Incorporation of Syntactic-Semantic Aspects in a LIBRAS Machine Translation Service to Multimedia Platforms

Abstract

In scientific literature, there are some solutions that address the machine automatic of sign language contents. These solutions aim to reduce the communication and access to information barriers of deaf people in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). However, the most of these solutions do not explore syntactic and semantic aspects in the machine translation process, especially when they are designed to be general area. As a result, there is a limitation on the quality of the accessible generated contents, and a consequent resistance of deaf users for using these solutions. To reduce this problem, in this paper, we propose a solution that incorporates syntactic and semantic aspects in the translation of VLibras, a service of machine generation of Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) content in for ICT (Digital TV, Web, Digital Cinema and mobile devices). This solution involves a formal rule description language modeled to create translation rules; the definition of a grammar exploiting these features; and their integration with the VLibras service. To evaluate the solution, some computational tests were performed using WER and BLEU metrics to assess the quality of the output generated by the solution. The results show that the proposed approach could improve the results of the current version of VLibras translator.