Davin  Tankersley
Research  |  2024-25

Taiwan

Devin Tankersley is a 4th year Ph.D. student in the UNM Linguistics Department. After graduating from UC Santa Cruz, he moved to Taiwan, where he taught English, studied Mandarin, and eventually received a master's degree from National Tsing Hua University. There, he began learning Taiwan Sign Language (TSL), and quickly became fascinated with its intricate grammar and lexical richness. He then decided to make sign linguistics his main focus of research, which he came to UNM to pursue. With the help of Fulbright, he plans to document lexical variation in TSL by visiting various Deaf Associations throughout Taiwan, conducting interviews and engaging in local activities.

“I am thrilled to be a recipient of the Fulbright Open Research Award, as it will allow me to pursue my research goals while helping to create a bridge between the Deaf communities in the U.S. and in Taiwan.  My goal is to create a database of signs in TSL connected to where they are used, so that interested students, educators, and researchers can understand more about the language,” Tankersley said.

Tankersley would like to thank Erin Wilkinson and Jill Morford and Simmons, as well as the members of the Lobo Language Acquisition Lab.