social
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...
July 28, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Reposted by Marah Jaraisy
gregwoodin.bsky.social
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)
June 1, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Reposted by Marah Jaraisy
adamcschembri.bsky.social
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
OSF
osf.io
February 26, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Marah Jaraisy
bodowinter.bsky.social
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...
February 18, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Reposted by Marah Jaraisy
martamorgado.bsky.social
TISLR15 sketchbook #TISLR15
January 24, 2025 at 10:42 AM
Reposted by Marah Jaraisy
mdemeulder.bsky.social
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...
SignGPT – Project awarded £8.45m to build a sign language AI model for the Deaf community | University of Surrey
www.surrey.ac.uk
January 22, 2025 at 10:46 AM
marahjaraisy.bsky.social
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!
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.
January 18, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Reposted by Marah Jaraisy
fbisnath.bsky.social
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
January 15, 2025 at 10:41 AM
marahjaraisy.bsky.social
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!
January 15, 2025 at 7:26 PM
marahjaraisy.bsky.social
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!
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."
January 14, 2025 at 8:37 PM
marahjaraisy.bsky.social
I absloutely LOVE this thread by @cborstell.bsky.social
who had a very similar experience to mine.
January 8, 2025 at 1:53 PM
marahjaraisy.bsky.social
🎉 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. 🚀
January 7, 2025 at 12:26 PM
Reposted by Marah Jaraisy
gregwoodin.bsky.social
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. ⬇️
December 10, 2024 at 10:11 AM
Reposted by Marah Jaraisy
lcuob.bsky.social
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...
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’
www.theguardian.com
November 21, 2024 at 8:17 AM
Reposted by Marah Jaraisy
paperwhispers.bsky.social
Leeds has a fully funded scholarship program for undergraduate and Masters study for Gaza students.

**Tell Everyone**

www.leeds.ac.uk/masters-scho...
Gazan Humanitarian Scholarship
We offer scholarships for citizens of Gaza who have been displaced as a result of the ongoing conflict in the region and are living in a different country (outside of the UK).
www.leeds.ac.uk
November 21, 2024 at 10:42 PM
marahjaraisy.bsky.social
Hi BlueSky!

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

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
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)
November 21, 2024 at 11:35 AM