Tools for the Use of SignWriting as a Language Resource

Antonio F. G. Sevilla, Alberto Díaz Esteban, José María Lahoz-Bengoechea

Abstract
Representation of linguistic data is an issue of utmost importance when developing language resources, but the lack of a standard written form in sign languages presents a challenge. Different notation systems exist, but only SignWriting seems to have some use in the native signer community. It is, however, a difficult system to use computationally, not based on a linear sequence of characters. We present the project “VisSE”, which aims to develop tools for the effective use of SignWriting in the computer. The first of these is an application which uses computer vision to interpret SignWriting, understanding the meaning of new or existing transcriptions, or even hand-written images. Two additional tools will be able to consume the result of this recognizer: first, a textual description of the features of the transcription will make it understandable for non-signers. Second, a three-dimensional avatar will be able to reproduce the configurations and movements contained within the transcription, making it understandable for signers even if not familiar with SignWriting. Additionally, the project will result in a corpus of annotated SignWriting data which will also be of use to the computational linguistics community.
Anthology ID:
2020.signlang-1.33
Volume:
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
Month:
May
Year:
2020
Address:
Marseille, France
Editors:
Eleni Efthimiou, Stavroula-Evita Fotinea, Thomas Hanke, Julie A. Hochgesang, Jette Kristoffersen, Johanna Mesch
Venue:
SignLang
SIG:
Publisher:
European Language Resources Association (ELRA)
Note:
Pages:
203–208
Language:
English
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2020.signlang-1.33
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Antonio F. G. Sevilla, Alberto Díaz Esteban, and José María Lahoz-Bengoechea. 2020. Tools for the Use of SignWriting as a Language Resource. In 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, pages 203–208, Marseille, France. European Language Resources Association (ELRA).
Cite (Informal):
Tools for the Use of SignWriting as a Language Resource (Sevilla et al., SignLang 2020)
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