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31/03/15 1 Digging into Signs Workshop: Developing annota9on standards for Sign Language Corpora INTRODUCTION Kearsy Cormier & Onno Crasborn 3031 March 2015 University College London #digsigns UCL Guest Wifi: Digging_30/31/03/2015 Housekeeping Monday, 30 March: Presenta9ons: Chadwick B05 Lecture Theatre Registra9on, lunch, posters and coffee: North Cloisters Tuesday, 31 March: Presenta9ons: Gustav Tuck Lecture Theatre Registra9on, lunch and coffee: Wilkins Haldane Room Tomorrow we’ll be in different rooms! See map in your registra9on pack and signage in the quad. Housekeeping Workshop dinner If you have booked, see card in your name tag for details of restaurant If you have booked but have changed your mind (or haven’t booked but want to go), see registra9on desk Digging into signs Developing standard annota9on prac9ces for crosslinguis9c, quan9ta9ve analysis of sign language data Digging into Data Challenge UK: Funded jointly by Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) and Arts & Humani9es Research Council (AHRC), managed by JISC (£100,000) Netherlands: Dutch Science Founda9on (NWO) (€100,000) June 2014 to May 2015

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Page 1: Digging workshop intro Cormier Crasborn def · 31/03/15 1 Digging&into&Signs&Workshop:&& Developing&annotaon&standards&for&Sign& Language&Corpora & INTRODUCTION& Kearsy&Cormier&&&Onno&Crasborn&

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Digging  into  Signs  Workshop:    Developing  annota9on  standards  for  Sign  

Language  Corpora    

INTRODUCTION  Kearsy  Cormier  &  Onno  Crasborn  

30-­‐31  March  2015  University  College  London  

#digsigns  UCL  Guest  Wifi:  Digging_30/31/03/2015    

Housekeeping  

•  Monday,  30  March:    –  Presenta9ons:  Chadwick  B05  Lecture  Theatre  –  Registra9on,  lunch,  posters  and  coffee:  North  Cloisters  

•  Tuesday,  31  March:  –  Presenta9ons:  Gustav  Tuck  Lecture  Theatre  –  Registra9on,  lunch  and  coffee:  Wilkins  Haldane  Room  

Tomorrow  we’ll  be  in  different  rooms!  See  map  in  your  registra9on  pack  and  signage  in  the  quad.  

Housekeeping  

•  Workshop  dinner  –  If  you  have  booked,  see  card  in  your  name  tag  for  details  of  restaurant  

–  If  you  have  booked  but  have  changed  your  mind  (or  haven’t  booked  but  want  to  go),  see  registra9on  desk  

Digging  into  signs  Developing  standard  annota9on  prac9ces  for  cross-­‐linguis9c,  quan9ta9ve  analysis  of  sign  

language  data    

– Digging  into  Data  Challenge  – UK:  Funded  jointly  by  Economic  &  Social  Research  Council  (ESRC)  and  Arts  &  Humani9es  Research  Council  (AHRC),  managed  by  JISC  (£100,000)  

– Netherlands:  Dutch  Science  Founda9on  (NWO)  (€100,000)  

–  June  2014  to  May  2015  

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•  Collabora9ons  between  US-­‐Canada-­‐UK-­‐NL-­‐FR  •  Three  rounds  of  funding  so  far  •  Funds  for  working  with  big  data  •  Big  data:  ‘size  forces  us  to  look  beyond  the  tried-­‐and-­‐true  methods  that  are  prevalent  at  a  given  9me’  (Jacobs  2009)  

Kearsy  Cormier   Onno  Crasborn  

BSL  (DCAL,  UCL)  

NGT  (CLS,  Radboud  University)  

With  thanks  to:  Jordan  Fenlon  

Sandra    Smith  

Sannah  Gulamani  

Aarthy  Somasundaram  

Merel  Van  Zuilen  

Anique  Schuller  

Richard  Bank  

•  Pararchive:  Open  Access  Community  Storytelling  and  the  Digital  Archive  à  ‘oral  history  online’  beta.pararchive.com  

•  UK  AHRC  Connected  Communi9es  funding  scheme,  18  months  

Pararchive  Conference,  2015  Par9cipatory  design  as  a  driver  for  long-­‐term  community  engagement  [a  theatre  archive]  Memories  on  film:  digital  storytelling  with  people  in  residen9al  demen9a  care  Crea9ng  and  using  ‘big  rich’  data  for  voluntary  sector  communi9es  The  PoetryFilm  archive  2002-­‐2015  Box  stories:  from  a  digital  inclusion  project  to  a  global  digital  storytelling  app  Digital  outreach  and  digital  preserva9on:  case  studies  from  parliament  Sign  language  narra9ves  online:  how  to  make  them  accessible  

