News

February 2026 I will hold a discussion on sign languages in Making Waves on 25th February. Details about the topic and discussion are upcoming! Hope to see everyone online!

January 2026 I will be presenting my work with Diane Brentari on prominence and atypicality in ASL and TİD at LSA 2026. Excited to meet and catch up with friends, and make new!

November 2025 I shared my pose estimation study findings on head nods in ASL and TİD at Sign Langauge Grammars, Parsing Models, and the Brain Workshop.

October 2025 I presented how sign language affects signers’ and learners’ production and perception at APS Roundtable Perceiving Motion, Producing Meaning.

October 2025 I presented how prominence shapes simultaneity in ASL and TİD at the University of Chicago Center for Gesture, Sign, and Language Mini Conference.

July 2025 Although I couldn’t make it in person, Aslı presented our work on the prosody of focus in TİD at ISGS 10 at Nijmegen, Netherland. I was also part of the presentation of our collaboration on developing guidalines for nonmanual annotations.

June 2025 Along with Austin German and Jeff Davis, we received a small grant from the Center for Gesture, Sign, and Language at the University of Chicago to investigate the effects of animacy on word order across languages, ASL, TİD, LSN, and Z Sign. Stay tuned for the results!

April 2025 New article on the effects of focus on duration in TİD with Aslı Gürer and Burak Çavuşoğlu is published in Glossa!

March 2025 As one of the invited speakers, I presented my long standing puzzle, the role of head nod in TİD’s grammar at TU+ 10 at USC! It was great to catch up with old friends and meet with new ones, thank you, organizers!

January 2025 I presented our production and perception studies on (a)typicality and prominence in ASL and TİD at TISLR 15.

January 2025 Our study on the effects of learning sign language on temporal resolution in ASL learners in published in Journal of Vision! Huge thanks to my collaborators Sandra Wood, Chuck Bradley, Evie Malaia, and Ronnie Wilbur!

December 2024 I started my new postdoctoral position at Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago!

December 2024 I presented our studies with Aslı on focus in TİD at the Max Planck Institute Psycholinguistics Department Multimodal Language Department. It was a great discussion, thank you for inviting me!

September 2024 My article from my dissertation on signer certainty and nonmanuals in TİD is published in Journal of Pragmatics!

August 2024 I was back at Ann Arbor, MI, this time for FEAST with two talks. One was stage talk about our studies on accommodation strategies in ASL and TİD with Diane. The other talk was poster talk about focus in TİD with Aslı. It was great cathcing up with all friends and colleagues!

May 2024 I presented our very first findings on the effect of number of nonmanuals on TİD signers’ accuracy and reaction time with Diane at HSP 2024 in Ann Arbor, MI.

March 2024 I presented my studies on how (a)typicality affects simultaneous structure in ASL and TİD at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at Wichita State University. It was a great meeting with faculty and students!

February 2024 I was at DGfS in Bochum, Germany to present my dissertation study findings on nonmanuals and signer certainty with Ronnie and our initial findings on the effects of focus on focal and non-focal domains in TİD with Aslı and Burak.

January 2024 Our article with Aslı on prosody of focus in TİD is published in Language and Cognition!

January 2024 I presented my studies on how (a)typicality affects simultaneous structure in ASL and TİD at the Department of Languages and Cultures at Southern Illinois University. It was a great meeting with faculty and students!

January 2024 I was at LSA 2024 in New York. I presented our work with Diane on simultaneous accommodation strategies of ASL and TİD signers. I also presented my dissertation study on nonmanuals and signer certainty. It was great to catch up with everyone!

November 2023 I was back at my alma mater, Linguistics Department at Bogazici University for data collection. I also presented our recent findings on accommodation to atypicality among ASL and TİD signers. It was great to be back home after such a long time!

September 2023 I presented my dissertation studies on signer certainty and nonmanuals in TİD as a poster at XPrag 10.

September 2023 I presented my dissertation studies on nonmanuals in TİD as a poster at Sinn und Bedeutung 28.

April 2023 I presented my study on evidentiality and epistemic signs in TİD at the Workshop on Modality in Underdescribed Languages.

March 2023 I presented my dissertation studies on signer certainty and nonmanuals in TİD at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Texas, Austin. I had a great time with fruitful discussions and meeting with old and new faces!

March 2023 I presented my study on borrowed sign in TİD at the DGfS 45 Workshop on The Dynamics of Asymmetric Language Contact.

January 2023 Our TU+ Proceeding with Aslı on nonmanual focus markers in TİD is out!

