The FATE Landscape of Sign Language AI Datasets

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-45
Author(s):  
Danielle Bragg ◽  
Naomi Caselli ◽  
Julie A. Hochgesang ◽  
Matt Huenerfauth ◽  
Leah Katz-Hernandez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Individual Data ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Language Data ◽  
History Of ◽  
Language Technologies ◽  
And Storage ◽  
Access Mechanisms

Sign language datasets are essential to developing many sign language technologies. In particular, datasets are required for training artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems. Though the idea of using AI/ML for sign languages is not new, technology has now advanced to a point where developing such sign language technologies is becoming increasingly tractable. This critical juncture provides an opportunity to be thoughtful about an array of Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics (FATE) considerations. Sign language datasets typically contain recordings of people signing, which is highly personal. The rights and responsibilities of the parties involved in data collection and storage are also complex and involve individual data contributors, data collectors or owners, and data users who may interact through a variety of exchange and access mechanisms. Deaf community members (and signers, more generally) are also central stakeholders in any end applications of sign language data. The centrality of sign language to deaf culture identity, coupled with a history of oppression, makes usage by technologists particularly sensitive. This piece presents many of these issues that characterize working with sign language AI datasets, based on the authors’ experiences living, working, and studying in this space.

Use of Videos in Teaching and Learning

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Amanda Elizabeth Smith ◽  
Dai O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Future Research Directions ◽  
Computer Literate ◽  
The Impact ◽  
British Sign

This chapter outlines the experiences of the authors when using video technologies in creating resources for teaching British Sign Language (BSL). The authors outline their own experiences of creating resources for teaching and how the increasing availability of video technology and video hosting websites has impacted on their teaching practice. The chapter outlines some practical stages in creating online video resources for the teaching of sign language, and also how to ensure that less computer literate students can engage with this new technology. The authors conclude with some suggestions about future research directions to measure the impact and effectiveness of such resources and technologies and call other teachers of sign languages to explore the potential of these approaches for themselves.

scholarly journals Verbos copulativos com locativos em Português Europeu e em Língua Gestual Portuguesa

2020 ◽  
pp. 242-262
Author(s):  
Celda Morgado ◽  
Ana Maria Brito
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
European Portuguese ◽  
Language Data ◽  
Semantic Properties

Verbs and their syntactic and semantic properties have been studied in several languages, in different theoretical frameworks. However, as for copulative verbs, studies of Sign Languages are still scarce, mainly of Portuguese Sign Language. Therefore, in this paper, some properties of predicative phrases with adjectives, participles and locatives in European Portuguese and Portuguese Sign Language are studied, comparing them with other Oral Languages, in particular Iberian Romance languages, and also with other Sign Languages. Portuguese Sign Language data seem to indicate that the copulative verb is lexically realized when there is a locative predicate and that with a non-locative predicate a null copula occurs.

De Ontwikkeling Van Het Gebarentaal-Onderzoek

1986 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 118-126
Author(s):  
Bernard T. Tervoort
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Local Varieties ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
Hearing Parents ◽  
Language Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
Initial Interaction

In the recent history of scientific endeavour with signing deaf people and the attitudes towards it of society at large, four periods can be distinguished, (1) until about 1950: signing is either a primitive, sublinguistic system or a derivation of spoken language, or a combination of the two; (2) until about 1965: it could be a language provided it shows enough parallels with the structure of languages based on speech; (3) until about 1980: no matter how one looks at it, it shows striking parallels with these real languages; (4) until now: forget the criteria for spoken languages and the parallellism; sign languages have a structure and a function sui generis and ought to be investiga-ted in their own true linguistic value. Of all the disciplins that have gone through this development in the periods mentioned, the following are the most important ones and are dealt with in some detail (1) linguistics, specifically phonology, syntax and lexicology; (2) psycholinguistics, including first language acquisition of deaf children of both deaf and hearing parents; (3) sociolinguistics, with some accent on the relation to creóle studies, the discourse analysis, and the bilingual situation of the deaf as a minority of a unique kind; (4) other disciplins, very shortly, like otology, audiology, neurology, neuropsychology and psychiatry. Finally, the following four speakers in the section on sign language research are introduced with some information on their backgrounds and interests (1) Trude Schermer, with lexicography, syntax and sociolinguistic comparison of local varieties as main interest; (2) Filip Loncke as the main representant of sign language research in Flemish Belgium whose specialty is sign phonology; (3) Rita Harder who has specialized in both hand shape phonology and initial interaction and communication between young deaf children and their hearing mothers; (4) Harry Knoors who as a psycholinguist and a teacher of the deaf combines research and teaching.

