Marcus Perlman
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mperlman.bsky.social
Marcus Perlman
@mperlman.bsky.social
160 followers 93 following 1 posts
Cognitive scientist interested in iconicity, language, gesture, evolution, gorillas, and the future of intelligent life.
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Reposted by Marcus Perlman
limorraviv.bsky.social
Super proud of this fabulous team for challenging old comparative frameworks and rethinking what makes language language.
Read more in the thread below 👇 or here 📖😊: www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
November 25, 2025 at 11:04 PM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
symbolicstorage.bsky.social
🚨NEW PUBLICATION ALERT!🚨
The 'Design Features' of Language Revisited (w/ @mperlman.bsky.social @glupyan.bsky.social Koen de Reus & @limorraviv.bsky.social)
Feature Review out now in #OpenAccess in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social! #language #linguistics
Paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...
The title page
November 25, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
marahjaraisy.bsky.social
Very excited to announce that yesterday I submitted my PhD thesis: The Linguistic Life of the Kufr Qassem Deaf Community: Language Emergence, Variation, Change, and Persistence.

I dedicate this thesis to my people: the resilient Palestinian people
THE LINGUISTIC LIFE OF THE KUFR QASSEM DEAF COMMUNITY LANGUAGE EMERGENCE, VARIATION, CHANGE, AND PERSISTENCE by MARAH JARAISI A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Supervised by Professor Adam Schembri and Dr. Marcus Perlman Department of Linguistics and Communication School of English, Drama, and Creative Studies College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham September 2025 Dedication This thesis is dedicated to the resilient Palestinian people. (poem) Because I am not like match sticks, I light up once… and die. but I am like the fires of the Magi: I burn… from my cradle to my grave and from my predecessors to my descendants. Long as the horizon is my breath, and I have mastered the craft of ants, gently for history is written the way we dictate By - Tawfiq Ziad -
September 26, 2025 at 9:08 AM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
bodowinter.bsky.social
Super excited to share our new multimodal corpus analysis, "Iconic Words Are Associated With Iconic Gestures" 🥳

Project led by our PhD student Ell Wilding and in collab w/ @jeannettel.bsky.social & @mperlman.bsky.social:

doi.org/10.1111/cogs...
Iconic Words Are Associated With Iconic Gestures
Iconicity ratings studies have established that there are many English words which native speakers judge as “iconic,” that is, as sounding like what they mean. Here, we explore whether these iconic E...
doi.org
August 15, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
bodowinter.bsky.social
And it comes together with a reply! It was an interesting and fruitful discussion about the iconicity of different type of r-sounds :)

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
April 15, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
ddediu.bsky.social
Remember the cool finding by @bodowinter.bsky.social et al. that the "trilled r" [r] is associated with roughness? Well, Rémi Anselme, François Pellegrino (@laboratoireddl.bsky.social) & myself show in www.nature.com/articles/s41... that this seems more general and applies to all "r-like" sounds.
Not just the alveolar trill, but all “r-like” sounds are associated with roughness across languages, pointing to a more general link between sound and touch - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Not just the alveolar trill, but all “r-like” sounds are associated with roughness across languages, pointing to a more general link between sound and touch
www.nature.com
April 15, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
bodowinter.bsky.social
New review/theory/argumentative paper is out: "The size and shape of sound: The role of articulation and acoustics in iconicity and crossmodal correspondences".

The paper delves deeply into what phonetic and cognitive mechanisms underpin spoken language iconicity.

Link: doi.org/10.1121/10.0...
April 14, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
cathelaing.bsky.social
My latest article, "Vocal gestures in early multimodal communication: A commentary on Karadöller, Sümer and Özyürek", is now available to read in First Language. There is a paywall, but I can share the electronic version with anyone who needs it.

doi.org/10.1177/0142...
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
doi.org
March 19, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
adamcschembri.bsky.social
Sign Language Contact, Variation, and Change 2025 conference at the University of Birmingham, UK: we are now inviting abstracts on any topic related to language contact/translanguaging, sociolinguistic variation, and language change in signing communities. sites.google.com/view/slcvc-w...
SLCVC2025 Conference - Call for papers
Call for papers We are inviting abstracts on original research on any topic related to language contact/translanguaging, sociolinguistic variation, and language change in signing communities. All su...
sites.google.com
January 27, 2025 at 10:50 AM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
symbolicstorage.bsky.social
JOB ALERT! Come work with me!
34-Month Postdoc Position here at the Center for Language Evolution Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń in my project "Paths to Polysemy"
Job offer here: www.umk.pl/en/jobs/?tas...
Please repost & share widely!
a picture of Torun old town in winter
January 24, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
marahjaraisy.bsky.social
Very much enjoyed presenting my poster at #TISLR15 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia today!

