This paper describes the design of the Hong Kong Sign Language Browser which was established for providing accessible online resources on the lexical variations of HKSL in order to support the promotion of sign language and other sign-related services in the local community. With continuous funding support from the government since 2012, local Deaf organizations and Deaf signers of diverse backgrounds are invited to contribute their sign language knowledge in the data collection and evaluation process. Each year Deaf informants proficient in HKSL are invited to CSLDS to provide signing data to a pre-defined list of lexical targets. Their signing data are analyzed and variants are identified. These video data are then placed in an online platform for local Deaf organizations for rating and comments, and they can contribute data as well if there are additional variants not yet covered in the initial round of data collection. Once finalized, the lexical variants are placed in the Hong Kong Sign Language Browser for free public access. For each lexical target, each variant is indicated by a different color. Variants that are more commonly used and seen by Deaf organizations are listed first whereas the least common variants are listed last.
Keywords
Language documentation and long-term accessibility for sign language data
@inproceedings{sze:18037:sign-lang:lrec,
author = {Sze, Felix and Lau, Kloris and Yu, Kevin},
title = {The {Hong} {Kong} {Sign} {Language} Browser},
pages = {185--188},
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/18037.pdf}
}