Oksana Tkachman
Research Area
Education
Ph.D. Linguistics, Cognitive Systems (COGS) stream, The University of British Columbia, 2022
Dissertation: "Embodiment and Emergent Phonology in the Visual-Manual Modality: Factors Enabling Sublexical Componentiality"
DOI: 10.14288/1.0422413
Committee: Carla L. Hudson Kam (supervisor), Bryan Gick, Douglas Pulleyblank
M.A. Linguistics, The University of Haifa, 2013
Thesis: “The Basic Noun-Verb Distinction in Two Young Sign Languages.”
Supervisor: Wendy Sandler
B.A. Linguistics (Chinese Studies minor), The University of Haifa, 2009
Research
Areas of Interests:
I work on language evolution within the framework of Embodied Cognition, with a focus on multimodality, manual communication, and the role of body and space in human communication. I am especially interested in modality-independent and modality-specific properties of human language, the independent role of different channels (e.g., gesture) and their interaction in communication, co-influence of linguistic form and non-linguistic perception (e.g., visual perception) and other nonlinguistic factors (e.g., spatial relations), factors affecting language development, and experimental ways of testing formal linguistic hypotheses.
Most recently, I focus on:
- The role of iconicity in language evolution, conceptual representations and communication more generally;
- Linguistic frames of reference and spatial relations;
- Reference in language and gesture;
- Phonetic properties of signs in sign languages and their consequences for sign phonology;
- Information structure in multimodal communication.
Member of:
Conference Presentations
Tkachman, Oksana, Shannon Hsu, Maria Samarskaya, Cindy Zhao, & Bryan Gick. (2023). Sign Language Handshapes, Similarly to Speech Sounds, Exploit Biomechanical Endpoints. Paper, Acoustics Week in Canada 2023. Montréal, Canada, October 3-6, 2023.
Tkachman, Oksana. (2023). Perspective Taking in Signing About Space: Conflated Relative-Intrinsic Frame of Reference and Its Consequences for Conventionalization of Lexical Signs. The 16th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference. Düsseldorf, Germany. August 7-11, 2023.
Tkachman, Oksana, Emily Sadlier-Brown, Roger Yu-Hsiang Lo, & Carla L. Hudson Kam. (2023). Cross-Linguistic Frequency and Interpretability in Sign Language Animal Signs. The 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Sydney, Australia. July 26-29, 2023.
Oksana Tkachman, Emily Sadlier-Brown, & Carla L. Hudson Kam. (2021). Conceptual Salience in Naming and Describing. Paper, the 3rd international workshop “Concepts in Action: Representation, Learning, and Application (CARLA)”, Bolzano, Italy. September 16-17, 2021.
Oksana Tkachman, Emily Sadlier-Brown, & Carla L. Hudson Kam. (2020). Conceptual Salience in Sign Language Forms. Paper, the UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Birmingham, UK. July 25-28, 2020.
Hall, Kathleen Currie, Oksana Tkachman, & Yurika Aonuki. (2019). Lexical competition and articulatory enhancement in American Sign Language. Paper, the Canadian Linguistics Association, Vancouver, Canada. June 1-3, 2019.
Tkachman, Oksana & Carla L. Hudson Kam. (2019). Semantic salience as iconic motivation of signs in artificial and natural sign languages. Paper, Iconicity in Language workshop, DGfS2019: 41st Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society. Bremen, Germany. March 6-8, 2019. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.17509.04325
Himanshu Goyal, Praneeth Srungarapu Venkata, Oksana Tkachman, & Bryan Gick. (2019). Simulating Biomechanical Endpoints in Sign Language Movements. Paper, Language Sciences Undergraduate Research Conference (LSURC). Vancouver, Canada. February 8-9.
Felicia Tong, Yadong Liu, Megan Keough, Oksana Tkachman, Kate Radford, & Bryan Gick. (2019). Lateral Bias in Tongue Bracing During Speech. Paper, Language Sciences Undergraduate Research Conference (LSURC). Vancouver, Canada. February 8-9.