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+/–?   +  narra9ves  +  ethical  issues  +  archiving  ~  longevity  ~  community  involvement  –  metadata  –  descrip9on,  analysis  

researchers    deaf  communi9es    learners  

What  came  before  

•  Series  of  6  LREC  workshops  Representa)on  and  Processing  of  Sign  Languages  (2004-­‐2014)  

•  Stockholm,  June  2010:  Sign  Linguis9cs  Corpora  Network  workshop  on  ‘Standardising  annota9ons  for  sign  language  corpora’  

•  Hamburg  summer  school  on  corpus  sign  linguis9cs,  2012  

•  Many  smaller  events  –  Hamburg,  Dec.  2014:  ‘Exploring  new  ways  of  harves9ng  and  genera9ng  sign  language  resources’  

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no  annota9ons?  

no  corpus!  

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Stockh

olm  20

10  Why  do  we  need  sign  language  

annota9on  standards?  •  Prevent  reinven9ng  the  wheel  in  

every  project:  standards  will  be  based  on  experiences  from  mul9ple  researchers  and  research  areas  

•  Annota9on  standards  will  support  consistency  within  corpus  projects  

•  Many  corpus  projects  underway;  a  window  of  opportunity  for  the  field  

•  Ensure  possibility  of  data  exchange  between  current  and  future  projects  

improving  your  own  methodology  

collabora9on   Stockh

olm  20

10  ThisThat  workshop  

•  Learn  about  what  others  do  •  Exchange  prac9ces  from  various  research  groups  •  Get  a  first  impression  of  the  amount  of  overlap    And  then  •  Go  home  and  use  what  you  have  learned  •  Document  and  publish  our  annota9on  guidelines  and  

templates  •  Think  about  becoming  a  member  of  the  ISOcat  Thema9c  

Domain  group  

Quan9ta9ve  analysis  of  (sign)  language  data  relies  on  corpora  

What  we  mean  by  “corpus”  •  Modern  linguis9c  corpus  

– Large  collec9on  of  spoken,  wriwen  or  signed  language  data,  with  associated  metadata  

– Maximally  representa9ve  (as  far  as  is  possible)  of  the  language  and  its  users  

– Machine-­‐readable  form  •  Can  be  consulted  to  study  the  type  and  frequency  of  construc9ons  in  a  language  – E.g.  Bri9sh  Na9onal  Corpus  of  English  

•  Not  just  any  language  dataset    

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Why  corpora  for  sign  languages?  

•  Sign  language  research  since  the  1960s  •  Tradi9onal  reliance  on  limited  datasets,  small  number  of  signers  

•  Sociolinguis9c  situa9on  – High  degree  of  varia9on  –  Interrupted  transmission  between  genera9ons  – Only  ~5%  na9ve  signers  

•  Na9ve  signer  intui9ons  are  problema9c  •  Small,  limited  datasets  are  problema9c  

Why  no  sign  language  corpus    un9l  now?  

•  Difficul9es  in  annota9ng  a  sign  language  corpus  – No  standard,  widely-­‐used  wri9ng  system  for  any  sign  language  

–  Some  nota9on  systems  that  represent  sign  language  data  at  phone9c/phonological  level  (though  nothing  standard  like  IPA)  

•  Recent  technological  advancements  have  made  sign  language  corpora  possible  –  Time  aligned  video  annota9on  sozware  (e.g.,  ELAN)  –  Improved  capacity  for  the  capture  and  storage  of  digital  video  

(Johnston,  2009)  

19  sign  languages  represented  here  

However:  Even  the  most  advanced  of  these  datasets  are  not  true  corpora.  

Not  yet.  

Researchers  working  on  these  sign  languages  are  at  various  stages  of  

corpus  crea9on.  

Some  more  advanced  than  others.  

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Modern  linguis9c  corpus  

✔Large  collec9on  of  spoken,  wriwen  or  signed  language  data,  with  associated  metadata  

✔Maximally  representa9ve  (as  far  as  is  possible)  of  the  language  and  its  users  

✖Machine-­‐readable  form    Machine-­‐readability  requires  annota9on.  

