scholarly journals Brazilian Sign Language corpus: Acre Libras Inventory / Corpus da Língua Brasileira de Sinais: inventário de Libras do Acre

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 805
Author(s):  
Ronice Müller de Quadros ◽  
Alexandre Melo de Sousa

Abstract: This paper draws on the theoretical methodological proposal of a Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) corpus to be developed under the scope of the Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) Inventory in the region of Rio Branco municipality, in the State of Acre project. First, we address some issues regarding corpus definitions and characteristics, some aspects of Libras, and documentation of sign languages. Second, we address the methodology used in gathering, transcription and analysis of data from Brazilian Sign Language Inventory focusing on the Region of Rio Branco – Acre, shedding light on the contributions of the gathered data to identification, recognition, valuing, and documentation of the Brazilian Sign Language in use in the State of Acre.Keywords: Inventory; Brazilian Sign Language (Libras); Rio Branco; Acre.Resumo: Este artigo se baseia na proposta teórico-metodológica de um corpus de Língua Brasileira de Sinais (Libras) a ser desenvolvido no âmbito do projeto Inventário de Língua Brasileira de Sinais na Região do município de Rio Branco, no estado do Acre. Em primeiro lugar, abordamos algumas questões relativas às definições e às características do corpus, alguns aspectos da Libras e documentação das línguas de sinais. Em segundo lugar, abordamos a metodologia utilizada na coleta, transcrição e análise de dados do Inventário Brasileiro de Língua de Sinais com foco na Região de Rio Branco – Acre, destacando as contribuições dos dados coletados para identificação, reconhecimento, valorização e documentação da Língua Brasileira de Sinais em uso no Estado do Acre.Palavras-chave: Inventário; Língua Brasileira de Sinais (Libras); Rio Branco; Acre.

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 99
Author(s):  
Roberto Cesar Reis da Costa

The focus of this paper is to propose an evaluation tool to assess the teaching-learning process of Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) to hearing students in Higher Education. The current Brazilian laws dealing with the accessibility of the deaf and the teaching of Libras will be concisely posited and argued, and after that an overview on linguistic aspects of Libras will be highlighted prior to discussing the teaching of this language as a Second Language (L2). Also, it will be discussed briefly the relevance of using strategies to Libras teaching as L2 and then the proposal to evaluate teaching and learning processes of the language at stake will be finally described. As a conclusion, developing tools as well as presenting proposals for the teaching of sign languages might be ways to highlight and discuss pedagogical issues about the teaching of the sign languages. The paper outcomes are useful for scholars and learners who are researching and implementing tools for Libras teaching as L2.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luana Silva Reis ◽  
Tiago Maritan U. De Araújo ◽  
Yuska Paola Costa Aguiar ◽  
Manuella Aschoff C.B. Lima ◽  
Angelina S. da Silva Sales

Currently, a set of technologies has been developed with the aim of reducing barriers to access to information for deaf people, such as machine tools for sign languages. However, these technologies have some limitations related to the difficult of handling some specific grammatical aspects of the sign languages, which can make the translations less fluent, and influence the deaf users experience. To address this problem, this study analyzes the machine translation of contents from Brazilian Portuguese (Pt-br) into Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) performed by three machine translators: ProDeaf, HandTalk and VLibras. More specifically, we performed an experiment with some Brazilian human interpreters that evaluate the treatment of some specific grammatical aspects in these three applications. As a result, we observed a significant weakness in the evaluation regarding the adequacy treatment of homonymous words, denial adverbs and directional verbs in the translations performed by the applications, which indicates the need for these tools to improve in the treatment of these grammatical aspects.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kearsy Cormier ◽  
Jordan Fenlon ◽  
Adam Schembri

AbstractSign languages have traditionally been described as having a distinction between (1) arbitrary (referential or syntactic) space, considered to be a purely grammatical use of space in which locations arbitrarily represent concrete or abstract subject and/or object arguments using pronouns or indicating verbs, for example, and (2) motivated (topographic or surrogate) space, involving mapping of locations of concrete referents onto the signing space via classifier constructions. Some linguists have suggested that it may be misleading to see the two uses of space as being completely distinct from one another. In this study, we use conversational data from the British Sign Language Corpus (www.bslcorpusproject.org) to look at the use of space with modified indicating verbs – specifically the directions in which these verbs are used as well as the co-occurrence of eyegaze shifts and constructed action. Our findings suggest that indicating verbs are frequently produced in conditions that use space in a motivated way and are rarely modified using arbitrary space. This contrasts with previous claims that indicating verbs in BSL prototypically use arbitrary space. We discuss the implications of this for theories about grammaticalisation and the role of gesture in sign languages and for sign language teaching.


