Glossing a Multi-Purpose Sign Language Corpus
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Sign Language Typology Series
SIGN LANGUAGE TYPOLOGY SERIES The Sign Language Typology Series is dedicated to the comparative study of sign languages around the world. Individual or collective works that systematically explore typological variation across sign languages are the focus of this series, with particular emphasis on undocumented, underdescribed and endangered sign languages. The scope of the series primarily includes cross-linguistic studies of grammatical domains across a larger or smaller sample of sign languages, but also encompasses the study of individual sign languages from a typological perspective and comparison between signed and spoken languages in terms of language modality, as well as theoretical and methodological contributions to sign language typology. Interrogative and Negative Constructions in Sign Languages Edited by Ulrike Zeshan Sign Language Typology Series No. 1 / Interrogative and negative constructions in sign languages / Ulrike Zeshan (ed.) / Nijmegen: Ishara Press 2006. ISBN-10: 90-8656-001-6 ISBN-13: 978-90-8656-001-1 © Ishara Press Stichting DEF Wundtlaan 1 6525XD Nijmegen The Netherlands Fax: +31-24-3521213 email: [email protected] http://ishara.def-intl.org Cover design: Sibaji Panda Printed in the Netherlands First published 2006 Catalogue copy of this book available at Depot van Nederlandse Publicaties, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Den Haag (www.kb.nl/depot) To the deaf pioneers in developing countries who have inspired all my work Contents Preface........................................................................................................10 -
The French Belgian Sign Language Corpus a User-Friendly Searchable Online Corpus
The French Belgian Sign Language Corpus A User-Friendly Searchable Online Corpus Laurence Meurant, Aurelie´ Sinte, Eric Bernagou FRS-FNRS, University of Namur Rue de Bruxelles, 61 - 5000 Namur - Belgium [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Abstract This paper presents the first large-scale corpus of French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB) available via an open access website (www.corpus-lsfb.be). Visitors can search within the data and the metadata. Various tools allow the users to find sign language video clips by searching through the annotations and the lexical database, and to filter the data by signer, by region, by task or by keyword. The website includes a lexicon linked to an online LSFB dictionary. Keywords: French Belgian Sign Language, searchable corpus, lexical database. 1. The LSFB corpus Pro HD 3 CCD cameras recorded the participants: one for 1.1. The project an upper body view of each informant (Cam 1 and 2 in Fig- ure 1), and one for a wide-shot of both of them (Cam 3 in In Brussels and Wallonia, i.e. the French-speaking part of Figure 1). Additionally, a Sony DV Handycam was used to Belgium, significant advances have recently been made record the moderator (Cam 4 in Figure 1). The positions of of the development of LSFB. It was officially recognised the participants and the cameras are illustrated in Figure 1. in 2003 by the Parliament of the Communaute´ franc¸aise de Belgique. Since 2000, a bilingual (LSFB-French) education programme has been developed in Namur that includes deaf pupils within ordinary classes (Ghesquiere` et al., 2015; Ghesquiere` et Meurant, 2016). -
Negation in Kata Kolok Grammaticalization Throughout Three Generations of Signers
UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM Graduate School for Humanities Negation in Kata Kolok Grammaticalization throughout three generations of signers Master’s Thesis Hannah Lutzenberger Student number: 10852875 Supervised by: Dr. Roland Pfau Dr. Vadim Kimmelman Dr. Connie de Vos Amsterdam 2017 Abstract (250 words) Although all natural languages have ways of expressing negation, the linguistic realization is subject to typological variation (Dahl 2010; Payne 1985). Signed languages combine manual signs and non-manual elements. This leads to an intriguing dichotomy: While non-manual marker(s) alone are sufficient for negating a proposition in some signed languages (non- manual dominant system), the use of a negative manual sign is required in others (manual dominant system) (Zeshan 2004, 2006). Kata Kolok (KK), a young signing variety used in a Balinese village with a high incidence of congenital deafness (de Vos 2012; Winata et al. 1995), had previously been classified as an extreme example of the latter type: the manual sign NEG functions as the main negator and a negative headshake remains largely unused (Marsaja 2008). Adopting a corpus-based approach, the present study reevaluates this claim. The analysis of intergenerational data of six deaf native KK signers from the KK Corpus (de Vos 2016) reveals that the classification of KK negation is not as straightforward as formerly suggested. Although KK signers make extensive use of NEG, a negative headshake is widespread as well. Furthermore, signers from different generations show disparate tendencies in the use of specific markers. Specifically, the involvement of the manual negator slightly increases over time, and the headshake begins to spread within the youngest generation of signers. -
Typology of Signed Languages: Differentiation Through Kinship Terminology Erin Wilkinson