One important message in our poster is that factors like methodology, researcher's background, and language documentation may affect one's result.

Happy to share/discuss more via DM or Email!
A research poster titled 'Reference tracking, the use of space, and sociolinguistic ecologies in the Kufr Qassem and British signing communities' by Marah Jaraissy and colleagues from the University of Birmingham. The poster compares language structures in two deaf communities: Kufr Qassem (using KQSL/ISL) and British (using BSL). It explores the effects of social structure, language contact, and language age on semiotic diversity in storytelling. Key sections include: 1. Background: Discusses influences on language use, including community size, network density, and language contact, with simpler sign types used in smaller communities. 2. Methodology: Includes narrative retellings of a silent film clip by participants (12 bilingual KQSL/ISL signers and 12 BSL signers). 3. Results: Highlights differences in the use of lexical signs, pointing, classifier constructions, and overt constructed action between the two communities. Signers of KQSL/ISL use overt constructed action more, while BSL signers use more classifier constructions 4. Discussion and Conclusion: Links findings to social and linguistic factors, but also suggesting influences of methodology and researcher background. 5. Future Directions: Proposes studying referent's animacy and narrative viewpoints effects on storytelling Charts and diagrams provide data on sign type proportions, while logos and QR codes for references appear at the bottom."
January 14, 2025 at 8:37 PM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
jwgrieve.bsky.social
New paper out today in Frontiers in AI!

The sociolinguistic foundations of language modelling

We argue sociolinguistics provides a foundation for understanding LLMs and addressing many challenges

www.frontiersin.org/journals/art...

doi.org/10.3389/frai...

techxplore.com/news/2025-01...
Frontiers | The sociolinguistic foundations of language modeling
www.frontiersin.org
January 13, 2025 at 2:24 PM
mperlman.bsky.social
I'm excited to see this study published in Gesture, led by @kirstyrgreen.bsky.social. We get deep into the nitty-gritty of infants' early production of iconic gestures.
kirstyrgreen.bsky.social kirstyrgreen.bsky.social @kirstyrgreen.bsky.social · Jan 13
In my paper with @mperlman.bsky.social and Sotaro Kita (published in Gesture last week benjamins.com/catalog/gest...) we show that infants can create their own iconic gestures, producing their first iconic gesture between 12 and 20 months! Gestures varied in level of conceptual difficulty.
benjamins.com
January 13, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
adamcschembri.bsky.social
‘From Birds to Words: Onomatopoeia, Metaphor, and the Language of Birdsong’

Please join us for the inaugural lecture of Professor
@bodowinter.bsky.social on Friday 21 February 2025 (16:00-17:00) in the Alan Walters Building, University of Birmingham.
From Birds to Words: Onomatopoeia, Metaphor, and the Language of Birdsong
From Birds to Words: Onomatopoeia, Metaphor, and the Language of Birdsong - Professor Bodo Winter's Inaugural Lecture
www.birmingham.ac.uk
January 10, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
davidmsidhu.bsky.social
Does sound symbolism show up in real language? Do real words for spiky things sound "spiky"? Words for small things sound "small"?

I'm excited to share this new review paper summarising the existing work by myself and many others on these questions!

compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Sound Symbolism in the Lexicon: A Review of Iconic‐Systematicity
Sound symbolism refers to associations between language sounds (i.e., phonemes) and particular properties (e.g., certain shapes). For example, phonemes like /m/ are associated with roundness, while p....
compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
December 4, 2024 at 3:43 PM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
davidmsidhu.bsky.social
I made a starter pack of Iconicity Researchers!