scholarly journals Deaf jokes and sign language humor

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Sutton-Spence ◽  
Donna Jo Napoli
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Visual Experience ◽  
Deaf People ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Deaf Identity ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation

AbstractThis paper describes the humor of Deaf communities, arguing that the humor is related primarily to the dominant visual experience of Deaf people, but also influenced by their knowledge of humor traditions in the hearing society at large. Sign language humor in America and Britain may be seen in the creation of new visual signs, the witty reanalysis of existing signs and in bilingual games in which English is manipulated within sign languages. The content of Deaf humor supports the in-group of community members who embrace their signing collective Deaf identity and denigrates out-group people, including deaf people who do not belong to the community and hearing people who are often seen as a threat to the community. Many of these jokes also make reference to sign language. We conclude that the visual nature of Deaf humor is one of its key characteristics and ask what else this can tell us about the Deaf cultural way of interacting with and presenting the world.

scholarly journals The emergence of the phonetic and phonological features in sign language

Nordlyd ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy Sandler
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Phonological Features ◽  
History Of ◽  
Phonetic Features ◽  
New Research

Sign languages offer a unique and informative perspective on the question of the origin of phonological and phonetic features. Here I review research showing that signs are comprised of distinctive features which can be discretely listed and which are organized hierarchically. In these ways sign language feature systems are comparable to those of spoken language. However, the inventory of features and aspects of their organization, while similar across sign languages, are completely unlike those of spoken languages, calling into question claims about innateness of features for either modality. Studies of a young village sign language, Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL), demonstrate that phonological structuring is not in evidence at the outset, but rather self-organizes gradually (Sandler et al 2011). However, our new research shows that signature phonetic features of ABSL already can be detected when ABSL signers use signs from Israeli Sign Language. This ABSL ‘accent’ points to the existence of phonetic features that may not be distinctive in any sign language but can distinguish one sign language from another, even at an early stage in the history of a language. Taken together, the findings suggest that physiological, cognitive, and social factors are at play in the emergence of phonetic and phonological features.

scholarly journals The challenges of viewpoint-taking when learning a sign language: Data from the ‘frog story’ in British Sign Language

2020 ◽  
pp. 026765832090685
Author(s):  
Sannah Gulamani ◽  
Chloë Marshall ◽  
Gary Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Intermediate Level ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Story Content ◽  
British Sign Language ◽  
Language Data ◽  
British Sign ◽  
Deaf Signers

Little is known about how hearing adults learn sign languages. Our objective in this study was to investigate how learners of British Sign Language (BSL) produce narratives, and we focused in particular on viewpoint-taking. Twenty-three intermediate-level learners of BSL and 10 deaf native/early signers produced a narrative in BSL using the wordless picture book Frog, where are you? (Mayer, 1969). We selected specific episodes from part of the book that provided rich opportunities for shifting between different characters and taking on different viewpoints. We coded for details of story content, the frequency with which different viewpoints were used and how long those viewpoints were used for, and the numbers of articulators that were used simultaneously. We found that even though learners’ and deaf signers’ narratives did not differ in overall duration, learners’ narratives had less content. Learners used character viewpoint less frequently than deaf signers. Although learners spent just as long as deaf signers in character viewpoint, they spent longer than deaf signers in observer viewpoint. Together, these findings suggest that character viewpoint was harder than observer viewpoint for learners. Furthermore, learners were less skilled than deaf signers in using multiple articulators simultaneously. We conclude that challenges for learners of sign include taking character viewpoint when narrating a story and encoding information across multiple articulators simultaneously.

