Updates DEPICT

Update November 2024

Data collection and analysis have been completed. The main finding of the project is that lexical access is facilitated by lexical depiction generally, but not especially for similar signs suggesting that language specific perceptions of iconicity are more salient for signers, not underlying properties influencing the iconicity of shared forms.

The project was presented at the International Congress of Linguistics ‘24 in Poznañ, Poland on September 12th and at the High Desert Linguistics Society Conference 16 in Albuquerque NM on November 12th.

Update June 2023

Project design presented at the Norwegian Research Conference on Sign Language and Deaf Society in Trondheim and the Sign Language Café at Bergen Deaf Center in February 2023. 

This spring WP1 completed a trial run of the experimental protocol which resulted in some modifications. Data collection will continue into the summer. Planned presentation of preliminary results at a Language Acquisition and Language Process Lab lab meeting at NTNU in Fall 2023. 

Update December 2022

Work package 1 has finished designing and recording stimuli for the experiment. Data collection will commence in spring 2023. Planned presentation of project at FEAST.

Update June 2023

This WP has been on a break/hiatus for the past six months. Work on analysis and dissemination will continue Fall 2023.  

Update December 2022

In this work package, the purpose is to explore whether, and possibly how, depicting signs can contribute to children's learning of abstract concepts through Norwegian sign language and sign-to-speech (SimCom). So far in the project period, the leader of work package 2 and the core participants have had meetings where the project has been discussed. In addition, two kindergarten teachers in two kindergartens have contributed to the data collection and participated in discussions before and during this collection. DThe data collection is now completed.

Data has been collected through observation of reading sessions with children and interviews with children and kindergarten teachers. The parents of the children have also answered a questionnaire. Transcription and analysis of the data is well under way, but some work remains to be done.

There are participants from two kindergartens in this work package, kindergarten A and kindergarten B. In kindergarten A there were two groups of children who participated. One had reading time with sign-to-speech and the other had reading time with Norwegian sign language. There were two observers present (one with sign language as a mother tongue and one who has learned Norwegian sign language as an adult) in the reading groups, and both observed and took notes.

In kindergarten B, there were also two groups of children who participated. One was Here it was read using sign-to-speech and the other using spoken language, respectively. AHere there was an observer was present in both cases.

The children were aged 5-6, and the book that was read was "Hvem rumpet brunosten?" by Erlend Loe. This is a book that is quite extensive and complicated with many abstract concepts. Due to this ,Tthe book was therefore read twiceover two days per week, and parts of the story were read and played again in various ways over four weeks. In total, there were eight reading sessions in each group in the kindergartens.

After the reading period, the children were interviewed by the kindergarten teacher. The topics were a conversation around the 20 abstract words that had been selected for the survey. Kindergarten teachers noted key words and gave a score (1-4) on word comprehension. An observer was present and took notes from the interviews in addition.

Finally, the kindergarten teachers were interviewed. These interviews were filmed.

The questionnaire to the parents was sent out both before and after completion of the period of reading sessions. They were asked about their child’s familiarity of the 20 chosen abstract words from the book. This was carried out during a period characterized by corona, and the employees were very busy during this time. This probably led to fewer responses to the questionnaire, as it was the kindergarten teachers who distributed it.

Update November 2024

Data collection has been completed. Annotation and analysis has started. 

The project has been presented (with WP4) at:

EST 2022: 10th EST Congress: Advancing Translation Studies. In Oslo, 22. june 2022

XIX World Congress of The World Federation of The Deaf. In Jeju, South Korea, 11. July 2023.

Update June 2023

The project is progressing according to schedule.

Preliminary findings in WP3 will be presented at the “XIX World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf” in South-Korea in July 2023.

In addition, WP3 has been introduced to a Norwegian audience in Trondheim at “Norsk forskningskonferanse om tegnspråk og døvesamfunn”, and in Bergen Deaf Center, both during February 2023.