Please message me if you’d like to be added, or have suggestions for anyone else who should be added!

go.bsky.app/C2F5iKC
December 14, 2024 at 7:19 PM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
symbolicstorage.bsky.social
Oh yeah good call! I just saw comics and thought "Neil"^^
For unconventionalised onomatopoeia there's also cool work by @mperlman.bsky.social and Gary Lupyan
www.nature.com/articles/s41... and nice cross-cultural folllow up work by @acwiek.bsky.social et al
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
People Can Create Iconic Vocalizations to Communicate Various Meanings to Naïve Listeners - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - People Can Create Iconic Vocalizations to Communicate Various Meanings to Naïve Listeners
www.nature.com
December 1, 2024 at 9:11 AM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
erikas.online
Linguists, is there actually work on this kind of unconventionalized onomatopoeia? 🐦🐦
attackerman.bsky.social Spencer Ackerman @attackerman.bsky.social · Dec 1
The weirdest thing about writing comics is having to sound out special effects so I can write them in the script. Sitting at my little laptop muttering “zzzzzzzhhhhhh-krk” to myself and wondering if that’ll read enough like Blast Of Electricity
December 1, 2024 at 4:39 AM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
timoroettger.bsky.social
👩‍🎓👨‍🎓Fully funded PhD position available to come work with me at @unioslo.bsky.social using iterative learning experiments to understand the evolution of sound symbolism.

🔴 Deadline is 12. Jan '24
⏲️ Desired starting date is Mar/April '24

shorturl.at/7hLH0
Doctoral Research Fellow (271220) | University of Oslo
Job title: Doctoral Research Fellow (271220), Employer: University of Oslo, Deadline: Sunday, January 12, 2025
shorturl.at
November 22, 2024 at 9:03 AM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
priap.bsky.social
Move over bouba-kiki!

New study on crossmodal iconicity shows [r] = rough and [l] = smooth, even in langs that conflate them.

The results show "that speech sounds are not just acoustic objects, but they also have a texture and a shape to them".

#iconicity 🐦🐦
The alveolar trill is perceived as jagged/rough by speakers of different languages
Typological research shows that across languages, trilled [r] sounds are more common in adjectives describing rough as opposed to smooth surfaces. In this study
pubs.aip.org
November 23, 2024 at 8:57 AM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
viewsproject.bsky.social
This is an interesting article - apparently it's crosslinguistically common to associate a trilled R sound with a jagged line shape. You've got to wonder if this kind of research could be relevant for writing system development...

www.theguardian.com/science/2024...
People around world associate rolled R with a jagged line, study finds
Speakers of 28 languages linked sound and shape at least 88% of the time, in ‘strongest case of sound symbolism to date’
www.theguardian.com
November 21, 2024 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
marahjaraisy.bsky.social
Hi BlueSky!

Check out our new paper on mouthing patterns in the bimodal multilingual deaf community of Kufr Qassem

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
A screenshot of the article: Word of Mouth: Mouthing patterns in a bimodal multilingual deaf community. (Click on the link to read the abstract and the full article)
November 21, 2024 at 11:35 AM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
acwiek.bsky.social
I'm excited to share our new study on cross-modal iconicity from our special issue in JASA! We show [r] is rough and [l] is smooth even in languages that conflate them within one phoneme. The effect is even stronger than the bouba/kiki effect!
The alveolar trill is perceived as jagged/rough by speakers of different languages
Typological research shows that across languages, trilled [r] sounds are more common in adjectives describing rough as opposed to smooth surfaces. In this study
doi.org
November 20, 2024 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
symbolicstorage.bsky.social
This cool study by @acwiek.bsky.social, @susfuchs.bsky.social @mperlman.bsky.social @bodowinter.bsky.social and co-authors being reported by Guardian here:

www.theguardian.com/science/2024...
People around world associate rolled R with a jagged line, study finds
Speakers of 28 languages linked sound and shape at least 88% of the time, in ‘strongest case of sound symbolism to date’
www.theguardian.com
November 20, 2024 at 8:39 PM
Reposted by Marcus Perlman
gregwoodin.bsky.social
It's out—my new #openaccess paper with Bodo Winter in Cognitive Science (@cogscisociety.bsky.social) 🥳. Thread 👇 (1/11)
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
November 20, 2024 at 9:46 AM