Gal Belzitsman
Email: galbel84@gmail.com Research Assistant. I studied linguistics at Tel aviv University, where I was also working as a research assistant at the lab of Prof. Ruth Berman for 3 years.…
Books
Books Meir, Irit, and Wendy Sandler (2004). safa bamerxav: eshnav le- sfat hasimanim hayisraelit (Language in Space: a Window onto Israeli Sign Language). Haifa, University of Haifa Press. (in Hebrew). …
Articles
ArticlesMeir, Irit. (2020). Topic-open-endedness: Why recursion is overrated. Sign Language and Linguistics 23:1/2. Special issue in memory of Irit Meir. 258-271.Sandler, Wendy, Belsitzman, Gal, & Meir, Irit. (2020). Visual foreign accent…
Handouts of talks
Handouts of talksDeaf in Israel as a bilingual minority.' 1st meeting of Israeli Association for the Study of Language and Society, Haifa 2001The Evolution of Verb Classes and Verb Agreement…
Yifat Ben-Zeev
Research Assistant. As a bilingual (Israeli Sign Language and Hebrew) I am fascinated by sign languages, working with them from various angles. In education, I teach Deaf children and youth from different backgrounds and communities (Jews, Arabs, etc.). It is fascinating to discover the cultural wealth and the variety of sign languages the children display. As a translator I work in translation for educational purposes and am
interested specifically in translation from Israeli Sign Language to the spoken language, a task which is no small feat, and am a lecturer in programs for training Israeli Sign Language interpreters.
Itamar Kastner
Itamar Kastner
A graduate student at New York University and formerly a research assistant at the lab. My main interest was sign language phonology, namely the way it takes form in emerging sign languages and its interplay with syntax, the structure of sentences. The way people combine sounds or signs to create meaning is a fundamental part of language, but this happens slightly differently in new sign languages. Our lab examines this using both theoretical and experimental methods.Nowadays I study the interplay of morphology and syntax, that is, the way we build up words and the way we build up sentences.
Sarah Lanesman
Research Assistant. I am deaf, as are my sisters. Sign language is my main and preferred mode of communication in all aspects of life. I have an MA degree from the University of Central Lancshire, Preston, UK. My thesis is titled: “Algerian Jewish Sign Language: its emergence and survival”, supervized by Prof. Ulrike Zeshan and Dr. Irit Meir. This is the first publication and documentation of this endangered language. In the sign language research lab I was involved in several projects: The history of ISL, Village sign languages of Israel and Algerian Jewish Sign Language.
Oksana Tkachman
Oksana Tkachman Email: tox.cs84@gmail.com
Research Assistant. I became interested in sign language research while studying with Prof. Wendy Sandler. My MA thesis project focused on the noun/verb distinction in Israeli Sign Language (ISL) and Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL). I was also involved in the preparation of the dictionary of ABSL.
I currently work on compounding in ISL and ABSL, focusing primarily on general characteristics and developmental patterns of this basic morphological mechanism in the early stages of language development.
Svetlana Dachkovsky
Email: dachkov@yahoo.com Research Assistant. Through my work as research assistant on the prosody project in the lab, I became interested in facial expressions that function as intonation in sign language…
Debby Menashe
Debby Menashe
Email: dbjewelry@gmail.com
I started working as a research assistant in the lab in 1998. My work is on Israeli Sign Language (ISL) since it is my native language (I was born to a deaf family). My work includes translation, documentation and coding of different linguistic materials of ISL. While working here, I discovered that sign language arouses deep interest in me, and that there is a fascinating deaf community behind it, with a unique mental and cultural character.