Lisa van der Mark is a PhD candidate at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics.

More information about Lisa van der Mark

Fields of interest

• Tactile sign
• Protactile
• Language attitudes
• Language dynamics

Research

In my research I focus on the dynamics of communication among deafblind people who (to at least some degree) know sign language(s). This includes several subtopics to be explored, such as: which linguistic aspects from which language or modality can be found; what do deafblind individuals feel and think of languages and modalities, and how does this affect their communication with others, and vice versa; and, circling back to the linguistic aspects: how do language attitudes affect vocabularies and grammar?

Since the participants and myself are deafblind, and the communication is mostly tactile, the research methods need to be better suited. The research methods should better reflect the tactile modality and should be better accessible to participants and researchers. Thus, my PhD will also be used to explore ways how research can be more tactile-centric and accessible to tactile individuals.

Initially, I intended to explore this on an international level, among mobile deafblind Europeans who were gathering and mingling few times in the years before COVID-19. Depending on the possibilities, this may be adjusted to a more local scale.