Russian Sign Research Articles

New Insights Into Mouthings: Evidence From a Corpus-Based Study of Russian Sign Language.

While some aspects of mouthings have been previously investigated, many topics in the use of this cross-modal contact phenomenon in sign languages remain un(der)studied, and not much is known about mouthings in Russian Sign Language (RSL), in particular. This article examines various aspects of mouthings as these are used by native RSL signers and aims to contribute new insights into the use and origin of mouthings in this sign language. Based on novel data from the online RSL Corpus alongside additional elicited data, we describe the distribution, forms, functions and spreading patterns of mouthings. Our findings furthermore show that sign languages exhibit more extensive variation in the use of mouthings than has previously been thought. Moreover, we – thus far uniquely – describe mouthings also as a written-language-based contact phenomenon. This study has the potential to provide a better understanding of the nature of such contact-induced features as mouthings in sign languages in general and reveals a complex interplay of the modalities of signed, spoken and written languages.

Exploring Networks of Lexical Variation in Russian Sign Language.

When describing variation at the lexical level in sign languages, researchers often distinguish between phonological and lexical variants, using the following principle: if two signs differ in only one of the major phonological components (handshape, orientation, movement, location), then they are considered phonological variants, otherwise they are considered separate lexemes. We demonstrate that this principle leads to contradictions in some simple and more complex cases of variation. We argue that it is useful to visualize the relations between variants as graphs, and we describe possible networks of variants that can arise using this visualization tool. We further demonstrate that these scenarios in fact arise in the case of variation in color terms and kinship terms in Russian Sign Language (RSL), using a newly created database of lexical variation in RSL. We show that it is possible to develop a set of formal rules that can help distinguish phonological and lexical variation also in the problematic scenarios. However, we argue that it might be a mistake to dismiss the actual patterns of variant relations in order to arrive at the binary lexical vs. phonological variant opposition.

Russian Sign Language: Main Problems of Vocabulary Study

The article gives a brief description of the world’s sign languages, i.e., of their features, genealogy, and status. It also considers possible approaches to studying the vocabulary of Russian sign language (RSL). Particular attention is paid to signs, which are currently of great interest to researchers, native speakers, and students learning RSL as a second language. Furthermore, they cause serious difficulties in translating them into other languages. In many cases, sign lexemes of RSL can be translated using Russian phraseological units. In different periods, various terms have been introduced to denote such sign lexemes: from idioms to non-equivalent vocabulary, multichannel signs, and language-specific vocabulary. The article analyzes the studies on this issue, starting with the works of G.L. Zaitseva from the 1990s to the present, as well as the classification of the vocabulary of sign languages by Russian and foreign specialists, including those used in cognitive linguistics. T. Johnson and L. Ferrara described the nature of some lexical signs as idiomatic and considered the concept of lexico-grammatical continuum and idiomaticity as the two properties of all sign languages. Here the features of RSL vocabulary are analyzed, examples of non-equivalent vocabulary are given, and it is proposed to consider RSL idioms as indivisible and integral combinations of two or more signs that perform the function of a single lexeme.

Роль мотивации в формировании готовности переводчиков русского жестового языка к профессиональной деятельности

This research aimed at defining the key motives for choosing profession of a Russian Sign Language (RSL) interpreter and the way they influence students' development of the readiness for professional activity. The participants of the study were 68 students of Novosibirsk State Technical University (NSTU) majoring in Linguistics, the English Language Interpreter and Russian Sign Language Interpreter program, and 6 teachers of RSL combining teaching with interpreting practice. The data were collected through questionnaire with open-ended questions. The questionnaire asked what influenced the choice of the program of studies, about interests in RSL and the deaf community, how attitude towards the profession of RSL interpreter changed after the beginning of studies at the university, and about motivation. Similar questions were given to the teachers but in relation to their understanding of students' motives. Teachers were also asked to express their opinion on what kind of learning and extra-curricular activities motivate students to sustain their interest in the profession of an RSL interpreter. The findings demonstrate that majority of the students have determinedly chosen the program of studies either for pragmatic (state-funded places) or idealistic (interest in “unusual” language, “mystery” of deaf culture) reasons. The studies and interaction with professional RSL interpreters positively influenced their attitude towards future profession. Most of the students value the opportunity to learn from deaf teachers. The teachers identified the same motives of choosing the profession of an RSL interpreter by the students and added that they were trying to maintain students' motivation by organized immersion into deaf culture. The students are involved in various extra-curricular activities with the deaf community. They participate in cultural events, do trial interpreting, and act as volunteers. Such kind of involvement with the deaf community enhances students' intercultural awareness and provides stimulating ground for developing readiness for professional RSL interpreting.