2002 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norine Berenz

Widely accepted analyses of personal pronouns in sign languages present systems that differ in a crucial way from pronominal systems in oral languages and violate linguistic universals proposed by Benveniste, Bühler, Lyons, and others. These analyses argue that the two necessary conversational roles — sender and recipient — are not grammaticized in first and second person pronouns, respectively. This paper presents findings of a detailed analysis of pronominal reference in video-recorded, naturally occurring Brazilian Sign Language conversations which show consistent pairings of form and meaning. On this basis, I argue that the LSB personal pronoun system encodes the two necessary conversational roles. A re-examination of several ASL examples provides additional evidence. I conclude that, in LSB and ASL personal pronouns, space is only epiphenomenal, an idea first articulated by Padden (1990:118).


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-82
Author(s):  
Gabriele Cristine Rech ◽  
Fabíola Sucupira Sell

Este trabalho faz parte do projeto de pesquisa em andamento denominado “Estudos Onomásticos da Língua Brasileira de Sinais”, e tem por objetivo analisar a atribuição de um sinal de nome para alguns autores/pesquisadores, cujos sinais de nome foram pesquisados no Manuário Acadêmico e Escolar elaborado pelo Instituto Nacional de Educação de Surdos. Tal pesquisa se insere nos estudos onomásticos das línguas de sinais, uma vez que em muitas comunidades de línguas de sinais, é comum a atribuição de um sinal para que o indivíduo possa ser reconhecido como integrante daquele grupo. Estes signos, que denominamos “sinais de nome”, utilizam-se de características visuais, e são sempre motivados. Salienta-se que sinais de nome também são atribuídos para pessoas que não fazem parte da comunidade surda, mas que precisam ser referenciados constantemente, como é o caso de pesquisadores, autores, filósofos etc., relacionados ao ambiente acadêmico. Para tal análise, utilizamos a taxonomia proposta por Barros (2018), a qual identificou quatro principais taxes para classificar um sinal de nome: Empréstimo da Língua oral, Aspecto físico, Aspecto Comportamental e Aspecto Social. Como resultados preliminares podemos observar que a maioria das atribuições de sinais se relacionam a características físicas dos nomeados e pouco se relacionam com suas atuações profissionais.The name signs attributed in the academic context: an Anthroponomical approachAbstract This work is part of the ongoing research project called “Brazilian Sign Language Onomastic Studies”, and its purpose is to analyze the assignment of a name sign to some authors/researchers, whose name signs were searched in the Manuário Acadêmico e Escolar prepared by the National Institute of Deaf Education. Such research is part of the onomastic studies of sign languages, since in many sign language communities, it is common to assign a sign so that the individual can be recognized as part of that group. This sign, called “name signs”, uses visual characteristics and is always motivated. It is noted that name signs are also assigned to people who are not part of the deaf community, but who need to be constantly referenced, such as researchers, authors, philosophers, etc., related to the academic environment. For such analysis, we will use the taxonomy proposed by Barros (2018), which identified four main taxes to classify a name sign: Oral language loan, Physical appearance, Behavioral aspect and Social aspect. As preliminary results, we can observe that most of the signal assignments are related to physical characteristics of the nominees and little to their professional performance.Keywords: Sign language; Anthroponomastics; Name signs.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-305
Author(s):  
Marilyn Mafra Klamt

ABSTRACT The idea of sonority in sign languages was treated by Perlmutter (1992) as perceptibility, a property of a segment that uses movement rather than one in which the hands stay in the same position. Sandler (1993) states that the visual salience of movement in sign languages plays a role similar to sonority in spoken languages. For Brentari (1998), perceptually, a sign is visible from considerable distances, and measurement of its visual sonority is based on the joints involved in its production. This work focuses on visual sonority in literature in Brazilian Sign Language and considers the relevance of manual and non-manual elements, rhythm, symmetry, the scale of signs, and the effect of video on this concept. Two signed stories “The King’s Parrot” and “Little Ping Pong Ball” were analysed, highlighting specific signs in which the use of joints, non-manual features, and other resources are influenced by the size of the performance space and the distance of the audience from the signing. Three types of ‘sonority’ were observed: in the movement of the whole body on the stage, in the size of arms and trunk movement, and in the hands. In addition to the joints, non-manual features, rhythm and symmetry play an important role in visual sonority and influence the viewer’s experience.


Humans use language in order to communicate between one another. There exist a number of languages which are either spoken or written. Among these languages, there exists a special type of language called Sign Language (SL). Sign language is a general term which includes any kind of gestural language that makes use of signs and gestures to convey message. Although the deaf community feels comfortable while using Sign Language as their mode of communication, but they face a lot of problems as well. Therefore, in order to help and assist the deaf community a repository of different sign languages are essential for each sign language. This work presents a process to develop a repository by collecting and validating sign language gestures of any language by involving the deaf community and language experts. A small data collection based on a proof-of-concept application has also been presented in this work. Lastly, it highlights the benefits of such corpus by discussing possible applications that can be built to serve the deaf community of the world at large.


10.29007/r1rt ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana-María Fernández Soneira ◽  
Inmaculada C. Báez Montero ◽  
Eva Freijeiro Ocampo

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.


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