Problems  with  achieving  machine  readability  

•  Inconsistencies  when  signs  are  annotated  via  spoken/wriwen  language  

•  Many  parts  of  signed  discourse  are  not  composed  of  fully  lexical  signs  (equivalent  of  words)  

•  Some  standards  are  beginning  to  emerge  (e.g.,  Johnston  2014)  

•  But  no  awempts  to  standardise  annota9on  prac9ces  across  sign  language  corpora  

•  This  project  is  the  first,  using  BSL  and  NGT  Corpora  

Project  aims  

•  To  create  clear  standards  for  addressing  problems  with  sign  language  annota9on  

•  Using  BSL  Corpus  and  Corpus  NGT  we  aim  to:  – Develop  annota9on  standards  – Test  their  validity  &  reliability  –  Improve  current  sozware  tools  that  facilitate  a  reliable  workflow  (ELAN,  Signbank)  

– Publish  two  data  sets  (BSL  Corpus  &  Corpus  NGT  in  a  shared  loca9on  (The  Language  Archive  @MPI)  

Validity  &  reliability  

•  Validity:  does  the  annota9on  conven9on  make  sense  (w.r.t.  a  specific  theory)?  

•  Reliability:  will  annotators  use  the  conven9on  consistently?  (across  files,  across  annotators)  

•  Small  reliability  study  planned  for  the  coming  month  

•  Quan9ta9ve  &  qualita9ve  analysis,  aimed  at  improving  the  guidelines  

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Sozware  development  

•  Targeted  at  displaying  lexical  informa9on  in  ELAN  

Sozware  development   Publishing  data  sets  

The  Language  Archive:  corpus1.mpi.nl  

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Impact Open-access annotated corpora & lexicons

Expands capacity for quantitative analysis of sign languages by linguists

Allow quantitative comparisons across signed and spoken languages  

Applica9ons  for  language  technology  and  language  teaching/learning  

Machine  transla9on,    signing  avatars,    

automa9c  sign  language  recogni9on:    Cu8ng  edge  language  technology    

 

Increased  usefulness  of  corpora  for:  Sign  language  teaching  and  learning  

materials,  interpreter  training  

Impact  

Digging  into  Signs:  BSL  and  NGT  Corpora    

Kearsy  Cormier  &  Onno  Crasborn    

#digsigns  

•  Minimum  requirements  for  a  machine-­‐readable  sign  language  corpus  (Johnston  2010):  – Transla9on  – Type-­‐token  matching  at  lexical  level  

•  For  lexical  signs  –  ID  glossing  which  requires  lexical  database  

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ID  glossing   ID  glossing  

•  Lexical  signs  – Two  variants:  same  or  different?  – How  to  choose  the  ID  gloss  given  possible  transla9on  equivalents?  

– These  issues  relate  to  lexical  database  building  and  lemma9sa9on  

– To  be  discussed  at  another  9me  and  place  

Other  things  we’re  not  talking  about  here  

•  Annota9on  standards  for  other  types  of  construc9ons  above  and  below  the  lexical  level  – Phonological  – Morphological  – Syntac9c  

•  See  Johnston  (2014,  Auslan  guidelines)  •  Shared  guidelines  for  transla9on  

•  Minimum  requirements  for  a  machine-­‐readable  sign  language  corpus  (Johnston  2010):  – Transla9on  – Type-­‐token  matching  at  lexical  level  

•  For  lexical  signs  –  ID  glossing  which  requires  lexical  database  –  Standards  for  lexical  database  crea9on  and  lemma9sa9on  are  emerging  (Johnston  2001,  2003,  2010;  Fenlon  et  al.  in  press,  Interna)onal  Journal  of  Lexicography)  

•  For  other  types  of  manual  ac9vity  aside  from  lexical  signs  (e.g.  partly  lexical  signs  –  classifier/depic9ng  signs,  poin9ng  signs,  etc)  –  Annota9on  prac9ces  vary.  No  clear  standards  emerging  yet.  

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Aims  

•  Aim  of  Digging  into  Signs  project  – To  develop  standards  for  annota9on,  par9cularly  with  partly-­‐lexical  signs  given  that  these  vary  so  much  

•  Aim  of  Digging  into  Signs  workshop  – To  compare  and  contrast  annota9on  prac9ces  across  sign  language  corpus  projects  

– To  get  feedback  on  our  draz  Digging  annota9on  standards  

What  should  we  be  aiming  for?  •  Transla9on  and  ID  glossing  are  necessary  minimally  for  a  machine-­‐readable  sign  language  corpus.  This  is  clear  (Johnston  2010,  IJCL)  

•  Beyond  this,  what  is  the  minimal  annota9on  needed  for  other  types  and  subtypes  of  signs  (e.g.  partly-­‐lexical  signs)?    –  Classifier/depic9ng  signs  –  Poin9ng  signs  –  Buoys  –  Name  signs  –  Fingerspelling  –  Gestures  –  Etc  