Buttering their bread on both sides?

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maartje De Meulder ◽  
Joseph J. Murray
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Language Planning ◽  
Language Recognition ◽  
Sign Language Recognition ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Implementation Phase ◽  
Linguistic Rights ◽  
History Of

Abstract In the past two decades, a wave of campaigns to recognise sign languages have taken place in numerous countries. These campaigns sought official recognition of national sign languages, with the aim of enhancing signers’ social mobility and protecting the vitality of sign languages. These activities differ from a long history of sign language planning from a ‘language as a problem’ approach largely used by educators and policymakers to date. However, the instrumental rights and social mobility obtained as a result have thus far been limited with educational linguistic and language acquisition rights especially lacking. This article identifies two reasons for this situation. First, a view of Sign Language Peoples (SLPs) from a medical perspective has led to confusion about the meaning of linguistic rights for them and led governments to treat sign language planning differently than that for spoken languages. Furthermore, SLPs political participation is hindered by recognition being offered by governments without substantial commitments to financial resources, changes in government practices or greater inclusion of sign languages in public life. One exception to this trend are sign language planning bodies, but even these face challenges in the implementation phase. Going forward, we argue that sign language recognition legislation should centre on deaf communities’ concerns regarding sign language vitality. In addition to a need to ensure acquisition for deaf signers, we contend that while the expansion of hearing (and deaf) new signers can be interpreted in terms of language endangerment it can also be seen as strengthening sign languages’ vitality.

scholarly journals CORALSE: Design of a Corpus of Spanish Sign Language

10.29007/r1rt ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana-María Fernández Soneira ◽  
Inmaculada C. Báez Montero ◽  
Eva Freijeiro Ocampo
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Research Activity ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Scientific Background ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Language Data ◽  
The Law ◽  
Language Corpus

The approval of the law for the recognition of Sign Languages and its subsequent development (together with the laws enacted by the regional governments and the work of universities and institutions such as CNLSE) has changed the landscape of the research activity carried out in the field of SL in Spain.In spite of these social advances, a corpus of Spanish Sign Language (LSE) has not yet been compiled. The average Sign Language corpus is traditionally composed of collections of annotated or tagged videos that contain written material aligned with the main Sign Language data.The compiling project presented here, CORALSE, proposes: 1) to collect a representative number of samples of language use; 2) to tag and transcribe the collected samples and build an online corpus; 3) to advance in the description of the grammar of LSE; 4) to provide the scientific background needed for the development of materials for educational purposes; and 5) to advance in the development of different types of LSE.

scholarly journals Hand Kinesics in Indian Sign Language using NLP Techniques with SVM Based Polarity

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 2044-2051
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Indian Language ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Speech Input ◽  
Svm Algorithm ◽  
Indian Sign Language

With the advent of new technology every year, human beings continue to make clever innovations to benefit not only themselves but also those with some kind of impairment. Communication is carried out by talking to each other for regular people, but people who are deaf interact with each other through sign language. Taking this problem into account, we are proposing a methodology that allows to ease the communication with each other by translating speech into sign language. This paper explains a methodology that translates speech into the corresponding Indian Sign Language (ISL). In India, it is spoken in almost 28 different languages. So, language has always been a problem. Thus, we have come with a project just for India in which the person can communicate with the app in any Indian language they know, and it will convert it into Indian Sign Language. This is applicable to not just literate but also illiterate people across India. The idea is to take the speech input and translate to text, which will then undergo text-pre-processing using NLP for better analysis and will be connected to the HamNoSys data for the generation of sign languages. The polarity detection will also be included. It is implemented using the SVM algorithm for Sentimental Analysis. Thus, the main objective of this project is to develop a useful project which can be used to capture the whole vocabulary of Indian Sign Language (ISL) and provide access to information and services to mute people in ISL.

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