SignWriting to HamNoSys?

[Machado]

Hi, Maria!!!

very interesting issue pointed out by you.
Although Franz's answer was very sound in some aspects, I am not sure he
has addressed all of your points.

Anyway, what you both brings to surface, IMHO, is that one has to be really
aware of the issue when dealing with such conversions: general
translation/conversion vs. language specific rules.

I would dare to say this could be a research topic in its own. But I would
like to bring the corpora based inference approach to the problem.

I do know we do not have many sign language corpora available in the two
notations (let alone annotated corpora or paralell SW | HNS | Gloss ones).
But I have had myself an initial experience in providing sign language
users ways to continuously grow their own corpus using some interesting
inference techniques. In fact, I even had the pleasure to meet Maria in
person, when I visited Malta to present the work in LREC 2010.

Anyway, my point is maybe it is really tough to deal with the generic vs.
specific issue using hardcoded rules and probably we shold look for ways
(fundings?) to develop sign language corpora built for both real life usage
and research purposes.

Best

Machado

2012/8/23 MARIA GALEA <maria.azzopardi at um.edu.mt>

> Hi everyone - first a v brief introduction - I have been using SignWriting
> for data transcriptions for several years and have also used it as a
> writing system to write long texts in Maltese Sign Language (for sign
> language literature - not for research).
>
> I'm working on my dissertation 'SignWriting: Towards an orthography for
> LSM (Maltese Sign language)' with the Univ of Malta. I can't believe this
> email list (SSLING) never came to attention before. Better (extremely)
> late than never I guess.
>
> Can I ask a few questions about the work on the SignWriting to HamNoSys
> converter: what will be the use of this tool? I.e. WHY are you carrying
> out this study? Why do you need an SW converter to HamNoSys? Are you
> focussing on one sign language or several?
>
> Gerard's argument is valid - but besides this, there are different rules
> applied to SignWriting for different sign languages - although this is
> still not researched (I hope to be filling this gap a little), with time
> users of the SW writing system naturally adapt SignWriting.(In the same
> way that the latin script "x" symbol nowadays represents a wide varied
> list of sounds that is language dependant - and has moved away from the
> original Latin sound). There is evidence that with the use of long-text
> writing of SignWriting for a specific sign language, the system naturally
> evolves beyond a simple phonetic transciption (i.e. a representation of
> exact articulation) to a more abstract representation of language.  How do
> you hope to deal with this reality, when this reality has not yet been
> fully understood and researched?
>
> Taking the analogy of say written English to I.P.A (International Phonetic
> Alphabet)- I could imagine an IPA converter dealing with the English word
> 'although', because I imagine you could 'teach' your machine the pattern
> of written English '-ough' : that represents the sound "ow". Most written
> English patterns are known so you could teach them to your machine I
> guess. But what about the SignWriting to HamNosys converter? How can you
> include such patterns, if they haven't yet been investigated? And
> furthermore how are you going to include all different patterns for all
> different sign languages that are using SignWriting?
>
> Look forward to your reply - and wish you all a lovely day.
> Maria
>
>
> !DSPAM:5035d7ff210502100250580!
>
>
>
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