Annota9on  guidelines:  mo9va9ons  •  BSL  annota9on  guidelines  roughly  follow  those  for  Auslan  

(Johnston,  various  itera9ons  since  2010)  –  Cormier,  Fenlon,  Gulamani  &  Smith.  2015.  BSL  Corpus  Annota9on  

Conven9ons  v2.0.  (Available  on  Digging  into  Signs  Workshop  website)  •  Mo9va9on:  iden9fica9on  of  lexemes  and  other  symbolic  units  (e.g.  

partly  lexical  signs)    –  Type-­‐component  –  general  category  (e.g.  classifier/depic9ng  sign,  

poin9ng  sign  etc)  –  Type-­‐like  components  for  depic9ng  and  poin9ng  signs  (subtypes)  –  Token-­‐like  components  for  non-­‐lexical  material  (gestures  and  

constructed  ac9on)  •  Priori9se  annota9on  over  transcrip9on    

–  Rela9onships  between  form  and  meaning:  Type/token  rela9onships  

(Johnston  2014,  Reluctant  Oracle,  Corpora)    

Annota9on  guidelines:  mo9va9ons    •  NGT  annota9on  guidelines  developed  from  the  ECHO  ‘corpus’  

guidelines,  moved  towards  the  Auslan  guidelines  –  Crasborn,  Bank,  Zwitserlood,  van  der  Kooij,  Meijer  &  Safar.  2015.  

Annota9on  Guidelines  for  Corpus  NGT.  (Available  on  Digging  into  Signs  Workshop  website)    

•  Mo9va9on  –  ID-­‐glossing  of  lexicalised  items  –  No  pre-­‐exis9ng  lemma9sed  lexicon:  created  as  we  go  –  Some9mes:  focus  on  form  first,  func9on  later;  form  we  know  (more)  

about  (phonology),  func9on  (ozen)  requires  (more)  analysis  

•  Gloss  Mouth  Transla9on  –  Meaning    MouthType  (of  everything;  –  Reference      at  sentence  level)  

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Joint  annota9on  guidelines  

•  Crasborn,  Bank  &  Cormier.  2015.  Digging  into  Signs:Towards  a  gloss  annota9on  standard  for  sign  language  corpora.      

•  Focus  on  Gloss  9ers  (i.e.  primary  manual  ac9vity)  

 

Where  is  the  standard?  

Agreement  of  classifica9on  between  BSL–NGT,  no  pre-­‐processing  needed  (requires  common  language  of  annota9on)    Agreement,  but  some  pre-­‐processing  of  data  sets  needed  in  order  to  perform  easy  queries  across  data  sets.  Some  detail  may  get  lost.    Houston,  we  have  a  problem.  

✓  

✓  

✗  

Sign  types  compared  •  Basic  gloss  –  All  lexical  signs  are  annotated  using  an  iden9fying  gloss  (ID-­‐gloss),  wriwen  in  upper  case.  This  gloss  corresponds  to  ‘Annota9on  ID-­‐gloss’  in  SignBank    

•  Variants  –  BSL:  Lexical  variants  (same/similar  meaning,  unrelated  phonologically)  use  number  suffixes  

–  NGT:  Dash  followed  by  lewer;  lexical  and  phonological  variants  are  not  dis9nguished.  

BSL   NGT  SIGN  SIGN02  SIGN03  

SIGN-­‐A  SIGN-­‐B  SIGN-­‐C  

✓  

✗  

Sign  types  compared  •  Two-­‐handed  signs  – Two  handed  signs  annotated  on  both  right  and  lez  hand  9ers.    

BSL   NGT  Start  and  end  follows  dominant  hand.  Persevera9on  not  annotated  except  if  inten9onally  meaningful  (see  buoys)  

Start  and  end  of  two-­‐handed  signs  is  determined  independently  for  each  hand  

✗  

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Sign  types  compared  •  Buoys  – Buoys  get  their  own  ID  gloss  

BSL   NGT  List,  Pointer,  Fragment  and  Theme  buoys.  Start  and  end  of  buoy  follows  start  and  end  of  co-­‐occurring  sign  on  dominant  hand.  LBUOY  PBUOY  FBOUY  TBUOY    

Only  List  buoys  (others  considered  persevera9on)  COUNTING-­‐HAND-­‐1  COUNTING-­‐HAND-­‐2  

