Sign Language Technologies for Auslan Users

Supervisor: Dr Jessica Korte

Sign language notation systems are important for both academic research and practical applications in sign language technologies. In this project, existing notation systems were reviewed, including Stokoe Notation, Sutton SignWriting, and the Hamburg Sign Language Notation System (HamNoSys), and it was evaluated if they’re compatible with technology or applicable to Auslan. While Stokoe Notation and Sutton SignWriting both succeeded in their original purpose and made significant contributions to sign language research and use respectively, HamNoSys was determined to be the most technology-friendly system due to its unilinear structure, Unicode integration, and already widespread use in sign language technologies, with its primary and perhaps only flaws being a lack of standard annotation guidelines and difficulty to master. These sign language technologies were also reviewed, focusing on automated annotation, animation, and translation. Significant progress has been made in all of these areas, though they require more refinement and development to have practical use for researchers and sign language users. Finally, a significant research gap was identified: HamNoSys, while assumed to be applicable to every sign language, hasn’t been wholly confirmed to be applicable to any. HamNoSys is only confirmed to apply to the subset of signs mentioned within each paper, rather than the whole sign language. Further research is suggested to confirm its applicability to Auslan, to determine if action should be taken to ensure that the HamNoSys-based technologies can be used for Auslan.