@inproceedings{sevilla-etal-2024-prosodic:lrec,
  author    = {Sevilla, Antonio F. G. and Lahoz-Bengoechea, Jos{\'e} Mar{\'i}a and D{\'i}az Esteban, Alberto},
  title     = {Automated Extraction of Prosodic Structure from Unannotated Sign Language Video},
  pages     = {1808--1816},
  editor    = {Calzolari, Nicoletta and Kan, Min-Yen and Hoste, Veronique and Lenci, Alessandro and Sakti, Sakriani and Xue, Nianwen},
  booktitle = {2024 Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation ({LREC-COLING} 2024)},
  publisher = {{ELRA Language Resources Association (ELRA) and the International Committee on Computational Linguistics (ICCL)}},
  address   = {Torino, Italy},
  day       = {20--25},
  month     = may,
  year      = {2024},
  isbn      = {978-2-493814-10-4},
  language  = {english},
  url       = {https://aclanthology.org/2024.lrec-main.161},
  abstract  = {As in oral phonology, prosody is an important carrier of linguistic information in sign languages. One of the most prominent ways this reveals itself is in the time structure of signs: their rhythm and intensity of articulation. To be able to empirically see these effects, the velocity of the hands can be computed throughout the execution of a sign. In this article, we propose a method for extracting this information from unlabeled videos of sign language, exploiting CoTracker, a recent advancement in computer vision which can track every point in a video without the need of any calibration or fine-tuning. The dominant hand is identified via clustering of the computed point velocities, and its dynamic profile plotted to make apparent the prosodic structure of signing. We apply our method to different datasets and sign languages, and perform a preliminary visual exploration of results. This exploration supports the usefulness of our methodology for linguistic analysis, though issues to be tackled remain, such as bi-manual signs and a formal and numerical evaluation of accuracy. Nonetheless, the absence of any preprocessing requirements may make it useful for other researchers and datasets.}
}

@inproceedings{borstell:22006:sign-lang:lrec,
  author    = {B{\"o}rstell, Carl},
  title     = {Introducing the {signglossR} Package},
  pages     = {16--23},
  editor    = {Efthimiou, Eleni and Fotinea, Stavroula-Evita and Hanke, Thomas and Hochgesang, Julie A. and Kristoffersen, Jette and Mesch, Johanna and Schulder, Marc},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the {LREC2022} 10th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Multilingual Sign Language Resources},
  maintitle = {13th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation ({LREC} 2022)},
  publisher = {{European Language Resources Association (ELRA)}},
  address   = {Marseille, France},
  day       = {25},
  month     = jun,
  year      = {2022},
  isbn      = {979-10-95546-86-3},
  language  = {english},
  url       = {https://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/lrec/pub/22006.html},
  abstract  = {The signglossR package is a library written in the programming language R, intended as an easy-to-use resource for those who work with signed language data and are familiar with R. The package contains a variety of functions designed specifically towards signed language research, facilitating a single-pipeline workflow with R when accessing public language resources remotely (online) or a user's own files and data. The package specifically targets processing of image and video files, but also features some interaction with software commonly used by researchers working on signed language and gesture, such as ELAN and OpenPose. The signglossR package combines features and functionality from many other libraries and tools in order to simplify and collect existing resources in one place, as well as adding some new functionality, and adapt everything to the needs of researchers working with visual language data. In this paper, the main features of this package are introduced.}
}

@inproceedings{becker:20039:sign-lang:lrec,
  author    = {Becker, Amelia and Catt, Donovan H. and Hochgesang, Julie A.},
  title     = {Back and Forth between Theory and Application: Shared Phonological Coding Between {ASL} {Signbank} and {ASL-LEX}},
  pages     = {1--6},
  editor    = {Efthimiou, Eleni and Fotinea, Stavroula-Evita and Hanke, Thomas and Hochgesang, Julie A. and Kristoffersen, Jette and Mesch, Johanna},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the {LREC2020} 9th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Sign Language Resources in the Service of the Language Community, Technological Challenges and Application Perspectives},
  maintitle = {12th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation ({LREC} 2020)},
  publisher = {{European Language Resources Association (ELRA)}},
  address   = {Marseille, France},
  day       = {16},
  month     = may,
  year      = {2020},
  isbn      = {979-10-95546-54-2},
  language  = {english},
  url       = {https://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/lrec/pub/20039.html},
  abstract  = {The development of signed language lexical databases, digital organizations that describe different phonological features of and attempt to establish relationships between signs has resulted in a renewed interest in the phonological descriptions used to uniquely identify and organize the lexicons of respective sign languages (van der Kooij, 2002; Fenlon et al., 2016; Brentari et al., 2018). Throughout the mutually shared coding process involved in organizing two lexical databases, ASL Signbank (Hochgesang, Crasborn and Lillo-Martin, 2020) and ASL-LEX (Caselli et al., 2016), issues have arisen that require revisiting how phonological features and categories are to be applied and even decided upon, and which would adequately distinguish lexical contrast for respective sign languages. The paper concludes by exploring the inverse of the theory-to-database relationship. Examples are given of theoretical implications and research questions that arise from consequences of language resource building. These are presented as evidence that not only does theory impact organization of databases but that the process of database creation can also inform our theories.}
}

