The Representation Issue and its Multifaceted Aspects in Constructing Sign Language Corpora: Questions, Answers, Further Problems

This paper aims to address and clarify one issue we believe is crucial in constructing Sign Languages (SL) corpora: identifyingappropriate tools for representing in written form SL productions of any sort, i.e. lexical items, utterances, discourse at large. Towardsthis end, building on research done within our group on multimedia corpora of both SL and spoken or verbal languages (vl), we firstoutline some of the major requirements and guidelines followed in current work with vl corpora (e.g. regarding transcription,representation [mark-up], coding [or annotation] Chiari, 2007; Edwards & Lampert; 1993; Leech & al, 1995; Ochs, 1979; Powers, 2005,among others). We highlight that a basic requirement of vl corpora is an easily readable transcription that, aside from specialist linguisticannotations, allows anyone who knows the object language to reconstruct its forms, and its form-meaning correspondences. Second, wepoint out how this basic requirement is not met in most current work on SL, where the ‘transcription’ of SL productions consists primarily of word-labels taken from vl, inappropriately called ‘glosses’. As argued by different authors (e.g. Cuxac, 2000; Pizzuto & al,2006; Leeson & al, 2006), the use of such word-labels as a primary representation tool grossly misrepresents SL, even when supportedby specialist linguistic annotations. Drawing on a relevant work on SL lexicon and discourse (e.g. Cuxac, 2000; Brennan, 2001; Cuxac &Sallandre, 2007; Russo, 2004; Pizzuto & al, 2008), we illustrate how the ‘transcriptions’ most widely used for SL are especiallyinadequate for representing complex sign units that are very frequent in SL discourse, and exhibit highly iconic,multidimensional/multilinear features that have no parallel in vl. Third, we discuss findings from ongoing research on Italian SignLanguage (LIS) in which experienced deaf signers explore the use of SignWriting (SW: Sutton, 1999) as a tool for both composing textsconceived in written form -- thereby creating a corpus of written LIS -- and for transcribing corpora of face-to-face LIS discourse (DiRenzo & al, 2006; Di Renzo, in press; Lamano & al, in press). The results show that deaf signers can easily represent the form-meaningpatterns of their language with an accuracy never experienced with other representation or annotation systems. We illustrate examples of SW-encoded vs. ‘gloss’-based transcripts which suggest that SW can be a valuable tool for addressing the representation issue inconstructing SL corpora. However, the present computerized form of SW poses problems that constrain its use. We conclude specifyingsome of the problems that need to be faced on the route towards identifying more appropriate written representations of SL