SignTyp: Crosslinguistic sign language database available online

Tue Apr 21 05:49:33 UTC 2009

Hoi,
It is the prerogative of a copyright holder to license as he sees fit and I
do agree with you that restricting commercial use is fairly common. The
point I am making is that in my opinion it is in the interest of the deaf
community and signing research when the best science has to offer is shared
as widely as possible. However, at the same time it is not in the interest
of the deaf community or science when commercial application then slap their
copyright on and prevent further sharing.

When your data is freely available under a CC-by-sa license or "Create
Commons attribution, share alike" license, you and your work will be
attributed and it is compulsory to share the work that is based on your work
This has the benefit that your work gains more social relevance while at the
same time ensuring will be better known. Some research at the University of
Bamberg said that the research at their uni did not have commercial
potential and that restricting commercial use was counterproductive compared
to using a "share alike" license.

The SignWriting writing system was originally freely available for everyone
and it was not licensed. At this moment there is a license that makes
SignWriting explicitly free. The difference was that iSignWriting is now
considered to be acceptable as the basis for a Wikipedia.

2009/4/21 Rachel Channon <rchannon at speakeasy.net>

>  Hi Gerard, I wonder if you have an example of the kind of license you are
> talking about?  It seems to me that a restriction to non-commercial uses is
> reasonable and reasonably common?  Best wishes, Rachel Channon
>
>
>
> *From:* slling-l-bounces at majordomo.valenciacc.edu [mailto:
> slling-l-bounces at majordomo.valenciacc.edu] *On Behalf Of *Gerard Meijssen
> *Sent:* Friday, April 17, 2009 7:26 AM
> *To:* A list for linguists interested in signed languages
> *Subject:* Re: [SLLING-L] SignTyp: Crosslinguistic sign language database
> available online
>
>
>
> Hoi,
> Can you please explain the rationale for restricting the use of this
> program? It seems to me that you are better off using a license that makes
> it compulsory to share the results.
> Thanks,
>        Gerard
>
> 2009/4/16 Rachel Channon <rchannon at speakeasy.net>
>
> The SignTyp project is pleased to announce that a new version of the
> SignTyp database is now available at the Linguistics Data Consortium web
> site, at http://www.ldc.upenn.edu/signtyp/downloads/
>
> A zipped file contains both database and documentation. It is free to all
> researchers for non-commercial purposes.  SignTyp is supported by grant
> BCS0544944 from the National Science Foundation to Drs. Harry van der Hulst
> and Rachel Channon at the University of Connecticut.
>
>
>
> SignTyp is a prototype of a crosslinguistic database containing
> phonetic-phonological encoding of signs in a variety of sign languages,
> using datasets that had already been coded by various researchers. Setting a
> goal comparable to, for example, CHILDES (MacWhinney 2000), SignTyp provides
> a home for existing datasets from different linguists. A uniform coding
> system has been developed which translates the varying coding systems. The
> primary focus of this system is to notate form properties of sign that are
> potentially distinctive or phonological, so that researchers can analyze
> these potentially distinctive values, and determine which elements are
> actually non-distinctive or phonetic and which are truly phonological.
> Multiple languages also allow the determination of which characteristics are
> cross-linguistically distinctive.
>
>
>
> The database currently includes almost 12,000 signs in nine different
> language sets, for six different sign languages, from four annotating groups
> or individuals: ASL (3 different time periods), Sign Language of the
> Netherlands, Korean Sign Language, Japanese Sign Language, New Zealand Sign
> Language, and Finnish Sign language (two different time periods). We would
> like to thank the individuals who provided us with these datasets: Daisuke
> Hara, Lorna Rozelle and the SignPhon group (Harry van der Hulst, Onno
> Crasborn, Els van der Kooij, Marja Blees and others – see Crasborn, van
> der Hulst and van der Kooij 2001).  The Hara and Rozelle data were the
> datasets they used in their dissertations (Hara 2003 and Rozelle 2003), and
> the SignPhon data was used for dissertations by Crasborn (2001) and van der
> Kooij (2002).  Rachel Channon provided the final ASL dataset based on the
> Long (1918) ASL dictionary. The sign sets vary in what has been coded, with
> some sets including more information than others.
>
> * *
>
> *References*
>
> Crasborn, Onno, Harry van der Hulst and Els van der Kooij. 2001. SignPhon:
> A phonological database for sign languages. Sign Language and Linguistics 4:
> 1/2, pp. 215-228.
>
> Crasborn, Onno. 2001. Phonetic Implementation of Phonological Categories in
> Sign Language of the Netherlands. Doctoral dissertation, Leiden University,
> The Netherlands.
>
> Hara, Daisuke. 2003. A Complexity-Based Approach to the Syllable Formation
> in Sign Language. Doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago.
>
> Long, J. Schuyler. 1918. *The Sign Language: A Manual of Signs*.
> Washington DC: Gallaudet College.
>
> MacWhinney, Brian. 2000. The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk.
> Third Edition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
>
> Rozelle, Lorna. 2003. The Structure of Sign Language Lexicons: Inventory
> and Distribution of Handshape and Location. Doctoral dissertation,
> University of Washington.
>
> van der Hulst, Harry and Rachel Channon. 2008. Annual Report to the
> National Science Foundation for grant 0544944.
>
> van der Kooij, Els. 2002. Phonological Categories in Sign Language of the
> Netherlands: The Role of Phonetic Implementation and Iconicity. Doctoral
> dissertation, Leiden University, The Netherlands.
>
>
>
>
>
> Rachel Channon
>
> University of Connecticut
>
> Department of Linguistics, Unit 1145
>
> 337 Mansfield Road
>
> Storrs, CT 06269-1145
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SLLING-L mailing list
> SLLING-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/slling-l/attachments/20090421/a3332aec/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
SLLING-L mailing list
SLLING-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l