Maartje De Meulder

I’m a deaf senior researcher at HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, the Netherlands. My work sits at the intersection of Deaf Studies and applied linguistics. The questions that run through most things I do are about mediation, language ideologies, and futures: how language and communication get mediated – by institutions, interpreters, and technologies – and how each form reshapes what we take language to be, what we think it should be, and the ideologies of “access” and “inclusion” that get built around it.

My earlier work examined the legal recognition of sign languages, and the ideologies embedded in those laws. That led me to look at sign language interpreting as a social institution, and to ask what interpreting actually does to sign languages and deaf people, rather than take it as a given good. My current work focuses on AI-driven language technologies and what happens when machines become an actor in signed interactions.

Alongside my academic work, I collaborate with deaf organisations, interpreting professionals, and technology stakeholders on the ethics, governance and real-world impact of these tools. My aim is to develop concepts and evidence that are grounded in deaf experiences, and to think critically about what AI is doing to language, to language ideologies, and to the futures being constructed for minoritized language communities.