✗  

Sign  types  compared  •  Repe99on  – Repeated  lexical  signs  are  annotated  separately    

BSL/NGT  BOY  SHOUT  WOLF  WOLF  WOLF  

✓  

Sign  types  compared  •  Compounds  – Lexicalised  compounds  in  SignBank  

BSL   NGT  PARENTS   PARENTS  

•  Possible  compounds  – With  ^  for  BSL.  Not  annotated  for  NGT  

BSL   NGT  GRAPHIC^ART   GRAPHIC  ART  

✓  

✗  

Sign  types  compared  •  Manual  nega9ve  incorpora9on  –  ID-­‐gloss  with  nega9ve  suffix  

BSL/NGT  KNOW-­‐NOT  

✓  

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Sign  types  compared  •  Direc9onal  verbs  –  ID  glossed  – BSL:  Gramma9cal/modifica9on  info  on  separate  project-­‐specific  9ers  

– NGT:  Prefixed  or  suffixed  with  ‘1’  if  1SG  loca9on  is  used  

BSL   NGT  ASK  TAKE-­‐OVER  

ASK:1  1:TAKE-­‐OVER  

✗  

Sign  types  compared  •  Plurality  – BSL:  Gramma9cal/modifica9on  info  on  separate  project-­‐specific  9ers  (except  for  poin9ng  signs)  

– NGT:  Suffixed  with  .PL  

BSL   NGT  CHILD   CHILD.PL  

Sign  types  compared  •  Numbers:  ID  glossed  

BSL   NGT  ONE  ONE02  

1-­‐A  1-­‐B  

•  Number  sequences:  ID  glossed  

BSL   NGT  NINETEEN^EIGHT^NINE02  NINETEEN02^EIGHT^NINE  

1989  

✓  

✓  

Sign  types  compared  •  Numbers  incorpora9on:  ID  glossed  with  suffix  for  informa9on  about  incorporated  number  

BSL   NGT  HOUR-­‐FOUR02   HOUR-­‐4  

•  Ordinal  numbers  –  BSL:  ID  glossed  as  lexical  signs    –  NGT:  Numeral  with  -­‐ORD  suffix  

BSL   NGT  FIRST  RANKING  RANKING02  RANKING02-­‐THREE  

1-­‐ORD  

✓  

✗  

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•  Sign  names  

•  Fingerspelling  

Sign  types  compared  

BSL   NGT  

SN:FIRST   *FIRST-­‐LAST  

SN:PETER(FS:P-­‐PETER)   *PETER-­‐SMITH  

SN:OSAMA-­‐BIN-­‐LADEN(BEARD)   *OSAMA-­‐BIN-­‐LADEN  

✓  

BSL   NGT  

FS:WORD   #WRD  Meaning  )er:  word  

✓  

✗   •  Poin9ng  signs  

Sign  types  compared  

BSL   NGT  

PT:LOC   PT  

PT:DET   PT  

PT:PRO1SG   PT:1  

PT:LOC/PT:PRO3   PT  

PT:LOC   PT:B  upward  

PT:LBUOY   PT:W  towards  the  index  finger  

✓  ✗  

•  Classifier/depic9ng  signs  

•  Type-­‐like  classifier/depic9ng  signs  

Sign  types  compared  

BSL   NGT  

DSEW(2)-­‐MOVE   MOVE+2  Meaning  )er:  cat  walks  to  and  fro  

DSEP(1)-­‐PIVOT   PIVOT+1  Meaning  )er:  person  turns  around  

DSEW(2)-­‐AT   AT+2  Meaning  )er:  bird  is  here  

BSL   NGT  

DSEW(1-­‐VERT)-­‐MOVE:HUMAN   MOVE+1  

DSEW(FLAT-­‐LATERAL)-­‐AT:VEHICLE   AT+flat  

✓  

✗  

•  Shape  construc9ons  

Sign  types  compared  

BSL   NGT  

DSS(CYL)   SHAPE+cylinder  Meaning  )er:  drain  pipe  

✓  

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•  Gestures  

•  Manual  constructed  ac9on  

Sign  types  compared  

BSL   NGT  

G:HOW-­‐STUPID-­‐OF-­‐ME   %  Meaning  )er:  how  stupid  of  me  

HOW-­‐STUPID-­‐OF-­‐ME  

BSL   NGT  

G:CA:HOLD-­‐HANDS-­‐UP-­‐IN-­‐FRIGHT   %  Meaning  )er:  frightened  

✓  

✓  

•  Palm  up  

Sign  types  compared  

BSL   NGT  

G:WELL   PU  

✓  

•  Uncertain9es  –  False  starts  – Doubt  as  to  whether  this  is  a  sign  (vs.  ‘self-­‐touching’  e.g.)  

