Dr Marta Morgado

Department of Linguistics and Communication
Postdoctoral Research Fellow

I collaborate with the deaf community in Guinea-Bissau (West Africa). I did my PhD work on three West African sign languages, two used by micro-communities – Adamorobe Sign Language (Ghana) with about 250 years, and Langue des Signes de Bouakako (Ivory Coast) with about 50 years, and one by a macro-community, Língua Gestual Guineense (Guinea-Bissau) with about 20 years. I compared personal experience narratives told in the three languages to better understand the differences between them.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Leiden University 

Research

I am interested in understanding how sign languages have been developing depending on how deaf people interact with each other: how frequently social interactions occur, which topics deaf people talk about, and how signers become more engaging with their interlocutors. So far, I have seen that signers in distinct ecologies and backgrounds express themselves differently. At the moment I will focus on the emerging sign language of Guinea-Bissau.