Exploiting SL Corpora in Deaf Studies

Trinity College Dublin Coláiste na Tríonóide, Baile Átha Cliath

School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences

Centre for Deaf Studies

Sign Language Corpora for Other Purposes: Exploiting the Signs of Ireland Corpus in Deaf Studies Teaching & Learning Lorraine Leeson Centre for Deaf Studies Trinity College Dublin Bristol I 2 July 2011




Overview •  Corpora: going beyond sign linguistics research –  –  –  – 

Translation & Interpreting Studies Teaching Sign Linguistics Sign Language Teaching & Learning Deaf Studies

•  Toward Digital Repositories –  Humanities & Repositories –  Deaf Studies in this context?




Corpora

•  Corpora as… –  Digital –  Annotated –  Searchable




The Digital Age… •  We have the digital capacity –  We need greater investment in considering automatic tagging to increase capacity for annotation (otherwise, manual annotation is time consuming and consistency can be an issue (human error)

•  Re: “search-ability” – what functionality do we have in mind when we collect? Annotate? •  We need to go beyond the sign linguistic & beyond the SL teaching! •  But before that, lets remember that corpus studies & exploitation of corpora is relatively new….




Spoken Language Corpora & Missed Opportunities…

•  Sinclair (1994) talks about how corpora of spoken languages were not welcomed initially by researchers or teachers. He says: •  “For a quarter of a century, corpus evidence was ignored, spurned and talked out of relevance, until its importance became just too obvious for it to be kept out in the cold.” (Sinclair 1994: 1) •  While SL corpora are being welcomed by researchers, as teachers, we need to make sure that we harness and exploit corpora fast. We need to be “early adopters”.




Is Feidir Linn! (Yes we can!) •  Toward Applied Sign Corpora •  Move away from “chalk and talk” and use digital resources in class! •  Scope for archiving/exhibiting/ comparing data •  Research on Deaf culture •  Consider data created via European partnerships (Leonardo da Vinci Projects, Grundtvig Projects, etc.) as “add ons”/ “sub-plots” of the corpus story.




Autonomous, Authentic Teaching & Learning







Learner Autonomy • Based on principle that autonomy is the goal of all developmental learning; •  Knowledge of language, not about language; •  Capacity for independent, spontaneous language use; •  Language learning through language use; •  Meaningful language use (group-work); •  Focus on meaning & focus on form; •  Active responsibility for and involvement in learning; •  Transferable skills. (Little & Ushioda 1998)




Teaching “Real” Sign Linguistics •  From Sign Linguistics Research to teaching sign linguistics! –  Getting students excited about language –  Getting students engaged – taps into intrinsic motivation –  Hands-on approaches - “authentic” learning with authentic data & transferrable skill development. –  Offers scope for autonomous learning & Problem Based Learning (PBL) –  “value-added” learning: students are also working in digital environments, learning to use ELAN, learning to note where they find evidence (time codes, etc.) & applying their learning in a very practical way . –  Learning of rigorous approach to dealing with data & learning that glosses don’t capture the essence of the SL data.




For example: (2011) SLCW3 •  Students had to describe and find examples of “surrogates” (Liddell 2003) in the SOI corpus.




What students say: •  “It was great to have access to so many sign varieties” •  “I could search for real instances of the linguistic features we talked about in class to check on my understanding”




•  Outputs of the corpus include a volume on ISL (Leeson & Saaed) due late 2011 (Edinburgh University Press). •  Corpus driven discussion of the grammar of ISL Cognitive linguistics led analysis of data. DVD with samples from the corpus to accompany volume. •  Useful for assisting our teaching and learning!!




Translation & Interpreting Studies •  SL corpora have a significant role to play in the teaching of interpreting and translating •  Issues that can be considered include: –  Collocational relationships –  Discourse structure (e.g. cohesive devices, role of body-partitioning, use of the N/D hand, discourse makers, etc.) –  Register/genre variation –  Gendered/ regional/ generational variation –  Metaphor/ Idiom







Translation & Interpreting Studies (2) •  Students can prepare translations in ELAN, can assist in annotating texts, or can work from texts to create a spoken language target text (e.g. audio files in Garage Band). •  Students learn that there is more than one way to handle translating a Source Language text – and this is very challenging for them! •  Brings students in contact with greater variability than is otherwise possible in the classroom. •  Cost-effective means of delivering authentic data to classes. •  Authentic tasks: student work is corrected and used as the translation files that will be sent to the Language Archives (MPI).