Update December 2022

The project is progressing according to the set schedule. The project operates with a target number of five participants, and has currently collected data from four. This was done in March and April 2022. Further data collection of one or two participants in spring 2023 is therefore being considered. In the project, the participants are interviewed in individual in-depth interviews. These have been filmed, transcribed and are in the process of being annotated by the DEPICT project's research assistant. The project's WP3 and 4 have presented preliminary findings in June 2022, at The 10th EST Congress: Advancing Translation Studies in Oslo. WP3 is carried out in connection with the Ph.D. project "Deaf and woman in a new country", and will mainly be completed and disseminated, after the Ph.D. project is finished in August 2024.

Update November 2024

Annotation and analysis of data according to research question 1, "How do deaf interpreters and deaf immigrants create intersubjectivity in signed language interpreted communication?", is completed. Findings show that four different strategies are used in particular: pre-talk (a conversation between the deaf interpreter and the deaf immigrant before the start of the interpretation), feedback (the parties give each other feedback along the way (metacommunication), repetition (one or more signs are repeated), and repair (repair is initiated by the other party if the utterance is not immediately understood). These four strategies have different functions that will be further described in publications/presentations later.

Since the last update, the working group has also had two meetings (October 23 and October 24). At the last meeting, the analysis and draft of an article related to research question 1 were discussed. Going forward, the focus will be on writing and disseminating the findings.

Update June 2023

In work package (WP) 4 the focus has been on annotation and transcription of the interviews, particularly the last couple of months. At the same time there has been a fifth interview conducted with deaf female immigrants (WP3), this time in a group, and an interview that was interpreted. The interpreter was interviewed after the assignment.

Together with the other WPs in DEPICT, WP 4 was presented in Bergen Deaf center in February 2023. Data from this WP is also included in a presentation that will be given at the XIX World congress of the World federation of the deaf, in July in Jeju in South Korea (Ari Price). This is a collaboration between WP 3, 4 and Ari Price’s PhD-project.

Update December 2022

The work package leader, the core participants and the international collaborators had their first meeting in September 2021 and had one meeting in June 2022. At these meetings, the project's design, timetable, project progress and relevant analytical perspective were discussed.

Interviews with deaf female immigrants, interpreted by a deaf interpreter, were conducted in the period March-April 2022. After each interview, the interpreter was interviewed with questions about her thoughts regarding her interpretation in general and the use of depiction in particular.

In May 2022, the leaders of work packages 3 and 4 carried out a preliminary analysis of the data. These analyzes were presented at the 10th EST Congress: Advancing Translation Studies in Oslo in June 2022. The presentation was entitled "The use of depiction when creating intersubjectivity in interpreting". In parallel, data were transcribed and further annotated. In December 2022, some work still remains. Once the data has been analyzed, the interpreter will be re-interviewed.

The next meeting regarding this work package is set for winter 2023.

Update November 2024

The work package group has been active! Our presentation at Hapticconf 2023 in Venecia, Italy, has resulted in a conference proceeding; “Depiction beyond hand touch in an interpreter-mediated setting using Tactile Norwegian Sign Language”. This text has been submitted and we are awaiting a publication date.

In addition to that, we have written and submitted the article "New insights on depiction in Tactile Norwegian Sign Language interpreting" to an international journal. There we are in the process towards publication.

Our next step is now to analyze a video of a conversation between two deafblind participants to study grammatical structures in Norwegian tactile sign language with a focus on depiction.

Update June 2023

Since the last update the work package leader, the core participants and the international collaborator have had three meetings: in March, April and June 2023. In these meetings, we have discussed and planned presentations of our findings. Some of the analysis we have done show that an interpreter can use her own body and the body of the deafblind signer to map the space in addition to neutral space. We have also found out that when possible, the interpreter transfers the most relevant referents on her body We have presented this and other findings at two occasions: first in February 2023 in Trondheim at the research conference about sign language and the deaf society in Norway, with «The use of depiction when interpreting to tactile Norwegian Sign Language» (Giorgia og Gro Hege), second in Göttingen, in April, with «Use of space in tactile Norwegian Sign Language by interpreters (L2 learners)» (Giorgia). We also had a short presentation of all the work packages in DEPICT, including this one, at Bergen Deaf centre in February 2023.

In addition to that, we have been accepted to present at the Hapticconf 2023: Conference on Social-Haptic Communication, in September 2023 i Venice. There we will contribute with "Use of haptic communication by interpreters in tactile Norwegian Sign Language". We are looking forward to it!