Basic pedagogical principles of teaching Russian sign language to law enforcement personnel

The article deals with teaching the Russian sign language to certain categories of internal affairs personnel at the higher educational institutions of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs under the conditions of time shortage. The authors assess psychological and pedagogical conditions of the Russian sign language teaching and provide some innovative teaching methods to accelerate the learning process. A compulsory requirement to any contemporary professionals, including the professionals in law-enforcement, is the ability to adapt to changing social and economic realities. Nowadays, in conditions of globalization and integrational processes, skills of socio-communicative interaction between a police officer and various categories of citizens are essential and very important as well as other general cultural skills that any professional should have since they provide success and efficiency of any professional activity in modern world. To exercise their professional activities internal affairs personnel have to acquire additional professional competences due to new tasks. These days we witness growing importance for police officers to enjoy such professional skills as the abilities to interact with people with disabilities. Linguocommunicative training of police personnel in the sphere of the Russian sign language is an important component of their professional education and their skills to get in contact with hearing-impaired people using sign language are becoming highly important in contemporary conditions.

Means of Intensification in Russian Sign Language

Means of Intensification in Russian Sign Language

Rezension: Vadim Kimmelman (2019): Information structure in sign languages. Evidence from Russian Sign Language and Sign Language of the Netherlands. Berlin: De Gruyter and Ishara Press.

Rezension: Vadim Kimmelman (2019): Information structure in sign languages. Evidence from Russian Sign Language and Sign Language of the Netherlands. Berlin: De Gruyter and Ishara Press.

Question-answer pairs in Russian Sign Language: a corpus study

Question-answer pairs in Russian Sign Language: a corpus study

Development of a software module for recognizing the fingerspelling of the Russian Sign Language based on LSTM

Russian Sign Language is a natural language that serves as a means of communication for people with hearing impairments. Currently, it is necessary to provide communication paths between hearing and deaf people, which requires the solution of several specific problems, one of which is gesture recognition. The paper presents a system for recognizing isolated static and dynamic gestures of the dactyl alphabet of the Russian Sign Language. The system is based on machine learning methods and is an LSTM with Mediapipe Hands as feature extractor. The network showed an F-measure value of 91% on test data.

Распознавание русского и индийского жестовых языков на основе машинного обучения

In the paper, we consider recognition of sign languages (SL) with a particular focus on Russian and Indian SLs. The proposed recognition system includes five components: configuration, orientation, localization, movement and non-manual markers. The analysis uses methods of recognition of individual gestures and continuous sign speech for Indian and Russian sign languages (RSL). To recognize individual gestures, the RSL Dataset was developed, which includes more than 35,000 files for over 1000 signs. Each sign was performed with 5 repetitions and at least by 5 deaf native speakers of the Russian Sign Language from Siberia. To isolate epenthesis for continuous RSL, 312 sentences with 5 repetitions were selected and recorded on video. Five types of movements were distinguished, namely, "No gesture", "There is a gesture", "Initial movement", "Transitional movement", "Final movement". The markup of sentences for highlighting epenthesis was carried out on the Supervisely.ly platform. A recurrent network architecture (LSTM) was built, implemented using the TensorFlow Keras machine learning library. The accuracy of correct recognition of epenthesis was 95 %. The work on a similar dataset for the recognition of both individual gestures and continuous Indian sign language (ISL) is continuing. To recognize hand gestures, the mediapipe holistic library module was used. It contains a group of trained neural network algorithms that allow obtaining the coordinates of the key points of the body, palms and face of a person in the image. The accuracy of 85 % was achieved for the verification data. In the future, it is necessary to significantly increase the amount of labeled data. To recognize non-manual components, a number of rules have been developed for certain movements in the face. These rules include positions for the eyes, eyelids, mouth, tongue, and head tilt.