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of New Mexico University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Linguistics ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 7-1-2009 Typology of Signed Languages: Differentiation through Kinship Terminology Erin Wilkinson Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ling_etds Recommended Citation Wilkinson, Erin. "Typology of Signed Languages: Differentiation through Kinship Terminology." (2009). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ling_etds/40 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Linguistics ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. TYPOLOGY OF SIGNED LANGUAGES: DIFFERENTIATION THROUGH KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY BY ERIN LAINE WILKINSON B.A., Language Studies, Wellesley College, 1999 M.A., Linguistics, Gallaudet University, 2001 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Linguistics The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico August, 2009 ©2009, Erin Laine Wilkinson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii DEDICATION To my mother iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many thanks to Barbara Pennacchi for kick starting me on my dissertation by giving me a room at her house, cooking me dinner, and making Italian coffee in Rome during November 2007. Your endless support, patience, and thoughtful discussions are gratefully taken into my heart, and I truly appreciate what you have done for me. I heartily acknowledge Dr. William Croft, my advisor, for continuing to encourage me through the long number of months writing and rewriting these chapters. -
SMILE Swiss German Sign Language Dataset
SMILE Swiss German Sign Language Dataset Sarah Ebling∗, Necati Cihan Camgoz¨ y, Penny Boyes Braem∗, Katja Tissi∗, Sandra Sidler-Miserez∗, Stephanie Stolly, Simon Hadfieldy, Tobias Haug∗, Richard Bowdeny, Sandrine Tornayz, Marzieh Razaviz, Mathew Magimai-Dossz; ∗University of Applied Sciences of Special Needs Education (HfH), Schaffhauserstrasse 239, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland fsarah.ebling, katja.tissi, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] yCVSSP, University of Surrey, GU2 7XR, Guildford, UK fn.camgoz, s.m.stoll, s.hadfield, [email protected] zIdiap Research Institute, 1920 Martigny, Switzerland fsandrine.tornay, marzieh.razavi, [email protected] Abstract Sign language recognition (SLR) involves identifying the form and meaning of isolated signs or sequences of signs. To our knowledge, the combination of SLR and sign language assessment is novel. The goal of an ongoing three-year project in Switzerland is to pioneer an assessment system for lexical signs of Swiss German Sign Language (Deutschschweizerische Gebardensprache¨ , DSGS) that relies on SLR. The assessment system aims to give adult L2 learners of DSGS feedback on the correctness of the manual parameters (handshape, hand position, location, and movement) of isolated signs they produce. In its initial version, the system will include automatic feedback for a subset of a DSGS vocabulary production test consisting of 100 lexical items. To provide the SLR component of the assessment system with sufficient training samples, a large-scale dataset containing videotaped repeated productions of the 100 items of the vocabulary test with associated transcriptions and annotations was created, consisting of data from 11 adult L1 signers and 19 adult L2 learners of DSGS. -
Linking an ID-Gloss Database of ASL with Child Language Corpora
Linking an ID-gloss database of ASL with child language corpora Julia Fanghella1, Leah Geer2, Jonathan Henner3, Julie Hochgesang4, Diane Lillo-Martin1, Gaurav Mathur4, Gene Mirus4, Pedro Pascual-Villanueva1 1University of Connecticut, 2University of Texas at Austin, 3Boston University, 4 Gallaudet University julia.fanghella, diane.lillo-martin @uconn.edu, julie.hochgesang, gaurav.mathur, gene.mirus @galluadet.edu, { } { } [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Abstract We describe an on-going project to develop a lexical database of American Sign Language (ASL) as a tool for annotating ASL corpora collected in the United States. Labs within our team complete locally chosen fields using their notation system of choice, and pick from globally available, agreed-upon fields, which are then merged into the global database. Here, we compare glosses in the database to annotations of spontaneous child data from the BiBiBi project (Chen Pichler et al., 2010). These comparisons validate our need to develop a digital link between the database and corpus. This link will help ensure that annotators use the appropriate ID-glosses and allow needed glosses to be readily detected (Johnston, 2011b; Hanke and Storz, 2008). An ID-gloss database is essential for consistent, systematic annotation of sign language corpora, as (Johnston, 2011b) has pointed out. Next steps in expanding and strengthening our database’s connection to ASL corpora include (i) looking more carefully at the source of data (e.g. who is signing, language background, age, region, etc.), (ii) taking into account signing genre (e.g. presentation, informal conversation, child-directed etc), and (iii) confronting the matter of deixis, gesture, depicting verbs and other constructions that depend on signing space. -
Sign Languages in Contact
