SignWriting to HamNoSys?

[MARIA GALEA]

Hello again all and especially Profs Dotter and Machado,

Thank you for your feedback. I really appreciate your comments. I would
really like to read up more about your works. Do you think you could
direct me to a few of your recent papers, especially anything that has to
do with SignWriting.

Yes Machado - I remember meeting you in Malta at the LREC 2010 - if I rem.
well you are from Brazil, am I right? I tried to search for your paper on
the LREC 2010 website  but was unsuccessful. What is your full name if I
may ask?

If the people undertaking the work of the SignWriting to HamNoSys
converter are reading this, do you have any more details about the work
that I can read about..i need more information if possible.

Thanks all and have a great weekend,
maria


> 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!
>>
>>
>>
>