Organizational support for training of Russian Sign Language translators in educational institutions

Sign languages are a consequence of the development of modern society, confirmation of its inclusiveness, social orientation, attention to each member of society, regardless of his possibilities. The needs of society for knowledge of sign language are great, and not only because part of it cannot communicate in another way. But because such a knowledge of sign language is designed to eliminate and compensate for numerous barriers of interaction. The article contains materials for analysis of general principles of organizing training, legislatively enshrined conditions for organizing the process of training Russian sign language translators (RSL) based on secondary vocational or higher education institutions, as well as the experience of implementing such programs in various educational organizations. Induction, deduction, literature analysis, comparative analysis, unstructured observation is used as research methods. The result of the research will be a number of proposals based on teaching experience and regulatory documents that are recommended for use in the educational process. The authors offer their own vision of the organizational aspects, the provisions of which are advisable to use in organizing training for RSL translators.

Linearization constraints on sentential negation in Russian Sign Language are prosodic

Abstract This squib documents exceptions to the main strategy of expressing sentential negation in Russian Sign Language (RSL). The postverbal sentential negation particle in RSL inverts the basic SVO order characteristic of the language turning it into SOV (Pasalskaya 2018a). We show that this reversal requirement under negation is not absolute and does not apply to prosodically heavy object NPs. The resulting picture accords well with the view of RSL word order laid out by Kimmelman (2012) and supports a model of grammar where syntactic computation has access to phonological information (Kremers 2014; Bruening 2019).

Bilingual learning environment as a resource for the development of creative abilities and socio-psychological adaptation of hearing-impaired children

Introduction. The article addresses the problem of bilingualism of deaf children in the educational process with the main focus on enhancing their creative abilities and socio-psychological adjustment. The purpose of the research is to study and describe the resource for the development of creative abilities and socio-psychological adaptation of children with hearing impairment. Materials and Methods. In this paper the authors provide a review of Russian and international studies into the role of bilingualism in deaf education. The evaluation of creative abilities and socialization of children with hearing impairment was conducted using the following projective methods: ‘Measurement of creative thinking’ (E. Torrance’s Incomplete figure test), N. V. Shaidurova’s measurement of older preschoolers’ creativity, ‘A picture of the family’ by T. G. Khomentauskas (adaptated by O. Y. Piskun and R. O. Agavelyan) as well as sets of survey methods including M. A. Panfilova’s “Sociometric questionnaire for children” and V. V. Tkacheva’s “Questionnaire for parents”. The sample consisted of 16 senior preschool age deaf children and their parents (n = 16). Results. Results. The authors identify the features of the development of creative abilities in children with hearing impairment: a slow formation of verbal speech, role-play interaction, and abstract thinking. The study reveals low socio-psychological adaptation, high parental deprivation and anxiety. In some cases, children are deprived of constructive interaction with their parents. It is emphasized that bilingual learning environment can be considered as a tool of deaf children’s social adjustment. The relevant learning environment can be created within the center of development and psychological and educational support for individuals with special education needs. Competent professionals (including those with disabilities) who use Russian sign language are motivated to communicate with deaf children and their parents for subsequent successful social integration and adjustment. Conclusions. The study concludes that within a personality-centered paradigm of a bilingual educational environment for creative development of children with hearing impairment and their socio-psychological adjustment, the leading factor is the bilingual approach to creating the center for psychological and educational support for families with the main focus on constructive interaction with deaf children.

Organizational support for training of Russian Sign Language translators in educational institutions

Sign languages are a consequence of the development of modern society, confirmation of its inclusiveness, social orientation, attention to each member of society, regardless of his possibilities. The needs of society for knowledge of sign language are great, and not only because part of it cannot communicate in another way. But because such a knowledge of sign language is designed to eliminate and compensate for numerous barriers of interaction. The article contains materials for analysis of general principles of organizing training, legislatively enshrined conditions for organizing the process of training Russian sign language translators (RSL) on the basis of secondary vocational or higher education institutions, as well as the experience of implementing such programs in various educational organizations. Induction, deduction, literature analysis, comparative analysis, unstructured observation are used as research methods. The result of the research will be a number of proposals based on teaching experience and regulatory documents that are recommended for use in the educational process. The authors offer their own vision of the organizational aspects, the provisions of which are advisable to use in organizing training for RSL translators.

Review of:] V. Kimmelman. Information structure in sign languages. Evidence from Russian Sign Language and Sign Language of the Netherlands. Boston; Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton; Ishara Press, 2019.

Review of:] V. Kimmelman. Information structure in sign languages. Evidence from Russian Sign Language and Sign Language of the Netherlands. Boston; Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton; Ishara Press, 2019.