Update December 2022

The work package leader, the core participants and the international collaborator had their first meeting in October 2021. The project's design was discussed there, and a timetable was drawn up. In order to spread information about the project to people with combined vision and hearing impairment/deafblindness and potential participants, information about the project was published in December 2021 in SynHør-bladet and Døvblindes Ukeblad.

In order to obtain data for the project, three people with combined vision and hearing impairment/deafblindness who primarily communicate with tactile sign language, with interpreters they knew, were invited to participate. Due to illness we ended up with two of each. In June 2022, we filmed conversations between the two people with combined vision and hearing impairment/deafblindness and a lecture about Ragnhild Kåta that was interpreted into tactile sign language for them. In addition, one interpreter was interviewed after the interpreting situation.

Data from the interpreted presentation has been analysed, and during a meeting in Stockholm in November 2022, the analyzes were reviewed by the work package leader, the core participants and the international collaborator (see pictures). Work on preparing the dissemination of the results will start in December 2022.

Update november 2024

Data collection finished during autumn 2023, and since then focus has been on transcribing and annotating the material. The material has been annotated looking for instances of depiction (into Norwegian Sign Language, NTS) and how depiction in NTS has been interpreted (in spoken Norwegian and into a variety of NTS). The annotation of data from 5 inexperienced interpreters, 5 experienced interpreters and 2 deaf interpreters finished in November 2024.

Ethical approval from the Swedish Ethical Review Board for handling the data in Sweden was obtained in September 2023 (2023-03673-01)

Since the last update five presentations on three occasions have been held relating to the project:

• October 2023 – Presentation of the WP6 project at the Institute for Interpreting and Translation Studies (TÖI) (Natasha Parkins, Elisabet Tiselius and Gro Hege Saltnes Urdal
• March 2024 – Presentation of the WP6 project at the Swedish Sign Language Interpreters’ association (STTF) (Elisabet Tiselius and Gro Hege Saltnes Urdal)
• July 2024 – Presentation at the Interpreting research Summer school at UCL – Université Catholique de Louvain (Brussels, Belgium) (Natasha Parkins) (2 presentations)
• September 2024 – Presentation at the European Forum for Sign Language Interpreting (Natasha Parkins)

Four articles are currently in the pipeline with data from the project:

1) Differences in depicting between novice and professional sign language interpreters.  

2) Depiciting through interpreting strategies:
Qualitative differences between novice and experienced sign language interpreters.

3) The evolving lens of Signed language depiction in interpreting

4) Interpreting depiction from Norwegian Sign language into spoken Norwegian, A Qualitative, Polysemiotic analysis

Another four are also being planned.

Update June 2023

WP6 has started data collection during spring 2023. Ethical approval was received from SIKT in April 2023 (SIKT 178317) and data collection started shortly after. Data collection takes place on three sites: Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim. It consists of a questionnaire and two simulated interpreting situations one into Norwegian Sign Language and one into Spoken Norwegian.

Currently, annotation of the already recorded data is underway and data collection will also continue into autumn. Ethical approval for handling the data in Sweden has been submitted to the Swedish Ethical Review Board. In June 2023, Natasha Parkins-Maliko and Elisabet Tiselius presented initial findings at the BTS workshop in Cartagena, Spain.

Update December 2022

The project started in January 2022, with the recruitment of postdoc for the autumn of 2022.

The WP leader, core participant and international collaborator had their first meeting in June 2021. At this meeting, the general timeline for the project was discussed, as well as the recruitment of the postdoc. A second planning meeting was held in November 2021. 

The WP leader started working on the project in January 2022 with the primary task to recruit the postdoc. The postdoc recruitment process could not finish until autumn 2022, with the starting of the postdoc (Natasha Parkins-Maliko) in March 2023.

During autumn 2022 one meeting was held with the incoming post-doc and all the project participants. Furthermore, the incoming post-doc, the WP leader and the core participant, met onsite in Bergen in November and further planned the project. 

An initial fact-finding questionnaire was developed and submitted to NSD for ethics approval. Approval was granted in November, and the questionnaire was sent out to participants in December 2022.