Tkachman, Oksana & Carla L. Hudson Kam. (2018). The link between iconic sources and conceptual categories in iconic signs. Paper, Sign CAFÉ 1, The first international workshop on cognitive and functional explorations in sign language linguistics. July 30-31. Birmingham, UK.
Hall, Kathleen Curie, Scott Mackie, Michael Fry & Oksana Tkachman. (2017). SLPAnnotator: Tools for implementing sign language phonetic annotation. Paper, InterSpeech 2017, Situated Interaction. August 20-24. Stockholm, Sweden.
Tkachman, Oksana & Carla L. Hudson Kam. (2016). Naming Body Parts in a Novel Created Signed Lexicon (NCSLex). HDSL12: The 12th High Desert Linguistics Society Conference. November 12-14. Albuquerque, USA.
Tkachman, Oksana. (2016). Novel Compounding in Two Sign Languages: Lexical Conventionalization versus Structural Conventionalization. Paper, TISLR12: Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research 12. January 4-7, 2016. Melbourne, Australia.
André Xavier, Oksana Tkachman, & Bryan Gick. (2015). Towards Convergence of Methods for Speech and Sign Segmentation. Paper, Acoustic Week in Canada 15. October 6-9. Halifax, Canada.
Tkachman, Oksana & Irit Meir. (2015). Compounding and the Emergence of Structure in Young Sign Languages. Paper, MMM10: The 10th Mediterranean Morphology Meeting, Quo Vadis Morphology. Grammar, Cognition and Computation. September 7-9. Haifa, Israel.
Tkachman, Oksana. (2013). The Basic Noun-Verb Distinction in Two Young Sign Languages. Paper, Minerva-Gentner Symposium on Emergent Languages and Cultural Evolution. June 20-22. Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen.
Tkachman, Oksana. (2012). Nouns and Verbs in Two Young Sign Languages. Paper, 17. LIPP Symposium 2012, Parts of Speech across Languages, in Acquisition, Mind and Brain. July 6-7, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich.
Tkachman, Oksana. (2011). The Basic Noun/Verb Distinction in Two Young Sign Languages. Paper, IGDAL1, First International Graduate Students Conference on Diverse Approaches to Linguistics, October 23. Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
Publications
Tkachman, Oksana. (2022). Conflation of spatial reference frames in deaf community sign languages. Linguistics Vanguard 8(s1), 139-149. DOI: 10.1515/lingvan-2020-0016
Tkachman, Oksana, Gracellia Purnomo, & Bryan Gick. (2021). Repetition preferences in two-handed balanced signs: Vestigial locomotor Central Pattern Generators shape sign language phonetics and phonology. Frontiers in Communication. DOI: 10.3389/fcomm.2020.612973
Tkachman, Oksana & Carla L. Hudson Kam. (2020). Measuring lexical and structural conventionalization in young sign languages. Sign Language & Linguistics 23 (1-2), 208-232. DOI: 10.1075/sll.00049.tka
Hudson Kam, Carla L. & Oksana Tkachman. (2020). Iconicity and interpretability in language emergence: Constraints on the emergence of the use of space in sign languages. Language Dynamics and Change 10 (2), 127-157. DOI: 10.1163/22105832-bja10003
Tkachman, Oksana, Kathleen Currie Hall, Robert Fuhrman, & Yurika Aonuki. (2019). Visible amplitude: Towards quantifying prominence in sign language. Journal of Phonetics 77, 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2019.100935 -Editor’s choice
Oksana Tkachman & Irit Meir. (2018). Novel compounding and the emergence of structure in two young sign languages. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 3(1), 136. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.632
Meir, Irit & Oksana Tkachman. (2018). “Iconicity.” In The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Ed. M. Aronoff. New York: Oxford University. http://linguistics.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore-9780199384655-e-343
