I. Introduction

Sign Language is the language used by the hearing impaired community. To many hearing impaired persons, sign language is their first language or even their mother tongue. In a diverse society, users of different languages shall be acknowledged and understood.

The Hong Kong Society for the Deaf (HKSD) now establish this sign language search engine in order to further promote the Hong Kong Sign Language. This project fulfills the aims of both practical teaching and learning: for teachers of special needs education, they could use the engine for teaching reference; while for people interested in learning the Hong Kong sign language, this is also a useful platform for vocabulary learning.

II. How it works

You may use keywords to search relevant vocabularies and their equivalent sign language. You may also search according to the categories of the vocabularies, its Chinese stroke count, or its first English alphabets. After entering the page of a specific vocabulary, a video will be shown to demonstrate its sign language, with details on the sign, position and order. Our collection includes the common sign language presentation in Hong Kong, and the page will also be regularly updated in order to reflect the current development of the society.

III. Things to note

Emotions and strength

Different from verbal language in which users could show different tones, sign language users need to show their facial emotions and different levels of body movement to demonstrate the respective tone and feelings

Eye Contact

While using sign language, it is important to have eye contact with the person you are communicating with, so they would acknowledge the communication. Besides, you could know if the other understand your meaning through eye expressions.

Speed

It is important to display sign language in appropriate speed. If you are too quick to show your meaning, the other could not understand easily and would have difficulties in communicating with you. On the other hand, if you are too slow, the other would feel bored. Sign language is similar to verbal languages in the sense that it should not be too quick nor too slow.

Position of the hand

There are vocabularies which have the same signs and motions, however with different positions of the hand, they could refer to different meanings. If the position of the hand is incorrect, it may lead to misunderstanding of the receiver.

Order of sign language display

The order of movement is very important. Some sign language motions are the same for different vocabularies but only differ in order. Therefore, different order of display would refer to a variety of meanings.