AW: Face glyphs and Software that Transcribes Videos into SignWriting
Charles Butler
chazzer3332000 at YAHOO.COM
Sun Aug 31 18:18:57 UTC 2014
The major problem I have in writing a video into Expressive is looking at it is a reversed mirror. To "write what I see" is what I was taught - NOT - write what you "feel". If it is a language and you don't know the language, then how can you "feel" the expression you see.
I learned Receptive for writing a video, you write what you see. I learned Expressive for writing myself, you write what you feel.
So, when I wrote Lucinda Batch's video, it took hours to rethink everything I saw and make sure that "left means right, in means out". I have seldom been able to say this. I wish we had a button which could take a Receptively written text, where I can SEE everything in front of me with the video right next to it so NOT mirror reversed, so you could see the right hand on the other person on the left moving across their body NOT yours. Then, be able to push ONE button which connects to the entire sign written sentence and reverses everything - once, not painfully.
For video the preferred transcription for me would be Receptive. For dictionaries it should be Expressive.
Charles Butler
chazzer3332000 at yahoo.com
240-764-5748
Clear writing moves business forward.
________________________________
From: Stefan Wöhrmann <stefanwoehrmann at GOOGLEMAIL.COM>
To: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACOLLEGE.EDU
Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2014 1:08 PM
Subject: AW: Face glyphs and Software that Transcribes Videos into SignWriting
He Valerie and friends,
… “And Facial Expressions truly are based
on a combination of what we see and what we feel…”
Well – if it comes
to SpeechWriting you have to add .. “and what we know”
This is a very
interesting aspect. When Erika did her research in our class we learned a lot
about what is going on and what is not going on in the mind of a signer if he
performs a sign with any kind of mouthing
Same is true for us if we
look at someone who is signing.
… As the “informed”
person I can “lipread” .. as the “not informed” person
I may just see somebody moving his lips, tongue, … but have no idea what
kind of word from spoken language matches this kind of mouth-movements and
string of “Mundbilder”
Nevertheless this aspect as
a important aspect of a Sign Language performance has been neglected in the
past very much. When I started to develop my SpeechWriting symbol set I had to
understand that for some reason other scribes do not want to include this part
of information although you can see it – smile. Obviously this seems to
be a matter of “political correctness” or something like that. While
DGS has a lot of “mouthing” other signl languages seem to avoid
that and accept only mouth gestures and mimic?
But if we try to write
what we see ..it is so interesting that – coming from different
backgrounds - we do not see the same thing. – smile
All best
Stefan
(Attached you see an
animation with a man signing a sign name …and “mouthing”
Timo )
________________________________
Von:SignWriting List: Read and Write Sign Languages
[mailto:SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACOLLEGE.EDU] Im
Auftrag von Valerie Sutton
Gesendet: Sonntag, 31. August 2014
17:38
An: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACOLLEGE.EDU
Betreff: Face glyphs and Software
that Transcribes Videos into SignWriting
SignWriting List
August 31, 2014
Hello Maria, Fabrizio and Stefan -
I believe you are asking for corresponding photos or drawings that
could be placed side by side with each Facial Expression symbol in SignWriting?
There have been others who ask for this too, and we have considered
doing this, but the problem is that the human face is very different from
person to person, and I personally cannot even do all the facial expressions
that are possible to write in SignWriting. Most people can’t either ;-)
We have had some photos taken in the past to use in this way, but not
everyone could recognize in the photos exactly what the position was. This
proves one fact that I had to learn over time…we are not just writing
what we see…we are also writing what we feel, and what is considered
necessary facial expressions for the understanding of the signs…not all
facial expressions are needed. When you transcribe videos you need to know the
difference between the facial expressions that are needed and the facial
expressions that are not needed…that is not easy, with or without
automation.
SignWriting has many aspects. It is a handwriting. It is expressing
signer’s expression from their own perspective. That is the Expressive
Viewpoint which is our standard.