What the students get… ELAN files




For example: TIPP T1 2011 SOI (1)




Authentic Tasks •  The translations created by students, when corrected following from feedback by lecturer are fed into ELAN. •  Students have space to explore the range of decisions that they might make professionally and consider the consequences of each decision. •  These files will then be made available to students – and will form part of the submission of files to the MPI Nijmegan’s Language Archive, hence, this is a “real” translation task.




Sign Language Teaching & Learning •  Using the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), some moves have been made to create, annotate and utilize signed language data for online teaching and learning (BSL, ISL, Czech SL, Cypriot SL and Greek SL)(D-Signs Project, LdV, led by Bristol University). •  Corpus materials can support learning in such environments, where someone maps the complexity of content to the CEFR, for example (e.g. what materials are B1/B2/ C1 level, etc.)




Deaf Studies • 

• 

• 

• 

Corpora contain personal stories, histories, “witness statements” and political perspectives. They are snapshots of “Deafhood” and of the struggle in a Hearing world. Specialist corpora – thematic – for example, discussion of being Deaf – SIGNALL 2 project data )LDV 2008-10). Corpora can contribute to archiving Deaf Histories. And digital archives on Deaf Histories can contribute to corpus building. For example, the “Hidden Histories” Project (led by the University of Sussex) (Grundtvig 2010-12).




“From the horse’s mouth…” •  Language & culture as embodied: corpora allow for rich analysis on the one hand, and rich teaching & learning experiences on the other. •  While not all stories are about being deaf, Deafhood experiences are often encoded in the data. •  Corpora can provide multilingual, multi-cultural views on Deaf communities, from a first person perspective, in SLs.




Creating an International Repository? •  Safeguarding this data •  Corpora as a literature/ historical record of Deaf communities? •  What do we want 21st Century students and 22nd Century people to know about Deaf communities? •  How do we share this valuable resource today while at the same time being mindful of data protection issues?




Humanities & Repositories: Deaf Studies in Europe in this context? •  Some moves in progress with Deaf experience as the focus, e.g. –  Hidden Histories Project (UK, IRE, FI, AUS) – social histories –  SIGNALL II –(IRE, UK, FI, POLAND, CZ) - Deafhood –  SIGNALL 3- (IRE, UK, BE, TURKEY, FI) – Includes reference to how Deaf people experience Deaf Education/ Mental Health/ Interpreting –  Medisigns (IRE, UK, SWEDEN, CYPRUS,POLAND) – Includes Deaf people’s experiences of medical domains –  …but the data, while catalogued, is not annotated over the life of these projects. This needs addressing.




We have Digital Data! •  For Example - SIGNALL II: 1000+ video clips (approx. 50 hours of data) (lectures and interviews) •  Some 250-300 clips in each of the following: –  –  –  –  –  – 

Irish Sign Language (data currently being prepped in ELAN) British Sign Language Polish Sign Language Finnish Sign Language Czech Sign Language Plus: voiceovers in English (FI, IRE, UK), transcripts in English (IRE, UK), and Czech transcripts. –  Needs searchability via ELAN!!!







Benefits? • 

• 

• 

Digital archives of social history in signed languages –  E.g. Holocaust survivors/ war survivors (e.g. Polish Deaf Batallion during the Warsaw Rising)/gendered-generational / regional varieties that are moving out of the language (e.g. Ireland) Digital archives of disappearing forms (e.g. gendered generational signs in ISL, regional variants in BSL) Projects can develop comparative data sets across communities (e.g. SIGNALL II)




Wishlist? •  Collaboration & Consolidation: –  Build on existing networks such as those in EU projects to consolidate digital archive building –  Consolidate the resources that are available in teaching institutes for “quick and dirty” annotations – students perform wonderfully well on authentic tasks – but you have to offer them supervision and support! –  And beyond the traditional classroom – support lifelong learning for Deaf communities: identify what THEY want to archive & what benefits THEY want from resources gathered (e.g. Community Development courses in archiving? Access to training re: using ELAN to support their teaching?)




Beyond the Ivory Tower

http://www.deafstudies.eu




Go raibh maith agaibh! (Thank You!)




Contact me? Lorraine Leeson Director Centre for Deaf Studies School of Linguistic, Speech & Communication Sciences Trinity College Dublin (University of Dublin) 7-9 Leinster Street South Dublin 2 IRELAND [email protected] www.tcd.ie/slscs/cds/

Exploiting SL Corpora in Deaf Studies

Exploiting SL Corpora in Deaf Studies

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