scholarly journals Resolving pronominal reference in local contexts: a referent selection task

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 198-226
Author(s):  
Derya Nuhbalaoglu
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Selection Task ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Localization Pattern ◽  
Referent Selection ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
Comparative Response ◽  
Pronominal Reference ◽  
Global And Local ◽  
The Impact

Studies on global and local discourse have shown that sign languages indeed allow for occurrence of referentially unanchored pronominal index (ıx) signs referring to non-present antecedents to appear in ambiguous contexts. In local contexts, resolving the reference of these expressions has been suggested to either depend on a modality-specific anaphora resolution mechanism (localization) or on the next mention bias (first/second mention preference) influencing the salience of the referents. This paper presents a two-alternative forced choice referent selection task investigating the impact of a default localization pattern on the interpretation of referentially unanchored pronominal ix sign, in the local discourse with two competing antecedents. To do that, comparative response data was collected from right- and left-handed signers of German Sign Language (DGS) and Turkish Sign Language (TİD). Results provide evidence for second-mention or object preference for pronominal ix in both languages. In addition, the default localization pattern is identified only in restricted environments (i.e., with reciprocal verbs) to resolve pronominal reference. This modality-specific means is shown to be subject to variation across two unrelated sign languages under investigation. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------RESOLVENDO A REFERÊNCIA PRONOMINAL EM CONTEXTOS LOCAIS: UMA TAREFA DE SELEÇÃO DE REFERENTESEstudos existentes sobre discursos globais e locais mostram que as línguas de sinais claramente permitem que os sinais de apontação (ıx) pronominais referenciais não-ancorados referindo-se a antecedentes ausentes possam ocorrer em contextos ambíguos. Em contextos locais, sugere-se que a resolução da referência dessas expressões dependeriam tanto de um mecanismo de resolução anafórica específico da modalidade visual (localização), bem como de uma tendência de que a próxima menção (uma preferência pela primeira/segunda menção) influenciasse na saliência dos referentes que serão retomados. Este artigo apresenta uma tarefa de seleção de referentes feita obrigatoriamente a partir de duas alternativas que teve por objetivo investigar o impacto do padrão de localização default na interpretação do sinal de apontação pronominal referencial não-ancorado no discurso local, tendo como competidores, dois potenciais antecedentes. Para realizar tal tarefa, comparamos os dados obtidos das respostas de sinalizadores destros e canhotos da Língua de Sinais Alemã (DGS) e da Língua de Sinais Turca (TİD). Os resultados evidenciam que ıx pronominal retoma preferencialmente o segundo referente mencionado ou o objeto em ambas as línguas. Ainda, identificamos que o padrão de localização default só resolve a referência pronominal em ambientes restritos (ex: com verbos recíprocos). Mostramos que este modo de resolver a referência pronominal é específico da modalidade visual e está sujeito à variação paramétrica nas duas línguas de sinais investigadas, que não possuem relação de familiaridade.---Original em inglês.

scholarly journals Impact of English on the Career of Engineering Students: A Brief Overview in G(local) Context

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 182-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rup Narayan Shrestha ◽  
Bharat Raj Pahari ◽  
Jai Raj Awasthi
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Widespread Application ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
The World ◽  
Global And Local ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Engineering Journal

The present article highlights the importance of the English language in the career of the students of engineering both in global and local contexts. The main objective of this article is to explore the impact of English language on the career of the students of engineering all over the world in general and in Nepal in particular. Based primarily on the literature review for the necessary data, it reveals the fact that the English language is a most essential language for the students of engineering  not only in Nepal but it is equally relevant in the global context as well. It suggests that there is widespread application of English language in the feld of engineering. Journal of the Institute of Engineering, 2015, 11(1): 182-188

The impact of cross-linguistic variation in gesture on sign language phonology and morphology

Gesture ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2-3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Nyst
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Size And Shape ◽  
Related Variation ◽  
Shared Ancestry ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Considerable Body

