Exploiting SL Corpora in Deaf Studies · 2010-12-16 · School of Linguistic, Speech and...

School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences Trinity College Dublin Coláiste na Tríonóide, Baile Átha Cliath

Centre for Deaf Studies

Lorraine Leeson Centre for Deaf Studies Trinity College Dublin

SLCN Network I Berlin I 4 December 2010

Exploiting Sign Language Corpora in Deaf Studies



Overview

•  Corpora: going beyond sign linguistics research –  Translation & Interpreting Studies –  Teaching Sign Linguistics –  Sign Language Teaching & Learning –  Deaf Studies

•  Toward Digital Repositories –  Humanities & Repositories –  Deaf Studies in this context?



Corpora

•  Corpora as… –  Digital –  Annotated –  Searchable



The Digital Age…

•  We have the digital capacity –  We need greater investment in considering automatic tagging

to increase capacity for annotation (otherwise, manual annotation is time consuming and consistency can be an issue (human error)

•  Re: “search-ability” – what functionality do we have in mind when we collect? Annotate?

•  We need to go beyond the sign linguistic! •  But before that, lets remember that corpus studies &

exploitation of corpora is relatively new….



Spoken Language Corpora & Missed Opportunities…

•  “[T]his cornucopia [i.e. the richness of corpus data] has not been welcomed with open arms, neither by the research community nor the language teaching profession. It has been kept waiting in the wings, and only in the last few years has any serious attention been paid to it by those who consider themselves to be applied linguists. For a quarter of a century, corpus evidence was ignored, spurned and talked out of relevance, until its importance became just too obvious for it to be kept out in the cold.” (Sinclair 1994: 1)

•  …..OUR AIM? Not to make this mistake regarding signed language corpora!!!



Going Beyond Sign Linguistics Research

•  Raison d’etre for creating corpora has been primarily linguistic in nature… but there is…

•  Scope for thinking “outside the box” and looking at ways of maximising the impact of the data we collect and annotate to best serve the community it represents

•  Scope for teaching and learning – students and community –  Providing there is accessibility to digital resources/ broadband, etc.

AND a willingness to move away from the “chalk and talk” approach!

•  Scope for archiving, exhibiting and comparing data •  Research on Deaf culture/s •  Considering data created via European partnerships (Leonardo da

Vinci Projects, Grundtvig Projects, etc.)



Lets start with…

… authentic teaching & learning…



Teaching “Real” Sign Linguistics

•  From Sign Linguistics Research to teaching sign linguistics! –  Getting students excited about language –  Getting students engaged – taps into intrinsic motivation –  Hands-on approaches - “authentic” learning with authentic

data –  Offers scope for autonomous learning & Problem Based

Learning (PBL) –  “value-added” learning: students are also working in digital

environments, learning to use ELAN, learning to note where they find evidence (time codes, etc.) & applying their learning in a very practical way.

–  Learning of rigorous approach to dealing with data.



Translation & Interpreting Studies •  SL corpora have a significant role to play in

the teaching of interpreting and translating •  Issues that can be considered include:

–  Collocational relationships –  Discourse structure (e.g. cohesive devices,

role of body-partitioning, use of the N/D hand, discourse makers, etc.)

–  Register/genre variation –  Gendered/ regional/ generational variation –  Metaphor/ Idiom



Translation & Interpreting Studies (2)

•  Students can prepare translations in ELAN, can assist in annotating texts, or can work from texts to create a spoken language target text (e.g. in Garage Band).

•  Students learn that there is more than one way to handle a SL text

•  Brings students in contact with greater variability than is otherwise possible in the classroom.

•  Cost-effective means of delivering authentic data to classes.



Sign Language Teaching & Learning

•  Using the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), some moves have been made to create, annotate and utilize signed language data for online teaching and learning (BSL, ISL, Czech SL, Cypriot SL and Greek SL)(D-Signs Project, LdV, led by Bristol University).

•  Corpus materials can support learning in such environments, where someone maps the complexity of content to the CEFR, for example.



Teaching Sign Language Teachers

•  Corpora of Second Language Learners can be exploited beyond the field of L2 acquisition studies to encompass use in teacher training… –  Milestones? –  Types of errors that are typical?

•  Phonological (minimal pairs mixed up, handshape errors, movement errors, etc.)

•  Non-manual Features (over-application/ non-application, scope, etc.)

•  Use of signing space (e.g. “blind spots”) etc. •  Can help teachers in training know what to expect – and

consider strategies for helping students progress.



Deaf Studies

•  Corpora contain personal stories, histories, “witness statements” and political perspectives. They are snapshots of “Deafhood” and of the struggle in a Hearing world.

•  Specialist corpora - thematic •  Corpora can contribute to

archiving Deaf Histories. And digital archives on Deaf Histories can contribute to corpus building.

•  For example, the “Hidden Histories” Project (led by the University of Sussex) (Grundtvig 2010-12).



