ASL Corpora

[David McKee]

Hello Dan and Dan,

We already did a corpus analysis of New Zealand Sign Language two or
three years ago.  The NZSL corpus sample consists of over 100,000
signs.  This corpus sample is actually very small in comparison to
New Zealand Spoken English corpus sample of over 5 million words done
at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.

The transcription system was simple - glossing signs in a word
processor and then Word Smith was used to analyze the corpus. The
Berkeley Transcription System or Sign Stream may be better for
transcribing purposes but we didn't know that at that time!

Transcribing is very time-consuming but the end results are
worthwhile.  For instance, we now have a list of 1,000 most
frequently used signs which can be applied to sign language teaching.
As one colleague said,

"I would love to see a Most Frequently Used Signs (FUS?)
quick-and-dirty cheat sheet.  It would be such a boon to motivation
of stiff and forgetful adult language learners if they could really
learn to communicate with Deaf co-workers, or family members right
away."

I agree that the material in the corpus should consist of continuous
texts in various genres.  Our corpus is based on videotaped
monologues, dialogues, meetings, and other situations covering
various topics.  It would be most difficult to videotape
conversations in private bedrooms or at the deaf clubroom.  That's
one drawback of this research.  Anyway, we have continuous texts of
all kinds which make easier for researchers to find what they look
for in texts such as negation and verb types.

Graeme Kennedy and I wrote a couple of articles on our corpus work so
email me if you want references.

David McKee
Deaf Studies Research Unit
Victoria University of Wellington
NEW ZEALAND
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