Derya Nuhbalaoglu


I received my Bachelor's degree from Turkish Language and Literature Department and a Certificate in Linguistics (Western Languages and Literatures Department, Linguistics Program) in 2007, from Bogazici University, Istanbul. In 2010, I graduated from Master of Arts Program in Linguistics, Institute of Social Sciences, Bogazici University. The title of my MA thesis, which was supervised by Dr. Markus Pöchtrager, is "On the Empty Onsets in Turkish: A Government Phonology Approach".

In 2010 I have started my PhD Program in Linguistics at Bogazici University. Between January 2012-July 2014 I have worked as a research assistant for the TIDBIL- TUBITAK Project: Model for a Reference Grammar of Sign Languages: Methods of Description and Analysis of Sign Patterns in light of Turkish Sign Language with Prof. Dr. A. Sumru Özsoy, Dr. Asli Göksel, Dr. Meltem Kelepir, Dr. Engin Arik.

My enthusiasm for sign language(s) started in 2012 with a research project (TIDBIL) and my Turkish Sign Language courses at Bogazici University. After attending a number of sign linguistics courses, participating at conferences and communicating with signers I decided to focus my research on sign language linguistics, particularly on discourse referents and referential expressions.

Recently, I work as a research assistant at Georg-August-University of Göttingen in the DFG funded project entitled "Discourse Referents in Space -Anaphora Resolution in German Sign Language". Also I am doing my doctoral research on discourse referents in German Sign Language (DGS) and Turkish Sign Language (TID) under the supervision of Prof. Markus Steinbach.