–  Invisible  (out  of  video  frame,  behind  other  hand)  

•  ‘Workflow  issues’  –  new  sign  yet  to  be  added  to  lexical  database  (ELAN)  –  doubt  about  whether  the  gloss  is  chosen  correctly  –  sugges9ons  for  an  alterna9ve  gloss  

Some  other  conven9ons  

✓  

✓  

✓  ✓  

✓  ✓  ✓  

✗  

✗   ✗  

✗  ✗  

✗  

✗  ✗  

✗  

✓  ✓  

✓  

✓  

✓  ✓  

✓  ✓  

Where  is  the  standard?  

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✗  

✗   ✗  

✗  ✗  

✗  

✗  ✗  

✗  

Goal  of  the  workshop  for  us  •  Can  we  be  greener?  •  Or  are  there  good  reasons  for  

doing  things  differently  right  now?    

•  More  agreement  may  be  achieved  as  we  come  to  learn  more  about  the  languages  

Where  is  the  standard?  

•  How  (approximate  or  fine-­‐grained)  is  the  9me-­‐alignment  of  the  glosses?  

•  File  naming  conven9ons  (not  for  iLex?)  – annota9on  files  – video  files  – metadata  files  

Finally:  Other  conven9ons  that  will  impact  cross-­‐corpus  research  

Workshop  presenta9ons  

•  Paper  and  poster  presenters  have  been  asked  to  prepare  a  presenta9on  that  compares  their  annota9on  prac9ces  with  those  of  the  NGT  and  BSL  Corpora  and  to  provide  feedback  o  draz  annota9on  standards  

•  Paper  presenta9on  format  – 30  minutes:  main  presenta9on  – 10  minutes:  Q&A  – 20  minutes:  discussion  of  key  issues    

Extra  slide  

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What  should  we  be  aiming  for?  •  Transla9on  and  ID  glossing  are  necessary  minimally  for  a  machine-­‐

readable  sign  language  corpus.  This  is  clear  (Johnston  2010,  IJCL)  •  Beyond  this,  what  is  the  minimal  annota9on  needed  for  other  types  

and  subtypes  of  signs  (e.g.  partly-­‐lexical  signs)?    –  Classifier/depic9ng  signs  –  Poin9ng  signs  –  Buoys  –  Name  signs  –  Fingerspelling  –  Gestures  –  Etc  

•  Is  it  enough  to  (minimally)  iden9fy  categories  at  this  level  (i.e.  ‘type  component’,  Johnston  2014)?  What  about  subtypes  of  each?    

•  Also,  issues  with  iden9fica9on  of  each  of  these  as  dis9nct  from  each  other  and  from  other  construc9ons  (e.g.  some  types  of  buoys  versus  persevera9on)  

Digging  into  Signs  Workshop:    Developing  annota9on  standards  for  Sign  

Language  Corpora    

CONCLUSION  

30-­‐31  March  2015  University  College  London  

#digsigns  

What’s  on  the  gloss  9er?  

•  Glosses  should  be  a  basic  level  of  informa9on,  pointers  to  your  lexicon  –  no  details  

•  But:  what  you  (can)  put  on  the  gloss  9er,  is  related  to  the  structure  and  progress  of  your  lexicon  –  BSL:  lemmas  –  NGT:  phonological  variants;  lemma9sa9on  yet  to  be  done,  but  that  level  may  well  remain  in  the  lexicon  (as  we  need  the  ‘phonological  subtype’  informa9on  for  research)  

What’s  on  the  gloss  9er?  

•  Glosses  should  be  a  basic  level  of  informa9on,  pointers  to  your  lexicon  –  no  details  

•  But:  what  you  (can)  put  on  the  gloss  9er,  is  related  to  the  structure  and  progress  of  your  lexicon  –  DGS  &  Polish  SL:  two  simultaneous  levels  of  glossing  –  Polish  SL:  lemma  and  phonological  variant  glosses  –  DGS:  lemmas  and  ‘mother  lemmas’  (containing  the  shared  iconic  image)  

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Minimal  needs  beyond  lexical  signs  

•  Iden9fica9on  of  these  kinds  of  categories  (whether  by  prefix,  suffix,  abbrevia9on,  symbol,  whatever):  –  Poin9ng  signs  –  Classifier/depic9ng  signs  –  Fingerspelling  – Gestures  –  Sign  names  –  Buoys  –  Etc  

✗  

✗   ✗  

✗  ✗  

✗  

✗  ✗  

✗  

Goal  of  the  workshop  for  us  •  Can  we  be  greener?  •  Or  are  there  good  reasons  for  

doing  things  differently  right  now?    

