about NOVO DEIT-LIBRAS, First Edition, and tools for experimental research on sign language processing and theoretical modeling

Thu Oct 8 08:35:40 UTC 2009

Well done to the whole team in Brazil - sounds amazing.
:)) Very happy for you all.

Maria

> Dear Valerie!
> Thank you so very much for your generosity and kindness in preparing such
> a
> great announcement!
> Congratulations for another piece of a beautiful work of yours!
> I will subscribe to the list so to be able to reply to the questions. I
> would like to apologize in advance should I not be able to reply
> immediately
> to all questions. Thank you.
> For the 2nd edition of the Novo Deit-Libras, we already have 1,700 brand
> new
> signs and until 2012 shall prepare additional 7,000 brand new signs on
> college curriculum areas such as Medicine, Biology, Physics,
> Chemestry, Education, History, Geography, Anthropology, Law, Engeneering,
> Mathematics etc. We are making an effort to engage Brazilian deaf people
> with college degrees (preferably those pursuing graduate school) to
> contribute with signs from their respective areas of study so as to obtain
> a
> Libras sign lexicon capable of covering a wide range of disciplines in
> Libras.
> We are succeeding so far, as the beautiful Novo Deit-Libras show. Thanks
> to
> the cooperation of brilliant and caring people, the future for the
> Brazilian
> deaf child seems quite bright, at last!
> Sincere fraternal love.
> Fernando
>
> Dear Tim,
> Thank you for writing.
> In 2001 here at the University of Sao Paulo we have created a nice system
> (named BuscaSigno - or Libras SignRetrieval System) which allows anyone to
> locate and retrieve Libras signs (from the corpus of the Trilingual
> Encyclopedic Illustrated Libras Dictionary, Capovilla & Raphael, 2001) on
> the basis of sign forms rather than on the basis of Portuguese glosses. I
> have demonstrated that system during a Gallaudet Seminar on Sign Language
> Lexicography in 2002, and a paper about that was published in Sign
> Language
> Studies. Our Libras SignRetrieval System works nicely. It allows deaf
> students as well as foreigners who do not read Portuguese to locate and
> retrieve Libras signs from the dictionary without having to depend
> on Portuguese glosses. In the following years I have used BuscaSigno in
> order to *understand the cognitive processes involved in retrieving signs
> from a lexicon* (either mental or computerized) by hearing and deaf
> people.
> The findings were incredibly exciting. I have discovered that *the ease
> with
> which someone manages to retrieve a give sign is an inverse function of
> the
> logarithm of the average popularity of the cheremes that make up any given
> sign*! The lower the popularity of any given chereme, the higher its
> importance as index for sign retrieval. BuscaSigno helped us to obtain the
> distribution of cheremes in the Brazilian lexicon and is a precious tool
> for
> comparative linguistics and cognitive linguistics of sign language
> structure
> and processing. The mathematical function fits data perfetly. Pretty cool
> original finding on cognitive neuropsycholinguistics of Sign Language
> processing. I wonder if people at Gallaudet might be interested in that.
> Anyway, now that we have doubled the size of the corpus in the Novo
> Deit-Libras (Capovilla, Raphael, Mauricio, 2001), we are working on
> BuscaSigno in order to expand its lexicon. As soon as we manage to do
> that,
> we intend to publish in the CD-Rom format. However, I suspect that the 2nd
> ed. of the Novo Deit-Libras will be published before that. Thank you for
> your kind message.
> Fernando
>
>
>
>
>
> 2009/10/7 Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org>
>
>> SignWriting List
>> October 7, 2009
>>
>> ANNOUNCING!
>>
>> NOVO DEIT-LIBRAS, First Edition
>> A brand new Brazilian Sign Language Dictionary, which includes
>> SignWriting.
>> It will be published and available for purchase in one month, November
>> 2009.
>> To order in advance, or for more information, contact:
>>
>> Fernando Capovilla, PhD, Livre Docente
>> Professor, Instituto de Psicologia, USP
>> Av. Prof. Melo de Morais 1721
>> São Paulo, SP, 05508-900, BRAZIL
>> fcapovilla at gmail.com
>>
>> The new NOVO DEIT-LIBRAS Dictionary contains 2,500 pages distributed in
>> two
>> beautiful large hardcover volumes. It contains an expanded lexicon of
>> 10,000
>> signs from all Brazilian geographic regions, all of them signwritten.
>>
>> I understand from Dr. Capovilla, that the dictionary explains research
>> on a
>> brand new and revolutionary paradigm on sign language lexicography based
>> on
>> cognitive neurosciences and neurolinguitics (instead of on mere
>> linguistics)
>> which includes a thorough analysis of morphological structure of
>> Brazilian
>> Sign Language and sign iconicity. In the paradigm, Dr. Capovilla
>> explains
>> why the new discoveries on prevalence of neurons in the cerebellum is so
>> important to sign language lexicography and processing, which fits
>> beautifully with right cerebral hemispheric processing when it comes to
>> sign
>> metaphors. The paradigm restitutes the broken line of sound sign
>> language
>> lexicography which was inaugurated by the very first sign language
>> dictionaries of the world. The dictionary contains over 50,000
>> illustrations
>> (most of them delightfully humorous in order to engage right cerebral
>> hemisphere processing).
>>
>> Work on a 2nd edition of NOVO DEIT-LIBRAS has already begun. It will
>> include 1,600 brand new signs and will add 7,000 new entries. The second
>> edition is projected to be published 2011-2012.
>>
>> More examples from the First Edition of NOVO DEIT-LIBRAS will follow
>> shortly. I am working on a new posting about the NOVO DEIT-LIBRAS
>> publication. I really look forward to seeing these beautiful published
>> volumes in November!
>>
>> Thank you, Fernando, for the amazing work you do in Brazil!
>>
>> Please see Artcover attached. This is the front cover, spine and back
>> cover
>> all in one piece... Val ;-)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Fernando Capovilla, PhD, Livre Docente
> Professor, Instituto de Psicologia, USP
> Av. Prof. Melo de Morais 1721
> São Paulo, SP, 05508-900
> fcapovilla at gmail.com
>
>
> Sic transit gloria mundi. Aude sapere.
>
>
>
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