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Text to Sign Language Translation System:: A Review of Literature

Article in International Journal of Synthetic Emotions · June 2016

DOI: 10.4018/IJSE.2016070104

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International Journal of Synthetic Emotions
Volume 7 • Issue 2 • July-December 2016

Text to Sign Language Translation System:

A Review of Literature
Lalit Goyal, DAV College, Jalandhar, India
Vishal Goyal, Punjabi University, Patiala, India

ABSTRACT

Many machine translation systems for spoken languages are available, but the translation system
between the spoken and Sign Language are limited. The translation from Text to Sign Language is
different from the translation between spoken languages because the Sign Language is visual spatial
language which uses hands, arms, face, and head and body postures for communication in three
dimensions. The translation from text to Sign Language is complex as the grammar rules for Sign
Language are not standardized. Still a number of approaches have been used for translating the Text
to Sign Language in which the input is the text and output is in the form of pre-recorded videos or
the animated character generated by computer (Avatar). This paper reviews the research carried out
for automatic translation from Text to the Sign Language.

KEywoRdS
Avatar, HamNoSys, Indian Sign Language, Machine Translation System, Natural Language Processing, SiGML

INTRodUCTIoN

There are approximately 7105 known living languages in the world divided in 136 different language
families. Among these 136 language families, Sign language is one and this family contains 136
sign languages all over the world depending upon the region of the world. Sign language is used by
hearing impaired people to convey their message (http://www.ethnologue.com/).
Sign language is the non-spoken language which is used by deaf and hard of hearing people using
hand shapes, face expressions, gestures and other parts of the body. Sign languages do not have well
defined structure or grammar therefore there is no or very less acceptability of these signs outside their
small world. Out of nearly 7 billion people on earth, nearly 72 million are deaf and hard of hearing.
Out of such a big number approximately 4.3 million such people use Sign language. Rest of nearly
67 million deaf and hard of hearing people do not use any proper sign language to communicate.
Thus nearly 90% deaf have a very limited or no access to education and other information (http://
www.wfdeaf.org).
Sign Language (SL) is a visual-spatial language which is used to communicate using hands,
arms, face, head, and body postures. The signer uses the three dimensional space around his body to
describe an event (Zeshan, 2003). Signs are categorized as manual signs (single handed or double
handed) and non manual signs or combination of both as shown in Figure 1:
Manual signs are those signs which uses the hand shapes, hand location, and hand movement
where as non- manual component is the face expressions, head and body postures. A sign may have
only manual part or only non- manual part or combination of both. For example, the sign “Yes” is
signed by vertical head nod and it is pure non-manual component. One Handed Signs are represented

DOI: 10.4018/IJSE.2016070104

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62
 International Journal of Synthetic Emotions
Volume 7 • Issue 2 • July-December 2016

Figure 1. ISL Type Hierarchy

by a single dominating hand where as two handed signs are represented by using both the hands.
These signs can be either static or dynamic (having movements) and may include the non-manual
component also. Figure 2 and Figure 3 show some examples of this categorization.

Figure 2. One Handed Static Manual Sign (Ear) and Non-manual Sign (Headache)

Figure 3. Two Handed Sign “Long” (Both hands are moving) and Sign “Flag” (Only the dominant right hand is moving)

63
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