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A Kinematic Analysis Of Sign Language, Chemuttaai C. Koech

Theses

Signed languages develop among deaf populations and employ manual communication instead of voiced communication. Stokoe attributes classify individual signs in American Sign Language (ASL) and include handshape, hand location, movement, orientation, and facial expression. Signed and oral languages are not mutually understood, and many deaf individuals live in linguistic isolation. This research addresses computer translation between signing and speech, investigating sign duration in sentence context versus in isolation and identifying kinematic sign markers. To date, there has been little study of continuous signing kinematics; it was previously unknown if kinematic markers existed.

Kinematic data were collected from a proficient signer …