Perspectives on Capturing Emotional Expressiveness in Sign Language

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Chua, Phoebe, Fang, Cathy Mengying, Samaradivakara, Yasith, Maes, Pattie, Nanayakkara, Suranga
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Chua, Phoebe
Fang, Cathy Mengying
Samaradivakara, Yasith
Maes, Pattie
Nanayakkara, Suranga
author_facet Chua, Phoebe
Fang, Cathy Mengying
Samaradivakara, Yasith
Maes, Pattie
Nanayakkara, Suranga
contents Significant advances have been made in our ability to understand and generate emotionally expressive content such as text and speech, yet comparable progress in sign language technologies remain limited. While computational approaches to sign language translation have focused on capturing lexical content, the emotional dimensions of sign language communication remain largely unexplored. Through semi-structured interviews with eight sign language users across Singapore, Sri Lanka and the United States, including both Deaf and Hard of hearing (DHH) and hearing signers, we investigate how emotions are expressed and perceived in sign languages. Our findings highlight the role of both manual and non-manual elements in emotional expression, revealing universal patterns as well as individual and cultural variations in how signers communicate emotions. We identify key challenges in capturing emotional nuance for sign language translation, and propose design considerations for developing more emotionally-aware sign language technologies. This work contributes to both theoretical understanding of emotional expression in sign language and practical development of interfaces to better serve diverse signing communities.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_08072
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Perspectives on Capturing Emotional Expressiveness in Sign Language
Chua, Phoebe
Fang, Cathy Mengying
Samaradivakara, Yasith
Maes, Pattie
Nanayakkara, Suranga
Human-Computer Interaction
Significant advances have been made in our ability to understand and generate emotionally expressive content such as text and speech, yet comparable progress in sign language technologies remain limited. While computational approaches to sign language translation have focused on capturing lexical content, the emotional dimensions of sign language communication remain largely unexplored. Through semi-structured interviews with eight sign language users across Singapore, Sri Lanka and the United States, including both Deaf and Hard of hearing (DHH) and hearing signers, we investigate how emotions are expressed and perceived in sign languages. Our findings highlight the role of both manual and non-manual elements in emotional expression, revealing universal patterns as well as individual and cultural variations in how signers communicate emotions. We identify key challenges in capturing emotional nuance for sign language translation, and propose design considerations for developing more emotionally-aware sign language technologies. This work contributes to both theoretical understanding of emotional expression in sign language and practical development of interfaces to better serve diverse signing communities.
title Perspectives on Capturing Emotional Expressiveness in Sign Language
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.08072