Linguistics as structure in computer animation

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalee Wolfe ◽  
Peter Cook ◽  
John C. McDonald ◽  
Jerry Schnepp
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Computer Animation ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Great Promise ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
American Sign ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Formal Testing

Computer-generated three-dimensional animation holds great promise for synthesizing utterances in American Sign Language (ASL) that are not only grammatical, but well-tolerated by members of the Deaf community. Unfortunately, animation poses several challenges stemming from the necessity of grappling with massive amounts of data. However, the linguistics of ASL may aid in surmounting the challenge by providing structure and rules for organizing animation data. An exploration of the linguistic and extralinguistic behavior of the brows from an animator’s viewpoint yields a new approach for synthesizing nonmanuals that differs from the conventional animation of anatomy and instead offers a different approach for animating the effects of interacting levels of linguistic function. Results of formal testing with Deaf users have indicated that this is a promising approach.

Identity, Ethics, and the Deaf Community

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-71
Author(s):  
Teresa Blankmeyer Burke
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Deaf Identity ◽  
Language Representation ◽  
Per Se

From the vantage point of philosophy, this chapter discusses identities using a philosophical stance with specific focus on the ethics dimension of what deaf identity means. The author, a deaf philosopher, explores the American Sign Language representation of the word philosophy and briefly describes the role of philosophy per se in exploring the roles of metaphysics and epistemology. She introduces an analytical philosophical approach to the topic of ethics and deaf identities that involves concept clarification, analysis of brief examples, and posing specific kinds of questions that are typical of this discipline. The chapter ends with a plea for academics and community participants to continue exploring explicit identification of beliefs about the nature and meaning of deaf identity.

scholarly journals Bilingualism and bimodal code-blending among deaf ASL-English bilinguals

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjorie Herbert ◽  
Acrisio Pires
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Mixed Language ◽  
Delayed Exposure

The audiologically deaf members of the American Deaf community display bilingual competence in American Sign Language (ASL) and English, although their language acquisition trajectories often involve delayed exposure to one or both languages. There is a great deal of variation in terms of production among these signers, ranging from very ASL-typical to productions that seem to display heavy English influence. The latter, mixed productions, coined “Contact Signing” by Lucas & Valli (1992), could be representative of a type of codeswitching, referred to as ‘code-blending’ in sign language-spoken language contexts (e.g. Baker & Van den Bogaerde 2008), in which bilinguals invoke knowledge of their two grammars in concert, or these productions could be more like a mixed language, in which a third grammar, distinct from both ASL and English, constrains them. We argue, based on the analysis of our corpus of naturalistic data collected in an all-deaf sociolinguistic environment, that Contact Signing provides evidence for code-blending, given the distribution of English vs. ASL-based language properties in the production data from the participants in our study.

scholarly journals Recognition of American Sign Language Gestures in a Virtual Reality Using Leap Motion

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurelijus Vaitkevičius ◽  
Mantas Taroza ◽  
Tomas Blažauskas ◽  
Robertas Damaševičius ◽  
Rytis Maskeliūnas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Gesture Recognition ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Leap Motion ◽  
American Sign ◽  
3D Space

We perform gesture recognition in a Virtual Reality (VR) environment using dataproduced by the Leap Motion device. Leap Motion generates a virtual three-dimensional (3D) handmodel by recognizing and tracking user‘s hands. From this model, the Leap Motion applicationprogramming interface (API) provides hand and finger locations in the 3D space. We present asystem that is capable of learning gestures by using the data from the Leap Motion device and theHidden Markov classification (HMC) algorithm. We have achieved the gesture recognitionaccuracy (mean ± SD) is 86.1 ± 8.2% and gesture typing speed is 3.09 ± 0.53 words per minute(WPM), when recognizing the gestures of the American Sign Language (ASL).

Participating in Deaf Sport: Characteristics of Deaf Spectators

1993 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Stewart
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Socialization Processes ◽  
Social Gratification

Fifty-nine deaf spectators at the 1991 Winter World Games for the Deaf were surveyed to delineate biodemographic characteristics and the socialization processes that led to their attendance at the Games. Subjects ranged from 21 to 74 years of age and were initially attracted to the Games because of their interest in watching deaf individuals compete. However, their chief source of enjoyment at the Games was the opportunity to socialize. It was also revealed that American Sign Language might not be as dominant a language in the Deaf community as previously thought and that some deaf individuals do receive social gratification through their interactions with and among nondeaf individuals.

