Sign Language Linguistics
The Sign Language research group at the Centre for Language Studies is an enthusiastic group of hearing and deaf linguists who investigate the structure and use of Sign Language of the Netherlands, the language of the deaf community in the Netherlands. While the central focus is on (psycho)linguistic research, we also invest a lot in the development of innovative methodologies to develop and work with sign language corpora. We have a strong commitment to make our research results accessible for a general audience and in particular for the deaf community itself, by websites such as Gebareninzicht and Just Deaf.
Research projects
Technology
We have worked on several projects creating or enhancing technologies for sign language research:
- We have developed a connection between Signbank and ELAN (to be implemented separately for each Signbank installation)
- We have developed more flexible ways of switching between different visual preferences in ELAN, allowing for the creation and selection of 'tier sets'
- We have developed new ways of using lexical data in ELAN by improving the way that External Controlled Vocabularies are displayed
- We have created a multilingual version of Signbank, the open-source lexical database for sign languages first designed by Trevor Johnston for Auslan. The Global Signbank stores datasets from various sign languages, and is open to hosting new datasets under certain conditions.
- We have set up an ASL Signbank for the University of Connecticut and Gallaudet University.
- With University College London, we have created a joint standard for glossing sign language videos (Digging into Signs)
Data sets
We have created some data collections; some for or with others. Most of these collections are archived at The Language Archive. The Signbank is hosted on our own server.
Data sets created by us
- SignPhon (1998)
- ECHO (2004)
- Corpus NGT (2008)
- Global Signbank: NGT dataset (2015)
- IPROSLA: Nijmegen (2018)
- Handy Connections: various datasets
Data sets archived by us
- Data Heleen Bos (2016)
- IPROSLA: Amsterdam (2014)
- IPROSLA: Data Nini Hoiting (2018)
Corpus NGT for researchers
The Corpus NGT is an open access online corpus of (partly annotated) dialogues between native users of Sign Language of the Netherlands (abbreviated as SLN or NGT).
The Corpus NGT is an open access online corpus of (partly annotated) dialogues between native users of Sign Language of the Netherlands (abbreviated as SLN or NGT). Most of the Corpus NGT can be accessed through The Language Archive of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen. It is available for research and other uses through a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 license. Downloading or using parts of the corpus implies your agreement with the terms of this license. For a small number of sessions, the signers have not given permission for public use. These will not be accessible for anonymous users in The Language Archive or through this website.
The latest release of the annotation files is also available as a ZIP file (zip, 14 MB), along with the annotation conventions (pdf, 2 MB).
The Corpus NGT (92 signers, 72 hours) was created by Onno Crasborn, Inge Zwitserlood & Johan Ros at Radboud University between 2008-2011. An additional 12 signers were recorded in 2018 (no annotations available). Over the years, additional and correct annotations have been published in a series of releases; the present one is the fourth release from 2020. Users who add systematic annotations are requested to share these with us, for distribution in future releases.
Referring to the corpus
To refer to the Corpus NGT in accordance with the Creative Commons ‘BY’ clause, please use both of the following references:
- Onno Crasborn, Inge Zwitserlood & Johan Ros. 2008. The Corpus NGT. An open access digital corpus of movies with annotations of Sign Language of the Netherlands. Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen.
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/hdl:1839/00-0000-0000-0004-DF8E-6.
ISLRN: 175-346-174-413-3. - Onno Crasborn & Inge Zwitserlood (2008) The Corpus NGT: an online corpus for professionals and laymen, In: Construction and Exploitation of Sign Language Corpora. 3rd Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages, O. Crasborn, T. Hanke, E. Efthimiou, I. Zwitserlood & E. Thoutenhoofd, eds. ELDA, Paris. pp 44-49.
Instructions for webmasters
For information about annotation conventions, please email onno.crasborn@ru.nl.