@inproceedings{hochgesang:18049:sign-lang:lrec,
  author    = {Hochgesang, Julie A.},
  title     = {{SLAAASh} and the {ASL} Deaf Communities (or ``so many gifs!'')},
  pages     = {63--68},
  editor    = {Bono, Mayumi and Efthimiou, Eleni and Fotinea, Stavroula-Evita and Hanke, Thomas and Hochgesang, Julie A. and Kristoffersen, Jette and Mesch, Johanna and Osugi, Yutaka},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the {LREC2018} 8th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Involving the Language Community},
  maintitle = {11th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation ({LREC} 2018)},
  publisher = {{European Language Resources Association (ELRA)}},
  address   = {Miyazaki, Japan},
  day       = {12},
  month     = may,
  year      = {2018},
  isbn      = {979-10-95546-01-6},
  language  = {english},
  url       = {https://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/lrec/pub/18049.html},
  abstract  = {The project Sign Language Acquisition, Annotation, Archiving and Sharing (SLAAASh) is a model for working with diverse ASL Deaf communities in all stages of the project. In this presentation, I highlight key steps in achieving this level of collaboration. First, I discuss the importance of sharing work with the community---a key form of reciprocity recognized by Deaf community members. Second, I discuss the importance of reflecting diversity, e.g., ensuring that ASL Signbank actors vary in age, gender, ethnicity, body type, and language experience. Third, I discuss the importance of incorporating feedback from stakeholders and show how the ASL Signbank actors have expressed different views that have impacted our development of the Signbank. Finally, I discuss the crucial component of building substantive community connections and maintaining them long-term. I end by discussing our own efforts to build community connections to date as well as planned future ones.}
}

@inproceedings{hochgesang:18048:sign-lang:lrec,
  author    = {Hochgesang, Julie A. and Crasborn, Onno and Lillo-Martin, Diane},
  title     = {Building the {ASL} {Signbank}: Lemmatization Principles for {ASL}},
  pages     = {69--74},
  editor    = {Bono, Mayumi and Efthimiou, Eleni and Fotinea, Stavroula-Evita and Hanke, Thomas and Hochgesang, Julie A. and Kristoffersen, Jette and Mesch, Johanna and Osugi, Yutaka},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the {LREC2018} 8th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Involving the Language Community},
  maintitle = {11th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation ({LREC} 2018)},
  publisher = {{European Language Resources Association (ELRA)}},
  address   = {Miyazaki, Japan},
  day       = {12},
  month     = may,
  year      = {2018},
  isbn      = {979-10-95546-01-6},
  language  = {english},
  url       = {https://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/lrec/pub/18048.html},
  abstract  = {Following the example of other sign language researchers, we are creating a Signbank, a usage-based lexical database, to maintain consistent and systematic annotation information for American Sign Language (ASL). This tool, which will be available to the public, is currently being used in conjunction with an on-going effort to prepare corpora of sign language acquisition to share with the research community. This paper will briefly report on the development of the ASL Signbank, focusing on the adopted lemmatization principles. Lemmatization of ASL signs has never been done on a scale like this before - one that has been continually refreshed by actual usage data.}
}

@inproceedings{fanghella:12026:sign-lang:lrec,
  author    = {Fanghella, Julia and Geer, Leah and Henner, Jonathan and Hochgesang, Julie A. and Lillo-Martin, Diane and Mathur, Gaurav and Mirus, Gene and Pascual-Villanueva, Pedro},
  title     = {Linking an {ID-gloss} database of {ASL} with child language corpora},
  pages     = {57--62},
  editor    = {Crasborn, Onno and Efthimiou, Eleni and Fotinea, Stavroula-Evita and Hanke, Thomas and Kristoffersen, Jette and Mesch, Johanna},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the {LREC2012} 5th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Interactions between Corpus and Lexicon},
  maintitle = {8th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation ({LREC} 2012)},
  publisher = {{European Language Resources Association (ELRA)}},
  address   = {Istanbul, Turkey},
  day       = {27},
  month     = may,
  year      = {2012},
  language  = {english},
  url       = {https://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/lrec/pub/12026.html},
  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.}
}

@inproceedings{hochgesang:10055:sign-lang:lrec,
  author    = {Hochgesang, Julie A. and Pascual-Villanueva, Pedro and Mathur, Gaurav and Lillo-Martin, Diane},
  title     = {Building a Database while Considering Research Ethics in Sign Language Communities},
  pages     = {112--115},
  editor    = {Dreuw, Philippe and Efthimiou, Eleni and Hanke, Thomas and Johnston, Trevor and Mart{\'i}nez Ruiz, Gregorio and Schembri, Adam},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the {LREC2010} 4th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Corpora and Sign Language Technologies},
  maintitle = {7th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation ({LREC} 2010)},
  publisher = {{European Language Resources Association (ELRA)}},
  address   = {Valletta, Malta},
  day       = {22--23},
  month     = may,
  year      = {2010},
  language  = {english},
  url       = {https://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/lrec/pub/10055.html},
  abstract  = {We are constructing an American Sign Language ID-gloss Database, which will enable sign language researchers and Deaf community members to access standard glosses for common signs. Since we are working with a language used by a community that has historically been marginalized during the research process, we feel the need to include an ethical framework for working with the Sign Language community as we consider best practices for developing sign language corpora. We will refer to the guidelines, Sign Language Communities' Terms of Reference (SLCTR), outlined in Harris, Holmes {\&} Mertens (2009). Before making the database available to the ASL community, we plan to evaluate how members will use it and what they need from the research team to facilitate such use. This evaluation will go a long way towards ensuring that ownership of the research data lies with the ASL community. Such a reflexive evaluation of ethical practices is crucial from the beginning stages and throughout the research process. This means the ASL community is directly involved in the research process, is able to access aspects of the entire process, and can have a hand in the construction of knowledge about their own language, community and culture.}
}