Deaf Studies

•  Thematically grouped content can be drawn on for teaching and learning purposes

•  e.g. Deaf people’s relationships with their family members when growing up e.g. how mainstreaming will impact on Deaf communities in the future – as per SIGNALL II Project (LdV)(Interesource Group (Ireland) Limited).



•  Digital Humanities as a general target for universities in 21st Century. (e.g. Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations Digital Humanities http://digitalhumanities.org/



Toward a Digital Deaf Studies Repository

•  What might a “digital repository” for Deaf Studies look like? E.g. Web-based archives such as

Jeff Davis’s work on Plains Indians’ Signed Language/s?

http://sunsite.utk.edu/pisl/videos.html

•  Potential for this functionality to be embedded in the MPI Archive?

•  User-friendliness for non-linguists??



Humanities & Repositories: Deaf Studies in Europe in this context? •  Some moves in progress with Deaf experience as the

focus, e.g. –  Hidden Histories Project (UK, IRE, FI, AUS) – social histories –  SIGNALL II –(IRE, UK, FI, POLAND, CZ) - Deafhood –  SIGNALL 3- (IRE, UK, BE, TURKEY, FI) – Includes reference to

how Deaf people experience Deaf Education/ Mental Health/ Interpreting

–  Medisigns (IRE, UK, SWEDEN, CYPRUS,POLAND) – Includes Deaf people’s experiences of medical domains

–  …but the data, while catalogued, is not annotated over the life of these projects. This needs addressing.



•  Perhaps using Moodle to support focused teaching & learning

•  (e.g. SIGNALL II, SIGNALL 3, Medisigns, D-Signs (Leonardo da Vinci funded projects)

•  Digital, thematic, but not (all) yet tagged for use in ELAN too…



We have Digital Data!

•  For Example - SIGNALL II: 1000+ video clips (approx. 50 hours of data) (lectures and interviews)

•  Some 250-300 clips in each of the following: –  Irish Sign Language –  British Sign Language –  Polish Sign Language –  Finnish Sign Language –  Czech Sign Language –  Plus: voiceovers in English (FI, IRE, UK), transcripts in English

(IRE, UK), and Czech transcripts. –  Needs searchability via ELAN!!!



Benefits? •  Digital archives of social history in

signed languages –  E.g. Holocaust survivors/ war

survivors/gendered-generational /regional varieties that are moving out of the language

•  Digital archives of disappearing forms (e.g. gendered generational signs in ISL, regional variants in BSL)

•  Projects can develop comparative data sets across communities (e.g. SIGNALL II)



Multifunctionality of data

•  Teaching & learning purposes •  Research purposes •  Historical documentation:

–  sharing “old” stories from one Deaf community with a wider world (e.g. Polish Deaf Battalion in the Warsaw Rising).

•  SLs as endangered languages –  changing context of Deaf education/ access to Deaf

communities and SLs



Challenges

•  Collation – time, money, co-ordination

•  Filing – systematic approach needed!

•  Annotation – resources – financial & human, accuracy & consistency

•  Storage – video streaming servers, back up, updating of data (MPI Language Archives?)

•  Sharing – permissions, licensing & copyright



Wishlist?

•  Collaboration & Consolidation: –  Build on existing networks such as those in EU projects to

consolidate digital archive building –  Work with Deaf communities to identify what THEY want to

archive & what benefits THEY want from resources gathered (e.g. Community Development courses in archiving? Access to training re: using ELAN to support their teaching?)

–  Consolidate the resources that are available in teaching institutes for “quick and dirty” annotations – students perform wonderfully well on authentic tasks – but you have to offer them supervision and support!

•  Be Paranoid – about losing data! Back-up. Back-up. Back-up. •  Be Ambitious – lets think big!



We also need to…

•  Adapt to new technology (e.g. move away from tape toward flash (card) media to speed up film capture process

•  Develop simple & easy to use graphic user interface (GUI)

•  Consider scalability •  Develop a centralized secure

repository (aka the MPI archives) •  Future-proof data •  Ensure accessibility •  Train & up-skill Lecturers/

Researchers



Go raibh maith agaibh! (Thank You!)



Contact me?

Lorraine Leeson Director

Centre for Deaf Studies School of Linguistic, Speech &

Communication Sciences Trinity College Dublin (University of Dublin)

7-9 South Leinster Street Dublin 2 IRELAND

[email protected] www.tcd.ie/slscs/cds/



References

•  Sinclair, John McH. (2004) How to Use Corpora in Language Teaching, Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Web-based Resources •  Digital Repositories: Helping Universities and Colleges (2005) www.jisc.ac.uk/

uploaded_documents/JISC-BP-Repository(HE)-v1-final.pdf •  Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations

Digital Humanities http://digitalhumanities.org •  D-Signs - www.dsigns-online.eu/ •  Handtalk http://sunsite.utk.edu/pisl/videos.html •  Signall II – www.signallproject.eu •  Signall 3 – www.signall3.com •  Medisigns – www.medisignsproject.eu •  Hidden Histories – site to be developed

Exploiting SL Corpora in Deaf Studies · 2010-12-16 · School of Linguistic, Speech and...

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