Abstract A considerable body of literature points at parallels between gestural elements and sign language structures. This raises the question to what extent variation in gesture environment may lead to related variation across sign languages, or, mutatis mutandis, to what extent similarities in gesture environment may lead to similarities across (otherwise unrelated) sign languages. This article will address that question by reviewing a series of studies relating to size and shape specifying (SASS) signs and gestures in signed and spoken languages in West Africa. The review finds that the use of body-based SASS gestures coincides with the use of body-based SASS signs in the sign languages studied, which in turn aligns with (a) restrictions on the number and types of handshapes used in space-based SASS signs, (b) limited use of space-based size depiction in lexical items (Nyst, 2018), and (c) a gap in the repertoire of phonemic handshapes. I conclude that culture-specific patterning in gesture environment may impact on cross-linguistic variation in SASS morphology and handshape phonology. As such, the gestural environment presents an explanation why SLs may be alike or different, in addition to shared ancestry, language contact, and iconicity.

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.

Insights into person deixis

2002 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norine Berenz
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Pronominal Reference ◽  
Brazilian Sign Language

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).

Teaching Vietnamese to Deaf Children Using Sign Languages: Situations and Solutions

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hien Do Thi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
First Grade ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Normal Children ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Tremendous Progress ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
The Impact

Human civilization has made tremendous progress, to improve its quality of life. However, there are still a number of people in society who suffer from grave disadvantages due to their disabilities. There are many reasons for this phenomenon, and even though science is rapidly developing, it is impossible to completely erase those causes. Ameliorating education and offering vocational training for the disabled are considered as effective solutions to provide these people with a satisfying life, especially children. For deaf children, the dream of normal schooling becomes great. Limited language proficiency leads to limited communication skills and reduces confidence when entering the first grade, adversely affecting their academic performance and later development. Therefore, in this article, we focus on first grade deaf children. Like the impact of normal language on normal children, sign language plays an important role in language development of deaf children. They use sign language to think and communicate. However, to study in textbook programs as does a normal child, in the classroom of deaf children, both the teachers and students must use finger alphabets to teach and learn Vietnamese. We thus study teaching Vietnamese to deaf children and suggest games to draw their attention to the lessons.

scholarly journals ArSL-CNN a convolutional neural network for Arabic sign language gesture recognition

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 1096
Author(s):  
Ali A. Alani ◽  
Georgina Cosma
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Convolutional Neural Network ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Imbalanced Data ◽  
Test Accuracy ◽  
Hearing Impairments ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Arabic Sign Language ◽  
Arabic Speaking ◽  
The Impact

<p class="IJASEITAbtract">Sign language (SL) is a visual language means of communication for people who are Deaf or have hearing impairments. In Arabic-speaking countries, there are many Arabic sign languages (ArSL) and these use the same alphabets. This study proposes ArSL-CNN, a deep learning model that is based on a convolutional neural network (CNN) for translating Arabic SL (ArSL). Experiments were performed using a large ArSL dataset (ArSL2018) that contains 54049 images of 32 sign language gestures, collected from forty participants. The results of the first experiments with the ArSL-CNN model returned a train and test accuracy of 98.80% and 96.59%, respectively. The results also revealed the impact of imbalanced data on model accuracy. For the second set of experiments, various re-sampling methods were applied to the dataset. Results revealed that applying the synthetic minority oversampling technique (SMOTE) improved the overall test accuracy from 96.59% to 97.29%, yielding a statistically signicant improvement in test accuracy (p=0.016,  α&lt;0=05). The proposed ArSL-CNN model can be trained on a variety of Arabic sign languages and reduce the communication barriers encountered by Deaf communities in Arabic-speaking countries.</p>

scholarly journals Translanguaging and the No Voice Policy in L2 Sign Language Contexts

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josée-Anna Tanner ◽  
Nina Doré
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Adult Learners ◽  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Pedagogical Practice ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
The Impact