December 2022 Now, I am officially graduated from Purdue with my PhD degree. Thank you so much, Ronnie for everything!

November 2022 I presented my dissertation studies on signer certainty and nonmanuals in TİD at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh. Thank you for having me!

October 2022 I started my new position as a postdoctoral researcher under Dr. Diane Brentari’s guidance at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Chicago!

July 2022 I defended my dissertation on the semantics of modal signs and co-occurring nonmanuals! Thanks to all my participants for their time and patience with me, my committee members Elaine, Lori, Daniel, and my dear advisor Ronnie for everything!

February 2022 We presented our initial findings on focus and nonmanuals in TİD with Aslı at TU+ 7.

January 2022 I attended my first LSA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC to present our work on nonmanual annotation guidelines with Ashley and Ronnie.

July 2021 Our article with Ronnie on aspect signs in TİD is published in Sign Language & Linguistics!

June 2021 I received the Purdue University Ross-Lynn Research Fund to carry out my dissertation studies!

April 2021 I am awarded with Kneale Literary Award in Linguistics for my dissertation chapter!

December 2020 Our CLS proceeding on modal signs in TİD with Ronnie is published!

March 2020 Our article on machine readable TİD resource with Gülşen Eryiğit, Cihat Eryiğit, Meltem Kelepir, Aslı Özkul, Tuğba Pamay, Dilara Torunoğlu-Selamet, and Hatice Köse is published in Language Resources & Evaluation!

September 2019 I was at TISLR in Hamburg, Germany to present our poster on the morphology of number signs in TİD with Aslı Özkul.

June 2019 I attended Expressing Evidentiality Workshop in Konsanz, Germany to present my evidentiality work on TİD mouth gesture with Ronnie. Konstanz was beautiful!

May 2019 I was at CLS 55 to present our work on modal semantics and nonmanuals with Ronnie in Chicago, IL. It was great to catch up with friends and colleagues!

December 2018 Our FEAST proceeding with Fabian, Ronnie, and Daniel on modal signs and scope relations in TİD is published!

September 2018 Ruth presented our work with Ronnie on Japanese Sign Language modal at the 7th Meeting of Spoken and Signed Language Linguistics Conference in Osaka, Japan.

July 2018 I was at Sign Language Grammars through the Formal and Experimental Glass to present our work on Cinque’s Hierarchy mapping in sign languages with Ronnie in Crete, Greece. Conversation with friends, food, and the Aegean sea were amazing!

June 2018 I attended FEAST 2018 to present our work on modal signs in TİD with Fabian, Ronnie, and Daniel in Venice, Italy. It was great to be back at FEAST and in Venice!

May 2018 A new article on time expressions in TİD is out in the Journal of Linguistics!

September 2017 My WAFL proceeding on aspect signs in TİD is published!

September 2016 I was back to my very first conference FEAST in Venice to present my findings from my master thesis on aspect sign and nonmanual in TİD. It has always been beautiful to be back at FEAST and sign linguist community!

July 2016 I defended my master thesis on time and aspect in TİD! I am thnakful for my thesis committee Meltem Kelepir, Aslı Göksel, and Engin Arık.

May 2016 Our LREC proceeding on BosphorusSign TİD Recognition Corpus with Cihan Camgöz, Alp Kındıroğlu, Meltem Kelepir, Sumru Özsoy, and Lale Akarun is published!

May 2016 Cihan presented our work on BosphorusSign for automatic translation from TİD to Turkish with Alp Kındıroğlu, Meltem Kelepir, Sumru Özsoy, and Lale Akarun at LREC 2016.

May 2016 I attended WAFL 12 to present my master studies on perfective markers in TİD in Hartford, CT.

April 2016 I am awarded Lynn Doctoral Fellowship from Purdue University Graduate Office!

April 2016 I will be starting PhD program at the Department of Linguistics at Purdue University under Dr. Ronnie Wilbur’s supervision in August! I am excited for the new adventure!

September 2015 I attended the 2015 International Congress on Barrier-Free Information Technology to present our work on online self learning platform of Turkish for TİD signers with Caner Derici, Meltem Kelepir, Sumru Özsoy, and Tunga Güngör in Manisa, Turkey.

May 2015 I attended FEAST to present my poster on the perfective sign in TİD in Barcelona, Spain. I also attended the SignGram Summer School.

February 2015 I received a travel grant to attend SignGram Summer School in Barcelona, Spain in May.

June 2014 I attended COST SignGram Summer School to learn more about sign language research. I also attended my very first academic conference FEAST. It seems that I will be back!