Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
88 results found in sign language.
- Manual Sign (MS, Hand Sign)
- The hand shapes, movements, and locations that form the primary visible component of sign language vocabulary. Manual signs are what most hearing people think of as "sign language," but they represent…
- Manual Signs (Hand Signs)
- The hand-based components of sign language communication, consisting of four parameters: hand shape (configuration of fingers), location (where the sign is made relative to the body), movement (how th…
- Morphological NMS (Morphological Non-Manual Sign)
- Non-manual signs that modify or add grammatical meaning to manual signs, functioning similarly to morphemes in spoken languages. In ASL, morphological NMS convey information about degree, intensity, s…
- Non-Manual Features (NMF, Non-Manual Markers, Non-Manual Signals)
- The facial expressions, mouth movements, eye gaze, head tilts, and body postures that convey grammatical and semantic information in sign languages, functioning alongside manual hand signs. Non-manual…
- Non-Manual Markers (Non-Manual Signals, NMMs, Facial Grammar)
- Facial expressions, head movements, eye gaze, mouth movements, and body postures that convey grammatical information in sign languages. Unlike facial expressions in spoken languages which primarily co…
- Non-Manual Sign (NMS, Non-Manual Marker, Non-Manual Signal)
- Facial expressions, head movements, eye gaze, mouth movements, and body posture that serve essential grammatical and linguistic functions in sign languages. In ASL, NMS perform lexical functions (dist…
- Non-Manual Signal (NMS, Non-Manual Marker, NMM)
- A linguistic component of sign languages that is expressed through parts of the body other than the hands, including facial expressions, eyebrow movement, head tilts, shoulder shifts, mouth movements,…
- Non-manual markers (NMM, Non-manual signals, Facial grammar)
- Linguistic features in sign languages that are conveyed through facial expressions, head tilts, eye gaze direction, mouth movements, and body posture rather than through hand signs. Non-manual markers…
- Phonology (Sign Language Phonology)
- The study of the smallest meaningful units that make up language and the rules governing their combination. In sign languages, phonology describes the building blocks of signs: handshape, location on …
- Picture-in-Picture (PiP, PIP)
- A display technique that shows a smaller video or content window overlaid on the main content, allowing viewers to see two sources simultaneously. In accessibility contexts, picture-in-picture is the …
- Polar Motion Profile (PMP)
- A Polar Motion Profile (PMP) is a computational technique used in sign language detection that models the quantity and distribution of motion relative to a detected face using polar coordinates. The m…
- Pose Estimation (Body Pose Estimation, Skeleton Tracking)
- A computer vision technique that detects and tracks the positions of human body joints, hands, and facial landmarks from images or video. In accessibility contexts, pose estimation is a foundational t…
- Prosodic Breaks (Prosodic Pauses, Prosodic Boundaries)
- Pauses or breaks in the flow of communication that convey grammatical, syntactic, or emphatic meaning. In sign language, prosodic breaks occur between signs and serve functions similar to intonation a…
- Referential Drift
- Referential drift is a failure mode in AI-generated sign language where spatial loci — the established positions in signing space used to refer to people, objects, or locations — shift or are not main…
- Reverse Dictionary (Sign-to-English Dictionary, ASL-to-English Dictionary)
- A dictionary tool that allows users to search for the meaning of a sign language sign by inputting its visual or linguistic properties — such as handshape, location, movement, and orientation — rather…
- Search-by-Feature (Feature-based sign search, Linguistic-property search)
- A sign-language dictionary search technique in which a user manually selects linguistic properties of the target sign — typically handshape, body-relative location, movement type, orientation, and num…
- Search-by-Video (Video-based search, Search by video)
- A sign-language dictionary search technique in which a user performs a sign into a webcam or camera and computer-vision-based sign recognition returns a ranked list of candidate dictionary entries. Se…
- Sign Duration (Sign Speed, Signing Speed)
- The average time spent performing individual signs during sign language production, typically measured in seconds. Sign duration is a key parameter in sign language animation that affects both underst…
- Sign Language Dictionary (SL Dictionary, ASL Dictionary)
- A reference tool that allows users to look up signs in a sign language, providing video demonstrations, definitions, and usage examples. Sign language dictionaries can be organized by English gloss (w…
- Sign Language Generation (Sign Language Synthesis, Signing Generation)
- The automatic production of sign language content, typically through computer-generated animations of signing avatars or video synthesis. Sign language generation systems convert text or symbolic repr…