This article draws on translanguaging theory and research to consider a common pedagogical practice in American Sign Language (ASL) as a second language (L2) classroom, the No Voice policy (i.e., spoken language use is forbidden). The No Voice policy serves important cultural and practical purposes, but by nature limits learners’ access to their entire linguistic repertoire, which raises questions about the overall impact of the policy on learners’ language development. Current literature about pedagogical translanguaging has not yet addressed practices that integrate (and, by extension, limit) selective modalities; we evaluate this gap and propose several directions for future research on the topic.Moreover, previous discussions of translanguaging practices involving recognized minority (e.g., Basque, Welsh, Irish) spoken languages are not wholly comparable to sign languages, which are not yet official or fully recognized languages in most countries and are therefore additionally vulnerable.We take into account the impact of ASL L2 learners on the language community, as many learners go on to become interpreters and allies to the deaf community. Keywords: American Sign Language as a second language, hearing adult learners, selective modality, pedagogical translanguaging, minority language

Crosslinguistic similarity and variation in the simultaneous morphology of sign languages

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 571-608
Author(s):  
Diane Brentari ◽  
Laura Horton ◽  
Susan Goldin-Meadow
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
British Sign Language ◽  
Verb Phrases ◽  
Classifier Predicates ◽  
Crosslinguistic Variation ◽  
Hong Kong Sign Language ◽  
British Sign

Abstract Two differences between signed and spoken languages that have been widely discussed in the literature are: the degree to which morphology is expressed simultaneously (rather than sequentially), and the degree to which iconicity is used, particularly in predicates of motion and location, often referred to as classifier predicates. In this paper we analyze a set of properties marking agency and number in four sign languages for their crosslinguistic similarities and differences regarding simultaneity and iconicity. Data from American Sign Language (ASL), Italian Sign Language (LIS), British Sign Language (BSL), and Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) are analyzed. We find that iconic, cognitive, phonological, and morphological factors contribute to the distribution of these properties. We conduct two analyses—one of verbs and one of verb phrases. The analysis of classifier verbs shows that, as expected, all four languages exhibit many common formal and iconic properties in the expression of agency and number. The analysis of classifier verb phrases (VPs)—particularly, multiple-verb predicates—reveals (a) that it is grammatical in all four languages to express agency and number within a single verb, but also (b) that there is crosslinguistic variation in expressing agency and number across the four languages. We argue that this variation is motivated by how each language prioritizes, or ranks, several constraints. The rankings can be captured in Optimality Theory. Some constraints in this account, such as a constraint to be redundant, are found in all information systems and might be considered non-linguistic; however, the variation in constraint ranking in verb phrases reveals the grammatical and arbitrary nature of linguistic systems.

scholarly journals Interpretation of Swedish Sign Language Using Convolutional Neural Networks and Transfer Learning

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustaf Halvardsson ◽  
Johanna Peterson ◽  
César Soto-Valero ◽  
Benoit Baudry
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Transfer Learning ◽  
Convolutional Neural Networks ◽  
Web Application ◽  
Training Dataset ◽  
Motion Processing ◽  
Image Perception ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
High Level

AbstractThe automatic interpretation of sign languages is a challenging task, as it requires the usage of high-level vision and high-level motion processing systems for providing accurate image perception. In this paper, we use Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and transfer learning to make computers able to interpret signs of the Swedish Sign Language (SSL) hand alphabet. Our model consists of the implementation of a pre-trained InceptionV3 network, and the usage of the mini-batch gradient descent optimization algorithm. We rely on transfer learning during the pre-training of the model and its data. The final accuracy of the model, based on 8 study subjects and 9400 images, is 85%. Our results indicate that the usage of CNNs is a promising approach to interpret sign languages, and transfer learning can be used to achieve high testing accuracy despite using a small training dataset. Furthermore, we describe the implementation details of our model to interpret signs as a user-friendly web application.

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