Regiolects of the Russian sign language: A multimodal electronic corpus (based on the communicative space of Eastern Siberia)

The article reflects the results of a study focused on the variable features of Russian sign language (RSL) in a large region of Eastern Siberia. The work analyzes the modern sociolinguistic landscape of regional variants of RSL and describes the specifics of its functioning in such subjects as Krasnoyarsky Krai, Irkutsk Oblast’, Tyva and Khakassia Republics. The main scientific and practical result of the study of RSL regional variants is presented in the format of developing an electronic multimodal corpus of sign language for a large region of Russia in the amount of 600–800 signs for each territory based on marking the most frequent signs that coincide in the subregions of Siberia, as well as being semiotically differentiated according to the selected territories. Thus, the proposed material summarizes the experience of conducting institutional and linguistic monitoring of RSL representation in the region and creating an electronic platform for the assembled corpus of signs. The use of sign language is considered as one of the analogues of multimodal communication. At the same time, the term “multimodality” is also applied to the format of the platform, which is designed on the basis of several channels of information transmission and manifests itself in the integrality of various technological modes. The novelty of the study lies in the analytical, theoretical and applied examination of the insufficiently studied and described variants of RSL of the Eastern Siberia region and in the possibility of their linguistic documentation based on electronic material fixation.

Distance learning for students with hearing impairments in pandemic situation

The article deals with the problem of organizing distance learning for Deaf students in a pandemic situation. This problem is evaluated differently by experts, many of whom speak of a complete failure. However, the description of how two Siberian universities, which have a relatively large number of students with hearing impairments, organized a remote format, allows us to talk about the possibility of more or less successful practices. The article presents empirical studies of the Trans-Baikal State University and Novosibirsk State Technical University, on the basis of which the analysis is carried out, the opinions of students, teachers and interpreters of the Russian sign language are compared. The results of the study prove that the system of distance education of the Deaf more satisfied the requests of Deaf students where sign language interpreter worked, who simultaneously carried out control and support. During the study, organizational problems were discovered. Solving the identified problems will allow us to build a more successful model, which will make it possible to prevent risks and find effective remote technologies for teaching the Deaf.

Sign language recognition through Leap Motion controller and input prediction algorithm

The sign recognition systems are aimed to help deaf people communicate with society. In this paper we proposed our own concept of sign language recognition, which is based on a co-operative deep learning neural network, a text input prediction algorithm and a feedback from the user. We have pointed out the complexity of the Russian sign language and conceived the fingerspelling recognition. The method utilizes the natural properties of fingerspelling in order to increase the accuracy and recognition performance by predicting the ongoing letter. We also provide a detailed review of data acquisition in the related works. From a hardware perspective, we suggest using Leap Motion controller.

Organizational Support for Training of Russian Sign Language Translators in Educational Institutions

article contains materials for analysis of general principles of organizing training, legislatively enshrined conditions for organizing the process of training Russian sign language translators (RSL) on the basis of secondary vocational or higher education institutions, as well as the experience of implementing such programs in various educational organizations. Authors offer their own vision of the organizational aspects, the provisions of which are advisable to use in organizing training for RSL translators

Частотность компонентов жестов русского жестового языка

We investigate the structures of Signs in the Russian Sign Language (RSL) and their components of different categories. These categories allow us to convey all the variety of Sings. Another area of RSL that has not yet been sufficiently studied is how the components of Signs of different categories differ from one another; the categories allow us to convey the whole variety of Signs of RSL or any national SL. Our study is based on the created corpus, where we gathered the most common Signs of the RSL using the SW system. As we compare individual Signs in a symbolic form, we see visual similarities between some of them, with minor differences in their components. When carrying out linguistic analysis, it is important to know the frequency characteristics of the language. The main goal of this work is to identify the components of Signs with the greatest frequency of their use. The object of this study is the handshapes that describe the state of the palm and fingers when performing Signs. These components of any Sign in the SL are basic and the most numerous among the components of other categories (movement, orientation, localization, etc.). The article provides data on the composition of signs in the category Hands from the general base of the SW system. Our pilot study presents the frequency of the component Signs of RSL based on the material collected within the developed corpus of Signs in the sign form of the SW system. The frequency of use of Signs and their components is an important factor to consider when we examine the variation in Signs that influences how the SL changes over time. The data on the frequency of Signs and their components may be useful as we develop Sign (gesture) recognition software, and as we further study linguistics and SL.