•  More  agreement  may  be  achieved  as  we  come  to  learn  more  about  the  languages  

Where  is  the  standard?  actually,  black  would  be  good  enough  

Goal  of  the  workshop  for  us  •  Can  we  be  greener?  •  Or  are  there  good  reasons  for  

doing  things  differently  right  now?    

•  More  agreement  may  be  achieved  as  we  come  to  learn  more  about  the  languages  

Where  is  the  standard?  (1.  Actually,  black  would  be  good  enough)  

2.  Some9mes,  yes:  the  extent  to  which  you  are  interested  in  the  form  will  determine  how  much  elements  of  the  form  (phone9c  transcrip9on)  you  allow  to  sneak  into  the  gloss  9ers  

for  example:  handedness  of  signers   Goal  of  the  workshop  for  us  

•  Can  we  be  greener?  •  Or  are  there  good  reasons  for  

doing  things  differently  right  now?    

•  More  agreement  may  be  achieved  as  we  come  to  learn  more  about  the  languages  

Where  is  the  standard?  (1.  Actually,  black  would  be  good  enough)  

2.  Some9mes,  yes:  the  extent  to  which  you  are  interested  in  the  func9on  will  determine  how  much  elements  of  the  form  (phone9c  transcrip9on)  you  allow  to  sneak  into  the  gloss  9ers  

for  example:  morphosyntac9c  

analysis  of  poin9ng  

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Goal  of  the  workshop  for  us  •  Can  we  be  greener?  •  Or  are  there  good  reasons  for  

doing  things  differently  right  now?    

•  More  agreement  may  be  achieved  as  we  come  to  learn  more  about  the  languages  

Where  is  the  standard?  (1.  Actually,  black  would  be  good  enough)  

3.  (not  really  a  goal)  Be  realis9c!  Don’t  bluff  your  way  into  lemma9sa9on!  

Where  is  the  standard?  

•  ID  glossing  via  lexical  database  is  important  for  a  machine-­‐readable  corpus  

•  Contextual  glossing  is  not  enough  to  achieve  this  –  …and  one  can  wonder  whether  it  is  efficient  as  a  first  step  

•  Workshop/training  may  be  needed  –  In  the  mean9me:  –  Fenlon  et  al.  In  press.  The  lemma  dilemma  revisited:  Building  BSL  SignBank.  Interna9onal  Journal  of  Lexicography.  

Sign  types  compared  •  Variants  

–  BSL:  Lexical  variants  (same/similar  meaning,  unrelated  phonologically)  use  number  suffixes  

–  NGT:  Dash  followed  by  lewer;  lexical  and  phonological  variants  are  not  disGnguished.  

BSL   NGT  SIGN  SIGN02  SIGN03  

SIGN-­‐A  SIGN-­‐B  SIGN-­‐C  

✗  

To  be  addressed  as  lemma9sa9on  in  NGT  Signbank  progresses  

Sign  types  compared  •  Two-­‐handed  signs  – Two  handed  signs  annotated  on  both  right  and  lez  hand  9ers.    

BSL   NGT  Start  and  end  follows  dominant  hand.  Persevera9on  not  annotated  except  if  inten9onally  meaningful  (see  buoys)  

Start  and  end  of  two-­‐handed  signs  is  determined  independently  for  each  hand  

✗  

Will  not  change:  one  team  more  interested  in  phone9cs  than  the  other.  

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Sign  types  compared  •  Buoys  – Buoys  get  their  own  ID  gloss  

BSL   NGT  List,  Pointer,  Fragment  and  Theme  buoys.  Start  and  end  of  buoy  follows  start  and  end  of  co-­‐occurring  sign  on  dominant  hand.  LBUOY  PBUOY  FBOUY  TBUOY    

Only  List  buoys  (others  considered  persevera9on)  COUNTING-­‐HAND-­‐1  COUNTING-­‐HAND-­‐2  

✗  

Will  not  change:  one  team  more  interested  in  phone9cs  than  the  other.  

