| The aim of this project is to collect and publish an innovative corpus of Sign Language of the Netherlands (Nederlandse Gebarentaal (NGT) that will be a core data source for any research effort aimed at analysing that language or sign language in general. It is now feasible for the first time to collect complex video data that can be stored digitally and accessed through internet, enriched with linguistic annotations. The use of modern metadata and annotation tools facilitates access to data independent of the location of the researcher, so that data can be centrally hosted and archived. Moreover, users can easily add annotations for specific research questions to existing material. Because of the insufficient quality and quantity of existing recordings, both elicited and spontaneous data from the two main variants of NGT (northern and western) will be recorded in this project, including both an older and a younger generation of adult signers from each region. These data will receive a basic annotation. All data will receive a sentence-level translation in both Dutch and English, the latter also ensuring access for the international research community. A corpus like this one will be essential for sign linguistic research, particularly on NGT, in the years to come. A subset of the data will be accessible to the general audience. Ensuring general access can be of substantial impact for the many hearing people acquiring NGT (parents of deaf children forming the prime example), given the limited and primarily child-oriented video materials that are currently available. |
