SignStream: A Multimedia Tool for Language Research

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The project's objectives are: 1) development of "SignStream," a database tool for analysis of linguistic data captured on video; 2) use of SignStream for creation of a large database of utterances from American Sign Language, consisting of raw video and fine-grained linguistic transcription; 3) development of an interactive format for linking electronic documents to SignStream databases (allowing direct access from texts to video, encoded data, and SignStream tools). SignStream provides a single computing environment for manipulating video and transcribing utterances by entering linguistic information in multiple fields and linking this to specific video frame sequences, resulting in a fine-grained, multi-level, temporally calibrated transcription. Information from the various fields is aligned visually on screen to reflect temporal relations. The goal is to make SignStream and the databases and interactive document tools developed accessible to the general research community. There is a pressing need for such tools, for linguistic research on signed languages (which has to date been hampered by the inaccessibility of data for inspection, and the lack of tools for scientific analysis thereof) as well as for related disciplines relying on analysis of video data.