This paper presents a gesture-based linguistic approach to assisting Moroccan Sign Language (MSL) users in understanding and appropriately using Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) terminology by creating the first-ever digital MSL STEM Thesaurus. The thesaurus enables Deaf individuals to describe signs and obtain Standard Arabic word equivalents, concept graphics, and definitions in both MSL and Arabic. This is accomplished not only by providing words comparable to signs that they know, but also by providing other information (e.g., signed definitions) that helps differentiate Arabic word choices. The thesaurus is supported by a Concordancer for better illustration and disambiguation of STEM terms. The thesaurus will likely prove to be an invaluable tool that will enable children and adults who rely on MSL for communication, both deaf and otherwise communication impaired, to better understand and write knowledgeably and clearly on STEM topics, and pass standardized assessments.
@inproceedings{soudi:16033:sign-lang:lrec,
author = {Soudi, Abdelhadi and Vinopol, Corinne},
title = {A Digital {Moroccan} {Sign} {Language} {STEM} Thesaurus},
pages = {185--190},
editor = {Efthimiou, Eleni and Fotinea, Stavroula-Evita and Hanke, Thomas and Hochgesang, Julie A. and Kristoffersen, Jette and Mesch, Johanna},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the {LREC2016} 7th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Corpus Mining},
maintitle = {10th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation ({LREC} 2016)},
publisher = {{European Language Resources Association (ELRA)}},
address = {Portoro{\v z}, Slovenia},
day = {28},
month = may,
year = {2016},
language = {english},
url = {https://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/lrec/pub/16033.pdf}
}