Sign  types  compared  •  Direc9onal  verbs  –  ID  glossed  – BSL:  Gramma9cal/modifica9on  info  on  separate  project-­‐specific  9ers  

– NGT:  Prefixed  or  suffixed  with  ‘1’  if  1SG  loca9on  is  used  

BSL   NGT  ASK  TAKE-­‐OVER  

ASK:1  1:TAKE-­‐OVER  

✗  

Reduce  the  amount  of  morphological  informa9on  in  the  gloss  9er  à  move  to  child  9ers  

Sign  types  compared  •  Numbers  incorpora9on:  ID  glossed  with  suffix  for  informa9on  about  incorporated  number  

BSL   NGT  HOUR-­‐FOUR02   HOUR-­‐4  

•  Ordinal  numbers  –  BSL:  ID  glossed  as  lexical  signs    –  NGT:  Numeral  with  -­‐ORD  suffix  

BSL   NGT  FIRST  RANKING  RANKING02  RANKING02-­‐THREE  

1-­‐ORD  

✓  

✗  

•  Sign  names  

Sign  types  compared  

BSL   NGT  

SN:FIRST   *FIRST-­‐LAST  

SN:PETER(FS:P-­‐PETER)   *PETER-­‐SMITH  

SN:OSAMA-­‐BIN-­‐LADEN(BEARD)   *OSAMA-­‐BIN-­‐LADEN  

✓  ✗  

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•  Poin9ng  signs  

Sign  types  compared  

BSL   NGT  

PT:LOC   PT  

PT:DET   PT  

PT:PRO1SG   PT:1  

PT:LOC/PT:PRO3   PT  

PT:LOC   PT:B  upward  

PT:LBUOY   PT:W  towards  the  index  finger  

✓  ✗  

Should  become  more  uniform  azer  an  ongoing  research  collabora9on  with  Johnston/Schembri.  Again:  morphological  modifica9on  to  child  9ers?  

•  Classifier/depic9ng  signs  

•  Type-­‐like  classifier/depic9ng  signs  

Sign  types  compared  

BSL   NGT  

DSEW(2)-­‐MOVE   MOVE+2  Meaning  )er:  cat  walks  to  and  fro  

DSEP(1)-­‐PIVOT   PIVOT+1  Meaning  )er:  person  turns  around  

DSEW(2)-­‐AT   AT+2  Meaning  )er:  bird  is  here  

BSL   NGT  

DSEW(1-­‐VERT)-­‐MOVE:HUMAN   MOVE+1  

DSEW(FLAT-­‐LATERAL)-­‐AT:VEHICLE   AT+flat  

✓  

✗  

✓  

✓  

✓  ✓  

✓  ✓  ✓  

✗  

✗   ✗  

✗  ✗  

✗  

✗  ✗  

✗  

✓  ✓  

✓  

✓  

✓  ✓  

✓  ✓  

Where  is  the  standard?  

✓  

✓  

✓  

✓  

Where  is  the  standard?  

•  Outlined  in  our  annota9on  guidelines  •  Reflected  in  our  published  data  sets  •  especially  the  annota9on  data  (tokens)  •  but  also  the  Signbanks  (types)  •  and  the  related  open  source  sozware  •  ELAN:  tla.mpi.nl/tools  •  Signbank:  see  links  on  Digging  into  Signs  website  

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Digging  into  Signs  Workshop:    Developing  annota9on  standards  for  Sign  

Language  Corpora    

FAMOUS  LAST  WORDS  

30-­‐31  March  2015  University  College  London  

#digsigns  UCL  Guest  Wifi:  Digging_30/31/03/2015    

Where  will  ‘the  Digging  standard’  be?  •  2  more  months  of  work  ahead  

–  PT  –  annota9ons:  revising  current  annota9ons  to  updated  guidelines  –  reliability  study  –  sozware  development  

•  Output  –  Updates  to  the  BSL  and  NGT  guidelines  –  Document  outlining  the  differences  between  BSL-­‐NGT,  incl.  some  discussions  we  had  here  

–  Sozware  update  to  ELAN  –  Updated  publica9on  of  annota9on  files  for  both  corpora  –  Con9nuous  work  on  the  two  Signbanks  (both  the  systems  and  the  content)  

–  Website  with  links  to  all  of  your  online  guidelines  

Thank  you!  •  All  presenters  •  Interpreter  teams  –  Interna9onal  ASL  –  BSL  –  VGT  –  LSFB  –  SSL  

•  Volunteers  &  others  from  DCAL  •  Our  discussant  Jordan  •  Chairs  Richard  &  Trevor  

Thank  you.2PL!  •  All  presenters  •  Interpreter  teams  –  Interna9onal  ASL  –  BSL  –  VGT  –  LSFB  –  SSL  

•  Volunteers  •  Our  discussant  Jordan  •  Chairs  Richard  &  Trevor