But as you know for a decade we wrote Receptively. I was given an
assignment, back in 1974, at the University of Copenhagen, to write what I saw
people sign (and gesture) on a videotape of both hearing and Deaf people. The
project was “writing the difference between hearing person’s
gestures, and the movements of Deaf people signing Danish Sign
Language”…so you can imagine the Deaf people were expressing their
language and the hearing people were supporting their spoken language with
minimal gestures…that was my beginning with writing signs and developing
the beginning of SignWriting and it was through that project that I realized
that the sign languages of the Deaf are real languages and it was clear that
the hearing people did not have a sign language, but were using gestures to
support their spoken language.
But being the hearing person I am (smile), I made the mistaken
assumption that when we started to write real sign languages, that we should
write from videotape and write exactly what we see…not feel. That came
from the fact that I did not know the languages I was writing from videotape. I
felt I could not impose my lack of knowledge on the writing, so I made a strong
rule that we just write what we see, and it was Receptive, from 1974 to 1984.
But Receptive writing is not the same as Expressive writing - there are
larger differences than most people realize…Later it was our Deaf staff,
Lucinda O’Grady and Meriam Ina Schroeder, who requested switching from
Receptive to Expressive in 1984, after three years writing articles in ASL in
the SignWriter Newspaper in the Receptive, they became fed up with Receptive
and demanded Expressive and I am glad they did!
They explained in a meeting in 1984 that they were really writing from
their own experience, and were not writing from videotape…and when we
write Expressively, which is the standard now, we write what we FEEL too…
My immediate response was “what about Facial Expressions? how can we
“see Facial Expressions” if we are writing ourselves?” and
Lucinda explained it is what we “feel” while we are signing and writing
that matters to a person fluent in writing ASL...
Which brings us back to video transcription - Video transcription fits
well with Receptive, but nonetheless, most people I know use the Expressive to
transcribe video because sooner or later the transcript must be in the
Expressive for others to read... so most people write the videos in the
Expressive from the beginning…
And Facial Expressions truly are based on a combination of what we see
and what we feel…so the photos you are needing are harder because not all
facial expression photos really portray what a person feels while they are
signing…
So here are my questions to you Maria and Fabrizio…
1. Are you creating software that does an automatic transcription of
sign language videos into SignWriting?
2. What is the name of this new software so I can refer to it easier?
;-)
3. Are you developing the software to transcribe videos in the
Recpetive or the Expressive or both?
Val ;-)
-----------
On Aug 27, 2014, at 2:54 AM, Maria De Marsico <demarsico at DI.UNIROMA1.IT> wrote:
Hi Stefan,
thanks for the quick feedback! I suppose we need the latter, since we
would like to create an application able to process any pre-recorded viedo ...
or almost any ;-)
Maria
2014-08-27 11:30 GMT+02:00 Stefan Wöhrmann <stefanwoehrmann at googlemail.com>:
Hi Maria,
Are you looking for a match of symbols for
“Woehrmann´s SpeechWriting” and a picture how the mouth / face
looks like or are you looking for all kinds of facial expressions – tongue,
eyebrows, eyes, cheecks, air in or air out, teeth…
All best
Stefan
Animation of performing a sign name - the
mouth moves as if saying: T I M O (German way to pronounce
the word ;-)) )
________________________________
Von:SignWriting List: Read and Write Sign Languages
[mailto:SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACOLLEGE.EDU] Im Auftrag von Maria De Marsico
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 27. August
2014 11:22
An: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACOLLEGE.EDU
Betreff: Face glyphs
Dear all,
we are addressing the problem of transcribing signed videos in SignWriting.
Unfortunately, when automatically processing single frames, we cannot use any
previous knowledge of the content. For this reason, in oprder to reliably
reproduce face expresions through the corresponding glyphs, we would need a
kind og "glossary". i.e., a table of correspondence between real face
images and glyphs.
Do you know if
something of this kind is already available?
Thanks!
Maria
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maria De Marsico
Assistant professor
Sapienza University of Rome
Department of Computer Science
Via Salaria 113 - 00198 Rome - Italy
email: demarsico at di.uniroma1.it
tel: +39 06 49918312
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Maria De Marsico
Assistant professor
Sapienza University of Rome
Department of Computer Science
Via Salaria 113 - 00198 Rome - Italy
email: demarsico at di.uniroma1.it
tel: +39 06 49918312
________________________________________________
SIGNWRITING
LIST INFORMATION
Valerie
Sutton SignWriting List moderator sutton at signwriting.org
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