ASL or contact signing: Issues of judgment

1991 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ceil Lucas ◽  
Clayton Valli
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Demographic Information ◽  
Contact Language ◽  
Native Signers

ABSTRACTThis article reports on one aspect of an ongoing study of language contact in the American deaf community. A kind of signing that results from the contact between American Sign Language (ASL) and English exhibits features of both languages. The ultimate goal of the study is a linguistic description of contact signing and a reexamination of claims that it is a pidgin. Ten dyads and two triads of native ASL signers (6 white dyads, 4 black dyads, 2 black triads) were videotaped with a deaf interviewer, a hearing interviewer, and alone with each other. The different interview situations induced switching between ASL and contact signing. This article (1) reviews the pattern of language use during the interviews with the white dyads and describes the judgments of selected videotaped segments by 10 native signers; (2) examines the role of demographic information in judgments. For each segment, half of the judges were given one set of demographic information, and the other half were given another set. Indications are that this information does affect judgment, even though the linguistic forms viewed were identical. (American Sign Language, language contact, language judgments, deaf community)

scholarly journals Shared spaces, shared mind: Connecting past and present viewpoints in American Sign Language narratives

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Janzen
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Dimensional Space ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Shared Spaces ◽  
Signed Language ◽  
Conversational Partner ◽  
Three Dimensional Space

AbstractIn American Sign Language (ASL) narratives, signers map conceptualized spaces onto actual spaces around them that can reflect physical, conceptual, and metaphorical relations among entities. Because verb tenses are not attested in ASL, a question arises: How does a signer distinguish utterances about past events from utterances within a present conversational context? In narratives, the story-teller’s past-event utterances move the story along; accompanying these will often be subjective comments on the story, evaluative statements, and the like, that are geared, in the present, to the conversational partner. This usage-based study looks at how the ASL signer integrates past and present spaces in a narrative and specifically, integrates the viewpoints associated with each. Blending past and present spaces, while a conceptual notion, is in ASL played out in utterance structure and also in the fact that signed language articulation takes place in a three-dimensional space upon which both the signer and addressee have embodied, perspectivized views. Past and present conceptual spaces both occupy the physical space of articulation, and so the blends are at once conceptual and perceivable.

scholarly journals Negotiating legitimacy in American Sign Language interpreting education: Uneasy belonging in a community of practice

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Friedner
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Relational Work ◽  
Gate Keeping ◽  
Sign Language Interpreting

This article ethnographically explores how American Sign Language-English interpreting students negotiate and foreground different kinds of relationships to claim legitimacy in relation to deaf people and the deaf community. As the field of interpreting is undergoing shifts from community interpreting to professionalization, interpreting students endeavor to legitimize their involvement in the field. Students create distinction between themselves and other students through relational work that involves positive and negative interpretation of kinship terms. In analyzing interpreting students' gate-keeping practices, this article explores the categories and definitions used by interpreting students and argues that there is category trouble that occurs. Identity and kinship categories are not nuanced or critically interrogated, resulting in deaf people and interpreters being represented in static ways.

scholarly journals “From White Deaf People’s Adversity to Black Deaf Gain”: A Proposal for a New Lens of Black Deaf Educational History

JCSCORE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-99
Author(s):  
Rezenet Tsegay Moges
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Educational History ◽  
Black Deaf ◽  
Deaf History

This paper re-visits Bauman and Murray’s (2014) “Deaf Gain,” using the perspectives of Black Deaf history.  Due to the enforcement of the Oral policy in U.S. educational system during 1890s through 1960s, the language transmission of American Sign Language (ASL) for many generations of White Deaf people were fractured (Gannon, 1981).  During the segregation, approximately 81.25% of the Black Deaf schools maintained their signed education, which ironically provided better education than the White-only schools.  Consequently, the language variation of Black Deaf people in the South, called as “Black ASL” (McCaskill et al., 2011), flourished due to the historical adversity of White Deaf experience.  Thus, the sustainability of Black ASL empowered this ethnic group of American Deaf community, which I am re-framing to what I call “Black Deaf Gain” and presenting a different objective of the ontology of Black Deaf experience.

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