Corpora: a corpus of sign language

[Dan I. Slobin]

As far as I know, there are no corpora of any sign language.  The problem
is, of course, that there is no standard transcription format.  There are
archives of videotapes in a number of places.  At the University of
California at Berkeley we have developed a system for transcribing sign
languages at the morphological level, and are working on data of American
Sign Language and Sign Language of the Netherlands--early acquisition by
deaf children as well as second-language acquisition of sign by their
hearing parents.  Eventually we will contribute these data to the
international CHILDES archive of child language, but that will be several
years from now.  What is your student's interest in sign language?  The
Berkeley Transcription System for signed languages (BTS) is available
online at:
http://www.Colorado.EDU/slhs/btsweb/ .

Dan I. Slobin
Department of Psychology
University of California, Berkeley


At 09:25 PM 5/28/02, P. Kaszubski wrote:
>Dear Corporeans,
>
>A student of mine recently asked me whether I was aware of any
>corpora of sign language and I was baffled! Can you help?
>
>PK
>
>
>
>=======================================
>Dr Przemyslaw Kaszubski
>t: +48 61 8293515
>e: przemka at amu.edu.pl
>w: http://elex.amu.edu.pl/ifa/staff/kaszubski.html
>
>(ENGLISH) LEARNER CORPORA PAGE:
>http://main.amu.edu.pl/~przemka
>
>PICLE Corpus online access:
>http://elex.amu.edu.pl/ifa/depts/zajek/
>
>COMPREHENSIVE CORPORA BIBLIOGRAPHY:
>http://main.amu.edu.pl/~przemka/welcome.html#Corpbibl
>
>School of English
>Adam Mickiewicz University
>Al. Niepodleglosci 4
>61-874 Poznan
>t: +48 61 8293506
>f: +48 61 8523103
>w: http://elex.amu.edu.pl/ifa
>=======================================