Avatar in lingue dei segni tra rappresentazioni grafiche e sociali

L’attenzione ai temi dell’IA sta aumentando progressivamente scossa da quel fenomeno di boosterism caratterizza il discorso pubblico su rischi, benefici, etica e scenari futuri di tali tecnologie. In questo scenario si inserisce lo sviluppo di Avatar potenzialmente in grado di generare/tradurre una o più lingue dei segni. Il presente contributo intende mostrare le diverse rappresentazioni sociali prodotte dagli stakeholder che ruotano attorno a tale tecnologia: progetti di ricerca che ne curano lo sviluppo scientifico; persone sorde quali destinatari dei suoi utilizzi in ambito sociale; Pubblica Amministrazione in virtù della sua mission di accessibilità; imprese come sviluppatrici di tecnologie e interfacce; docenti, interpreti e altre figure professionali operanti in ambito sordità e inclusione sociale. Partendo dall’analisi della letteratura specifica (Kipp et al. 2011; McDonald 2021; Walsh et al. 2022; Wolfe et al. 2022;); di quella relativa alle problematiche di rappresentazione grafica dell’articolazione degli elementi linguistici mediante l’uso di simboli per forma, posizione e movimenti delle mani, espressioni facciali e movimento del busto (Antinoro Pizzuto et al., 2008 e 2010; Petitta et al., 2014); dagli obiettivi e risultati dei progetti di ricerca più recenti, si mostreranno le diverse dimensioni che rendono l’avatar segnante un frame denso di rappresentazioni simboliche. Rappresentazioni che originano da diversi interessi e discorsi, non solo come risposta innovativa alle istanze di accesso all’informazione e alla comunicazione per una specifica parte della popolazione ma in uno scenario complesso in cui interagiscono progresso tecnologico, evoluzione di interfacce di traduzione automatica e linguaggio generativo, fascinazione per le lingue dei segni, norme e bandi per l’accessibilità, ricerca linguistica, professionisti e stakeholder.Attention to AI issues is progressively increasing, shaken by the phenomenon of boosterism that characterizes public discourse on the risks, benefits, ethics and future scenarios of such technologies. The development of Avatar potentially capable of generating/translating one or more sign languages fits into this scenario. This contribution intends to show the different social representations produced by the stakeholders that revolve around this technology: research projects that take care of its scientific development; deaf people as recipients of its uses in the social field; Institutions by virtue of its mission of accessibility; companies as developers of technologies and interfaces; teachers, interpreters and other professional figures working in the field of deafness and social inclusion. Starting from the analysis of specific literature (Kipp et al. 2011; McDonald 2021; Walsh et al. 2022; Wolfe et al. 2022;); of that relating to the problems of graphic representation of the articulation of linguistic elements through the use of symbols for the shape, position and movements of the hands, facial expressions and movement of the torso (Antinoro Pizzuto et al., 2008 and 2010; Petitta et al. , 2014); from the objectives and results of the most recent research projects, we will show the different dimensions that make the avatar a frame full of symbolic representations. Representations that originate from different interests and discourses, not only as an innovative response to the requests for access to information and communication for a specific part of the population but in a complex scenario in which technological progress and the evolution of translation interfaces interact automatic and generative language, fascination with sign languages, rules and notices for accessibility, linguistic research, professionals and stakeholders

Strategies of representation for action verbs in Italian Sign Language

Strategies of representation for action verbs in Italian Sign Language In the verbal languages, the most high-frequency verbs referring to Action in everyday communication are “general”, since they can refer to different action schemas. Is that the same in Sign Languages (SL)? Studying action verbs in Sign Languages is very interesting because 1) SL makes embodiment visible; 2) SL can be considered a special window to explore the route from action perception, to concept construction, to expression of actions; 3) it is possible to verify similarities and differences between semantic classifications created through spoken languages and those created through SL. The projects IMAGACT and MODELACT have identified and represented 1010 distinct action concepts with prototypical filmed scenes. This linguistic infrastructure have been used to investigate action verbs in spoken languages as well as in Italian Sign Language (LIS). Sign languages give the possibility to represent an action incorporating some of the verb arguments and/or modality of execution in a mimetic way: as a matter of fact, different action types, labelled in English or Italian by a general verb such as “to turn”, are represented by different specific signs. The present study aims to investigate systematically how deaf signing children use general and/or specific verbs to represent different actions. To investigate LIS productions, five Italian action verbs, frequently used in children’s spoken lexicon, have been selected (Caselli et al., 2015): prendere (to take), aprire (to open), girare (to turn), rompere (to break) and attaccare (to attach). For each of these verbs 9 different videos (extracted from the IMAGACT Database) referring to specific action types have been shown to deaf signing children. Participants were 24 deaf signing children (5-10 years): 13 exposed early to LIS (first year of age) and 11 exposed later (after 36 months of age). Children were asked to describe the action performed. All LIS productions have been video recorded (total 882).92 In LIS, producing a «General verb» means using the same LIS verb to describe different types of action; producing «Specific verbs» means that the child performs a different verb according to how the action is performed, which is the object involved in the action, its affordances, and/or representing other semantic features. Children produced a specific verb in most cases - 72.26% - and a general verb in only 12.10% of cases (and mainly with one of the action proposed: prendere (to take)). Moreover, 6.96% of participants used a mixed strategy (general verb + specific verb), 6.51% used a semantically linked verb, while 2.17% used an out-of-target verb. There is a clear effect of age of LIS exposure: children exposed early produce more specific verbs with respect to children exposed later: 60.6% versus 53%. References Moneglia M. (2014). The variation of action verbs in multilingual spontaneous speech corpora: Semantic typology and corpus design. In T. Raso, H. Mello (eds.), Spoken Corpora and Linguistic Studies, 152-188. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Rinaldi P., Caselli M.C., Di Renzo A., Gulli T., Volterra V. (2014). Sign vocabulary in deaf toddlers exposed to Sign Language since birth. In Journal of deaf studies and deaf education, 19, 303-318. http://imagact.lablita.it and http://modelact.lablita.it

Nothing About Us Without Us: a participatory design for an Inclusive Signing Tiago Robot

The success of the interaction between the robotics community and the users of these services is an aspect of considerable importance in the drafting of the development plan of any technology. This aspect becomes even more relevant when dealing with sensitive services and issues such as those related to interaction with specific subgroups of any population. Over the years, there have been few successes in integrating and proposing technologies related to deafness and sign language. Instead, in this paper, we propose an account of successful interaction between a signatory robot and the Italian deaf community, which occurred during the Smart City Robotics Challenge (SciRoc) 2021 competition 1. Thanks to the use of a participatory design and the involvement of experts belonging to the deaf community from the early stages of the project, it was possible to create a technology that has achieved significant results in terms of acceptance by the community itself and could lead to significant results in the technology development as well