@inproceedings{esselink:24042:sign-lang:lrec, author = {Esselink, Lyke and Oomen, Marloes and Roelofsen, Floris}, title = {Evaluating Inter-Annotator Agreement for Non-Manual Markers in Sign Languages}, pages = {66--76}, editor = {Efthimiou, Eleni and Fotinea, Stavroula-Evita and Hanke, Thomas and Hochgesang, Julie A. and Mesch, Johanna and Schulder, Marc}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the {LREC-COLING} 2024 11th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Evaluation of Sign Language Resources}, maintitle = {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 = {25}, month = may, year = {2024}, isbn = {978-2-493814-30-2}, language = {english}, url = {https://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/lrec/pub/24042.html}, doi = {10.63317/5pduxds9maku}, abstract = {This paper is part of a larger project that aims to create a standardized procedure for annotating non-manual markers (NMMs) in sign language data. The paper describes two approaches to evaluating inter-annotator agreement, the event-based approach and the frame-based approach, and uses a combination of these two approaches to evaluate the annotation guidelines introduced in Oomen et al. (2023). The evaluation reveals that for several labels in the annotation scheme inter-annotator agreement is rather low. This indicates that the annotations guidelines need to be further improved. We present concrete recommendations for how this may be achieved, and intend to implement these recommendations in future work. All data and analysis scripts are available.} } @inproceedings{kimmelman:24008:sign-lang:lrec, author = {Kimmelman, Vadim and Oomen, Marloes and Pfau, Roland}, title = {Headshakes in {NGT}: Relation between Phonetic Properties {\&} Linguistic Functions}, pages = {159--167}, editor = {Efthimiou, Eleni and Fotinea, Stavroula-Evita and Hanke, Thomas and Hochgesang, Julie A. and Mesch, Johanna and Schulder, Marc}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the {LREC-COLING} 2024 11th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Evaluation of Sign Language Resources}, maintitle = {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 = {25}, month = may, year = {2024}, isbn = {978-2-493814-30-2}, language = {english}, url = {https://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/lrec/pub/24008.html}, doi = {10.63317/4eew3sj6ypi4}, abstract = {Non-manual markers (such as facial expressions and head movements) have been shown to fulfil a wide range of grammatical functions across sign languages. One nonmanual marker that is very wide-spread is headshake used to express negation. While negation and headshake have been studied for a variety of sign languages, phonetic/kinematic research on headshake has been mostly absent. In this paper, we conduct a phonetic analysis of headshake in Sign Language of the Netherlands using a Computer Vision solution, namely OpenFace. We specifically analyze whether linguistic properties of headshake (e.g. spreading and the type of signs co-occurring with the headshake) influence its phonetic form.} } @inproceedings{klomp:24036:sign-lang:lrec, author = {Klomp, Ulrika and Gierman, Lisa and Manders, Pieter and Nauta, Ellen Yassine and Otterspeer, Gom{\`e}r and Pelupessy, Ray and Stern, Galya and Venter, Dalene and Wubbolts, Casper and Oomen, Marloes and Roelofsen, Floris}, title = {An Extension of the {NGT} Dataset in {Global} {Signbank}}, pages = {178--183}, editor = {Efthimiou, Eleni and Fotinea, Stavroula-Evita and Hanke, Thomas and Hochgesang, Julie A. and Mesch, Johanna and Schulder, Marc}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the {LREC-COLING} 2024 11th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Evaluation of Sign Language Resources}, maintitle = {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 = {25}, month = may, year = {2024}, isbn = {978-2-493814-30-2}, language = {english}, url = {https://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/lrec/pub/24036.html}, doi = {10.63317/3ooj2j799q63}, abstract = {To support language documentation, linguistic research, and acquisition of Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT), we are expanding the NGT dataset in the lexical database Global Signbank. Our most prioritized goal is to add ca. 11,000 glosses (entries). We further aim at adding ca. 3,000 example sentences and to provide linguistic information with as many glosses as possible. As for linguistic information, Signbank allows for extensive phonological descriptions of signs, and the addition of multiple senses per sign, which we would like to connect to synsets in the Multilingual Sign Language Wordnet. Additionally, we are recording extra video data: we make multiple videos of the same sign, taken from different angles, and videos with non-manual expressions. Furthermore, we are collecting motion capture data, for improved (automatic) sign language recognition and production in the future. In this paper, we describe how we proceed, the decisions that have been made so far, and future uses of the dataset.} } @inproceedings{kimmelman:18011:sign-lang:lrec, author = {Kimmelman, Vadim and Klomp, Ulrika and Oomen, Marloes}, title = {Where Methods Meet: Combining Corpus Data and Elicitation in Sign Language Research}, pages = {95--100}, 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/18011.html}, abstract = {We discuss three case studies on various grammatical phenomena in Russian Sign Language (RSL) and Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) in order to compare corpus-based and elicitation-based approaches to sign linguistics. Firstly, we investigate impersonal reference in RSL using corpus search, informal elicitation, and an acceptability judgment task. Secondly, we examine argument structure and pro-drop licensing in NGT psych verb constructions using corpus search and a supplementary acceptability judgment task. Thirdly, we investigate conditional clauses in NGT based on corpus search, and contrast the findings with those from elicitation-based studies of conditional clauses in other sign languages. The three case studies highlight both the merits and limitations of combining different research methods as well as illustrate some of the issues that arise from doing so -- and how they may be navigated. We conclude that corpus-based research serves to identify the boundaries of observed variation and describe both expected and unexpected patterns, while the underlying factors for these patterns can be investigated by eliciting data in more controlled contexts. Finally, we demonstrate that the differences in the results obtained via various research methods have important practical implications, in particular for sign language education.} }