ASL SignBank is live, free, and open to the public! Check it out at aslsignbank.haskins.yale.edu.
See this link for detailed information on the ASL Signbank!
The ASL SignBank is a tool being developed in relation to the SLAAASh Project in collaboration between researchers in our lab at UConn, and at Gallaudet University (Julie Hochgesang, lead). There is currently no one commonly-accepted orthography for American Sign Language. Additionally, the transcription systems used by different research groups are often inconsistent. The best practice is to base annotations on ID glosses. In an ID gloss system, exactly one word or phrase stands for exactly one sign. For this project, this means that for each ASL sign there is an English word that is used to label each sign consistently – regardless of meaning or of modification in context. Our laboratory has previously collaborated to create a database of conventions for ID glosses. The current focus is to improve, expand, and share this database.
The ASL Signbank is not meant to be a dictionary, but rather a tool for researchers. It is currently under development and contains over 3000 sign-gloss pairs. Researchers led by Onno Crasborn (Radboud University, Netherlands) have created a link between the ELAN program and the ASL SignBank. Changes or additions made to the online ASL SignBank automatically propagate through linked ELAN annotation files, making updates simple and straightforward for researchers to incorporate. For more information or to use this linked method in your own research, contact the SLLA lab manager.
Research reported here was supported in part by the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01DC013578. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Some other SignBanks:
NGT Dr. Onno Crasborn (Radboud University, Netherlands)
BSL Dr. Kearsy Cormier (UCL, UK)
FinSL Prof. Ritva Takkinen (University of Jyväskylä, Finland)
Presentations
Hochgesang, J.A. (2018). Same Modality: Different Languages – Signed Language Documentation Projects Around the World. Invited presentation for “International Day of Sign Languages” Celebration by the Department of ASL and Deaf Studies, the Office of the President, and the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD). Washington, DC. Gallaudet University. September 24.
Hochgesang, J.A. (2018). ELAN and ASL SignBank and Your Data, Oh My! Invited workshop for “Assessing a Deaf Child’s ASL – Level 2”. Washington, DC. Gallaudet University. June 25-27.
Hochgesang, J.A. (2018). ELAN and ASL SignBank: Making your videos accessible. Invited workshop for “Assessing a Deaf Child’s ASL – Level 1”. Washington, DC. Gallaudet University. June 21-23.
Hochgesange, Julie (2018). SLAAASh and the ASL Deaf Communities (or “so many gifs!”). In Mayumi Bono, Eleni Efthimiou, Stavroula-Evita Fotinea, Thomas Hanke, Julie Hochgesang, Jette Kristoffersen, Johanna Mesch & Yutaka Osugi (Eds.), Proceedings of the Language Resources and Evaluation Conference 8th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Involving the Language Community; 63-68. proceedings
Hochgesang, Julie, Crasborn, Onno & Lillo-Martin, Diane (2018). Building the ASL Signbank: Lemmatization Principles for ASL. In Mayumi Bono, Eleni Efthimiou, Stavroula-Evita Fotinea, Thomas Hanke, Julie Hochgesang, Jette Kristoffersen, Johanna Mesch & Yutaka Osugi (Eds.), Proceedings of the Language Resources and Evaluation Conference 8th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Involving the Language Community; 69-74. proceedings
Hochgesang, J.A. (2018). Making your early childhood data accessible: Using ELAN and the ASL Signbank. Invited presentation for Early Childhood Education Summit IX: Opening our minds to diversity, inclusion, and equity in early childhood inclusion. Washington, DC. Gallaudet University. April 5-7 2018. pdf
Hochgesang, J.A. (2017). “Making sense of real data: considering usage-based theory in the analysis of lemmas in ASL data.” Opening conference presentation at SIGN8 International Conference of Sign Language Users, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC), Florianopòlis, Brazil. October 9-12. pdf
Hochgesang, Julie, Crasborn, Onno, & Lillo-Martin, Diane. (2017). “Building the ASL SignBank on the Shoulder of Giants.” CL2017 Pre-Conference Workshop 3: Corpus-based approaches to sign language linguistics: Into the second decade. University of Birmingham, July 24. pdf, handout
Hochgesang, J.A. (2017). ASL Signbank. Invited workshop lecture for “ASL Research Resources” at Linguistics Society of America Summer Institute, Lexington, KY. July 12. link
Hochgesang, J.A. (2017). ELAN and ASL SignBank: Making your videos accessible. Invited workshop for “Assessing a Deaf Child’s ASL”. Washington, DC. Gallaudet University. June 22-24.
Hochgesang, Julie. (2017). “Our Data are Homeless.” Invited presentation for “Let’s Document!: The Value of Signed (Oral) History” Program for the opening of Drs. John S. & Betty J. Schuchman Deaf Documentary Center, Gallaudet University. Gallaudet University, May 3.
Crasborn, Onno. (2016). “New technologies for sign language research: ELAN & Signbank”. Opening keynote, 1st National Congress of Research in Linguistics and Sign Language, Florianópolis, Brazil. Nov 28.
Hochgesang, Julie. (2016). “Sustaining ASL Collections: What’s annotation and why does it matter?” Capturing Deaf Heritage Day, hosted by Center for Deaf Documentary Studies and GU Archives. Washington, DC. Gallaudet University. Oct 28.
Crasborn, Onno. (2016). “Using analysis tools in sign language research”. Invited talk, Sign Language and Social Communication: 2016 International Conference of the NIKL. Seoul, South Korea. Sept 7.