Ivani Rodrigues Silva

Quando ele fica bravo, o português sai direitinho; fora disso a gente não entende nada: o contexto multilíngüe da surdez e o (re)conhecimento das línguas no seu entorno

This article presents a reflection upon the languages that surround deaf children of hearing parents. Its aim is to shed light on the languages that are created in this context, because of the need hearing mothers and deaf children have of understanding each other in the absence of a conventional language (be it Portuguese, spoken by the majority of the community, or be it sign language, which is spoken by the deaf adult community). The motivation for this reflection comes from the discomfort I feel about the notion of language commonly used when discussing deafness. This notion is anchored in a definition of language as homogeneous and ideally conceived (Cesar e Cavalcanti, 2007). Such conceptions do not consider the different languages that exist in this context to be legitimate and therefore to be a language alternative. The classification of these languages exclusively into either oral language or sign language can invalidate or bring disadvantages to the other languages that are constituted in this context through the very need of hearing parents to communicate with their deaf children.

Identifying Intensification Processes in Brazilian Sign Language in the Framework of Brazilian Portuguese Machine Translation.

Brazilian Portuguese (BP) to Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) machine translation differs from traditional automatic translation between oral languages specially because Libras is a visuospatial language. In our approach the final step of the translation process is a 3D avatar signing the translated content. However, to obtain an understandable signing is necessary that the translation takes into account all linguistic levels of Libras. Currently, BP-Libras translation approaches neglect important aspects of intensification of words and construction of plural nouns, generating inappropriate translations. This paper presents a study of the intensification of adjectives, verbs and nouns’ pluralization, with the aim of contributing to the advance of automatic sign language translation. We apply a hierarchical clustering method for the classification of Libras’ intensified signs considering the modification of manual parameters. The method allows for the identification of distinct intensification patterns and plural marking in BP sentences. The results of our study can be used to improve the intelligibility of the signing avatar.

Signing avatars: making education more inclusive

In Brazil, there are approximately 9.7 million inhabitants who are deaf or hard of hearing. Moreover, about 30% of the Brazilian deaf community is illiterate in Brazilian Portuguese due to difficulties to offer deaf children an inclusive environment based on bilingual education. Currently, the prevailing teaching practice depends heavily on verbal language and on written material, making the inclusion of the deaf a challenging task. This paper presents the author’s approach for tackling this problem and improving deaf students’ accessibility to written material in order to help them master Brazilian Portuguese as a second language. We describe an ongoing project aimed at developing an automatic Brazilian Portuguese-to-Libras translation system that presents the translated content via an animated virtual human, or avatar. The paper describes the methodology adopted to compile a source language corpus having the deaf student needs in central focus. It also describes the construction of a parallel Brazilian Portuguese/Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) corpus based on motion capture technology. The envisioned translation architecture includes the definition of an Intermediate Language to drive the signing avatar. The results of a preliminary assessment of signs intelligibility highlight the application potential.

A relação sujeito/linguagem na construção da identidade surda

O estudo destaca o papel do instrutor surdo no processo de construcao da(s) identidade(s) surda(s). Para isso, foram analisadas filmagens da interacao de criancas surdas com instrutores surdos, buscando, a partir da convivencia cotidiana entre esses sujeitos, levantar aspectos relevantes da aquisicao da Lingua Brasileira de Sinais (Libras) e da importância do instrutor surdo neste processo. A pesquisa qualitativa utilizou como instrumento um banco de dados do Programa Infantil: Linguagem e Surdez, o qual atende criancas surdas de 4 a 9 anos de idade, realizado em um centro de estudos e pesquisas de uma universidade no interior de Sao Paulo. As filmagens foram observadas e transcritas da Libras para a escrita do Portugues. A analise dos dados mostrou que a interacao espontânea do instrutor com as criancas constitui os momentos privilegiados de aquisicao. Outro aspecto observado, como sendo de extrema importância na formacao da(s) identidade(s) surda(s), refere-se a interacao destas criancas entre si, entendendo-se como surdas e como usuarias da lingua de sinais.