Bicevskis, Katie, Jonathan de Vries, Laurie Green, Johannes Heim, Jurij Božic, Joe D’Aquisto, Michael Fry, Emily Sadlier-Brown, Oksana Tkachman, Noriko Yamane, & Bryan Gick. (2016). Effects of mouthing and interlocutor presence on movements of visible vs. non-visible articulators. Canadian Acoustics 44 (1), 17-24. http://jcaa.caa-aca.ca/index.php/jcaa/article/view/2655
Meir, Irit & Oksana Tkachman. (March 28, 2014). “Iconicity.” In Oxford Bibliographies Online: Linguistics. Ed. M. Aronoff. New York: Oxford University Press. http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199772810/obo-9780199772810-0182.xml?rskey=Q61TJd&result=41
Tkachman, Oksana & Wendy Sandler (2013). The noun-verb distinction in two young sign languages. Gesture 13:3, 147-180. https://benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/gest.13.3.02tka/details
Proceedings Papers:
Tkachman, Oksana, Emily Sadlier-Brown, Roger Yu-Hsiang Lo, & Carla L. Hudson Kam. (2023). Cross-Linguistic Frequency and Interpretability in Sign Language Animal Signs. In M. Goldwater, F. K. Anggoro, B. K. Hayes, & D. C. Ong (Eds.), Proceedings of the 45th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. https://escholarship.org/content/qt7mw795rq/qt7mw795rq.pdf
Tkachman, Oksana, Gracellia Purnomo & Bryan Gick. 2018. Cyclic movement primitives underlying two-handed alternating signs in signed languages. Canadian Acoustics 46(4), 24-25.
Liu, Yadong, Megan Keough, Felicia Tong, Oksana Tkachman, Kate Radford, & Bryan Gick. 2018. Lateral bias in lingual bracing during speech. Canadian Acoustics. 2pp.
Hall, Kathleen Currie, Scott Mackie, Michael Fry, & Oksana Tkachman. 2017. SLPAnnotator: Tools for implementing Sign Language Phonetic Annotation. In Proceedings of the 18th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association (INTERSPEECH 2017), Stockholm, Sweden. Papercode Wed-SS-6-11-1
Oksana Tkachman, Kathleen Currie Hall, André Xavier and Bryan Gick. (2016) “Sign Language Phonetic Annotation Meets Phonological CorpusTools: Towards a Sign Language Toolset for Phonetic Notation And Phonological Analysis.” In Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Meeting in Phonology. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3765/amp.v3i0.3667 http://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/amphonology/article/view/3667
Tkachman, Oksana and Carla L. Hudson Kam. (2016) “Arbitrariness of Iconicity: The Sources (and Forces) of (dis)similarities in Iconic Representations.” In S.G. Roberts, C. Cuskley, L. McCrohon, L. Barceló-Coblijn, O. Feher & T. Verhoef (eds.) The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11). Available online: http://evolang.org/neworleans/papers/164.html
Xavier, André, Oksana Tkachman, & Bryan Gick. (2015) “Towards Convergence of Methods for Speech and Sign Segmentation.” Canadian Acoustics 43 (3), 122-123. http://awc.caa-aca.ca/index.php/AWC/AWC15/paper/view/165
Working Papers:
Tkachman, Oksana. (2019). Iconicity sources and feature selection in visual-manual modality. In Proceedings of the Qualifying Papers Mini-conferences 4 (2016–2017), University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics 45, Emily Sadlier-Brown, Oksana Tkachman, and Avery Ozburn (eds.).
Tkachman, Oksana. (2016). The status of third person pointing signs in American Sign Language. In Proceedings of the Qualifying Papers Mini-conferences 3 (2013–2015), University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics 44, Andrei Anghelescu, Joel Dunham, and Natalie Weber (eds.), pp. 219-233. http://epub.linguistics.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/QP3-13-Tkachman.pdf
Additional Description
Instructor:
COGS200 (2023-2024) Introduction to Cognitive Systems
LING100 (2019-2021) Introduction to Language and Linguistics