Co-Creation for Sign Language Processing and Translation Technology

Sign language machine translation (SLMT)—the task of automatically translating between sign and spoken languages or between sign languages—is a complex task within the field of NLP. Its multi-modal and non-linear nature require the joint efforts of sign language (SL) linguists, technical experts, an...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Lisa Lepp, Dimitar Shterionov, Mirella De Sisto, Grzegorz Chrupała
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-04-01
Series:Information
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/16/4/290
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Sign language machine translation (SLMT)—the task of automatically translating between sign and spoken languages or between sign languages—is a complex task within the field of NLP. Its multi-modal and non-linear nature require the joint efforts of sign language (SL) linguists, technical experts, and SL users. Effective user involvement is a challenge that can be addressed through <i>co-creation</i>. Co-creation has been formally defined in many fields, e.g., business, marketing, educational, and others; however, in NLP and in particular in SLMT, there is no formal, widely accepted definition. Starting from the inception and evolution of <i>co-creation</i> across various fields over time, we develop a relationship typology to address the collaboration between deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing researchers and the co-creation with SL users. We compare this new typology to the guiding principles of participatory design for NLP. We then assess 111 articles from the perspective of involvement of SL users and highlight the lack of involvement of the sign language community or users in decision-making processes required for effective co-creation. Finally, we derive formal guidelines for co-creation for SLMT which take the dynamic nature of co-creation throughout the life cycle of a research project into account.
ISSN:2078-2489