INTRO_Sign_Pozos_Gaul_193027 7/30/07 11:19 AM Page 1 Editor’s Introduction: Outlining Considerations for the Study of Signed Language Contact David Quinto-Pozos To my knowledge, this volume represents the first book-length collec- tion of various accounts of contact between sign languages, and this brings with it excitement as well as the realization of challenges that lie ahead.1 As many researchers who are interested in language contact might suggest, it is exciting because these chapters contribute to our un- derstanding of the structural and social aspects of contact and how such contact affects language in the visual-gestural modality. They provide us with information about Deaf communities throughout the world, as well as language data that speak to the ways in which contact is manifested in those communities. This global perspective allows us to examine con- tact situations in search of commonalties and recurring patterns. It also enables us to see how some outcomes of contact between sign languages might or might not fit the general patterns of contact that have been demonstrated for spoken languages. Perhaps as a way to balance the ex- citement about this topic, the sobering truth is that we know so little about contact between sign languages. As a result, we are faced with the task of documenting examples of such contact and the challenge of ex- amining the effects of visual meaning creation on linguistic structures that occur in these contact situations. By focusing on this area of inquiry, we stand to gain much knowledge about how language works. The study of language contact among signed languages forces us to carefully consider how the visual-gestural modality of human com- munication influences language birth, development, change, and de- cay or loss from disuse. -
Chapter 2 Sign Language Types
Chapter 2 Sign language types This chapter defines four different sign language types, based on the infor- mation available in the respective sources. Before introducing the types of sign languages, I first report on the diachronic developments in the field of typological sign language research that gave rise to the distinction of the various sign language types. Sign language research started about five decades ago in the United States of America mainly due to the pioneering work of Stokoe (2005 [1960]), Klima and Bellugi (1979), and Poizner, Klima and Bellugi (1987) on American Sign Language (ASL). Gradually linguists in other countries, mainly in Europe, became interested in sign language research and started analyzing European sign languages e.g. British Sign Language (BSL), Swedish Sign Language (SSL), Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) and German Sign Language (DGS). Most of the in-depth linguistic descrip- tions have been based on Western sign languages. Therefore, it has long been assumed that some fundamental levels of linguistic structure, such as spatial morphology and syntax, operate identically in all sign languages. Recent studies, however, have discovered some important variations in spatial organization in some previously unknown sign languages (Washabaugh, 1986; Nyst, 2007; Marsaja, 2008; Padden, Meir, Aronoff, & Sandler, 2010). In the context of growing interest in non-Western sign languages towards the end of the 1990s and more recently, there have been efforts towards developing a typology of sign languages (Zeshan, 2004ab, 2008, 2011b; Schuit, Baker, & Pfau, 2011). Although it has been repeatedly emphasized in the literature that the sign language research still has too little data on sign languages other than those of national deaf communities, based in Western or Asian cultures (Zeshan, 2008). -
The Kata Kolok Corpus: Documenting a Shared Sign Language
accepted for Sign Language Studies, 16 (2), Winter 2016 Sampling shared sign languages Connie de Vos Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmgen, the Netherlands Abstract This paper addresses some of the theoretical questions, ethical considerations, and methodological decisions that underlie the creation of the Kata Kolok Corpus as well as the Kata Kolok Child Signing Corpus. This discussion is relevant to the formation of prospective sign corpora that aim to capture the various sociolinguistic landscapes in which sign languages, whether rural or urban, may emerge and evolve. Keywords: corpus construction, shared sign languages, linguistic fieldwork, first language acquisition, Kata Kolok 1. Introduction1 Whether stated or implied, the emergence of sign languages has often taken to be directly linked to the establishment of formal deaf education, and other cultural centres where deaf individuals may convene. Over the past ten years, more attention has been given to the emergence of signing varieties in rural and urban areas with a high incidence of deafness, where both deaf and hearing community members form social networks, using visual-gestural forms of communication (Nyst 2012). This latter sociolinguistic category of sign language, being used by both deaf and hearing community members, is known as a shared sign language. Shared signing communities vary in detail with respect to various social factors such as the causes and incidence of deafness, community size, the ratio of deaf and hearing signers, time depth, as well as the socio-cultural construction of deafness (Kisch 2008; Kusters 2010). The linguistic and anthropological documentation and description of shared signing communities are still in their initial stages (Zeshan & de Vos 2012). -
