Glossary

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Hybrid Search(also: Hybrid sign-language search)

A sign-language dictionary search pattern that combines search-by-video (a user performs the sign into a camera for sign recognition to match) with search-by-feature (manual filtering of the candidate list by linguistic properties such as handshape and location). Introduced as a…

Lexical Signing(also: Lexical Sign, LS)

In American Sign Language and related signed languages, the production of meaning by syntactically combining individual lexical signs drawn from the language's vocabulary — analogous to combining words into sentences in a spoken or written language. Lexical signing is contrasted…

MPEG-4 Facial Action Parameter(also: MPEG-4 FAP, FAP, Facial Action Parameter)

A standard for 3D face animation defined in ISO/IEC 14496-2 (MPEG-4), which parameterises a face through 68 feature points whose displacements (scaled relative to the character's own facial proportions) encode any facial expression. MPEG-4 FAP is proportion-invariant, so the…

Pronominal Reference(also: Pronoun Reference, Anaphoric Reference)

The use of pronouns or pronoun-like expressions to refer back to entities previously introduced in a discourse. In spoken and written languages this is typically achieved with words such as "he," "she," "it," or "they"; in American Sign Language and other signed languages,…

Rhetorical Question (ASL)(also: ASL Rhetorical Question, RHQ)

In American Sign Language, a grammatical construction in which the signer poses a question and then immediately answers it, used as a cohesive rhetorical device rather than as a genuine inquiry. ASL rhetorical questions are marked by specific non-manual signals — typically…

Search-by-Feature(also: Feature-based sign search, Linguistic-property search)

A sign-language dictionary search technique in which a user manually selects linguistic properties of the target sign — typically handshape, body-relative location, movement type, orientation, and number of hands — from a menu, and the system returns dictionary entries matching…

Search-by-Video(also: Video-based search, Search by video)

A sign-language dictionary search technique in which a user performs a sign into a webcam or camera and computer-vision-based sign recognition returns a ranked list of candidate dictionary entries. Search-by-video is easier for novice signers than search-by-feature because it…

Sign Language Corpus(also: ASL Corpus, Signed Language Corpus)

A structured collection of recorded signed-language performances — typically video, and increasingly motion-capture data — annotated by expert signers with time-stamped linguistic information such as individual signs, non-manual markers, eye gaze, grammatical boundaries, and…

Sign Language Interface(also: Sign-language interface, Signing interface)

A computing interface that accepts input from, or presents output to, a user in a signed language such as American Sign Language (ASL) or British Sign Language (BSL), rather than assuming a spoken or written language. Sign-language interfaces span sign-language recognition…

Sign Name(also: ASL name sign, Name sign)

A unique sign in American Sign Language (or another signed language) used to uniquely identify an individual person or, in some proposals, an object or device, in place of fingerspelling their English name. Sign names are culturally significant in Deaf communities and are…

Spatial Reference (ASL)(also: Spatial Reference Point, Locus, ASL Spatial Reference)

In American Sign Language and other signed languages, the use of points in the signing space in front of the signer as invisible placeholders for entities under discussion — people, objects, or concepts. A signer may point to, sign near, or direct eye gaze toward a particular…

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