tanaka05@interspeech_2005@ISCA

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#1 Production of prominence in Japanese sign language [PDF] [Copy] [Kimi]

Authors: Saori Tanaka ; Masafumi Nishida ; Yasuo Horiuchi ; Akira Ichikawa

In sign language research, technically it has been possible to investigate prominence around a unit of sign movements that realizes strong visual impression. Based on the researches of speech prominence, this study proposes techniques to delimit a sequential hand-movement into small units, and investigates the prominence by the comparisons of physical properties on each unit between emphasized signing and non-emphasized signing in Japanese Sign Language. The original data for this paper came from 3 native signers who produced 3 sentences, 5 times in 2 modes. The result of Factor Analysis showed that prominence on the lexical parts of the sign movements was most distinctive through all subjects and examples. The varieties in the transitional part of the sign movements and the longer pause insertions before the lexical part of the sign movements were also observed.