The Leipzig Glossing Rules: Conventions for Interlinear Morpheme-By-Morpheme Glosses
Leipzig, last change: May 31, 2015 Further updates will be managed by the Committee of Editors of Linguistics Journals. 1 The Leipzig Glossing Rules: Conventions for interlinear morpheme-by-morpheme glosses About the rules The Leipzig Glossing Rules have been developed jointly by the Department of Linguistics of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Bernard Comrie, Martin Haspelmath) and by the Department of Linguistics of the University of Leipzig (Balthasar Bickel). They consist of ten rules for the "syntax" and "semantics" of interlinear glosses, and an appendix with a proposed "lexicon" of abbreviated category labels. The rules cover a large part of linguists' needs in glossing texts, but most authors will feel the need to add (or modify) certain conventions (especially category labels). Still, it will be useful to have a standard set of conventions that linguists can refer to, and the Leipzig Rules are proposed as such to the community of linguists. The Rules are intended to reflect common usage, and only very few (mostly optional) innovations are proposed. We intend to update the Leipzig Glossing Rules occasionally, so feedback is highly welcome. Important references: Lehmann, Christian. 1982. "Directions for interlinear morphemic translations". Folia Linguistica 16: 199-224. Croft, William. 2003. Typology and universals. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. xix-xxv. The rules (revised version of February 2008) Preamble Interlinear morpheme-by-morpheme glosses give information about the meanings and grammatical properties of individual words and parts of words. Linguists by and large conform to certain notational conventions in glossing, and the main purpose of this document is to make the most widely used conventions explicit. -
Space and Iconicity in German Sign Language (DGS)
Space and Iconicity in German Sign Language (DGS) © 2007, Pamela Perniss Cover illustration: Pamela Perniss, inspired by El Lissitzky, Proun 99 Cover design: Ponsen & Looijen bv, Wageningen Printed and bound by Ponsen & Looijen bv, Wageningen Space and Iconicity in German Sign Language (DGS) een wetenschappelijke proeve op het gebied van Letteren Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. mr. S.C.J.J. Kortmann, volgens besluit van het College van Decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op maandag 12 november 2007 om 13.30 uur precies door Pamela M. Perniss geboren op 13 mei 1974 te Ludwigsburg (Duitsland) Promotores: Prof. Dr. Stephen C. Levinson Prof. Dr. Ulrike Zeshan Co-promotor: Dr. Asli Özyürek Manuscriptcommissie: Prof. Dr. Pieter C. Muysken Prof. Dr. Karen Emmorey Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen The research reported in this thesis was supported by a grant from the Max-Planck- Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften, München, Germany. Acknowledgments First and foremost I would like to thank my promotors Stephen Levinson and Ulrike Zeshan, and my co-promotor Asli Özyürek for their academic guidance, scientific expertise, and intellectual counsel throughout the maturation process of this thesis. I am thankful to have had the opportunity to write my thesis in such an outstanding academic institution as the MPI for Psycholinguistics represents. I would like to thank the members of the Language and Cognition group, in particular. Individuals have come and gone over the years, but at the core there remains an atmosphere in which ideas flourish and thrive, fostering an always stimulating and exciting intellectual environment, of which I am fortunate have been a part. -
The Use of Dictionaries, Glosses, and Annotations to Facilitate Vocabulary Comprehension for L2 Learners of Russian
Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Theses and Dissertations 2014-06-16 The Use of Dictionaries, Glosses, and Annotations to Facilitate Vocabulary Comprehension for L2 Learners of Russian Elizabeth Christel Todd Brigham Young University - Provo Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd Part of the Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Todd, Elizabeth Christel, "The Use of Dictionaries, Glosses, and Annotations to Facilitate Vocabulary Comprehension for L2 Learners of Russian" (2014). Theses and Dissertations. 4115. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/4115 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. The Use of Dictionaries, Glosses, and Annotations to Facilitate Vocabulary Comprehension for L2 Learners of Russian Elizabeth Christel Todd A thesis submitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Michael D. Bush, Chair Alan K. Melby Kirk R. Belnap Center for Language Studies Brigham Young University June 2014 Copyright © Elizabeth Christel Todd All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT The Use of Dictionaries, Glosses, and Annotations to Facilitate Vocabulary Comprehension for L2 Learners of Russian Elizabeth Christel Todd Center for Language Studies, BYU Master of Arts Technology is changing education. Just 30 years ago, instructors were using slow, inefficient technology such as projectors and reels of film, whereas today they have instant access to video from anywhere in the world. This capability has the potential to change the way that language is being taught and learned.