sign-lang@LREC Anthology

Signed Language Transcription and the Creation of a Cross-linguistic Comparative Database

Power, Justin M. | Quinto-Pozos, David | Law, Danny


Volume:
Proceedings of the LREC2022 10th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Multilingual Sign Language Resources
Venue:
Marseille, France
Date:
25 June 2022
Pages:
173–180
Publisher:
European Language Resources Association (ELRA)
License:
CC BY-NC 4.0
sign-lang ID:
22021
ACL ID:
2022.signlang-1.27
ISBN:
979-10-95546-86-3

Content Categories

Projects:
Sign Change
Languages:
American Sign Language, British Sign Language, French Sign Language, French Belgian Sign Language, Mexican Sign Language, Sign Language of the Netherlands, Flemish Sign Language
Writing Systems:
HamNoSys

Abstract

As the availability of signed language data has rapidly increased, sign scholars have been confronted with the challenge of creating a common framework for the cross-linguistic comparison of the phonological forms of signs. While transcription techniques have played a fundamental role in the creation of cross-linguistic comparative databases for spoken languages, transcription has featured much less prominently in sign research and lexicography. Here we report the experiences of the Sign Change project in using the signed language transcription system HamNoSys to create a comparative database of basic vocabulary for thirteen signed languages. We report the results of a small-scale study, in which we measured (i) the average time required for two trained transcribers to complete a transcription and (ii) the similarity of their independently produced transcriptions. We find that, across the two transcribers, the transcription of one sign required, on average, one minute and a half. We also find that the similarity of transcriptions differed across phonological parameters. We consider the implications of our findings about transcription time and transcription similarity for other projects that plan to incorporate transcription techniques.

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@inproceedings{power:22021:sign-lang:lrec,
  author    = {Power, Justin M. and Quinto-Pozos, David and Law, Danny},
  title     = {Signed Language Transcription and the Creation of a Cross-linguistic Comparative Database},
  pages     = {173--180},
  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/22021.pdf}
}
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