Assistive Translation Technology for Deaf People: Translating into and Animating Irish Sign Language

Machine Translation (MT) for sign languages (SLs) can facilitate communication between Deaf and hearing people by translating information into the native and preferred language of the individuals. In this paper, we discuss automatic translation from English to Irish SL (ISL) in the domain of airport information. We describe our data collection processes and the architecture of the MaTrEx system used for our translation work. This is followed by an outline of the additional animation phase that transforms the translated output into animated ISL. Through a set of experiments, evaluated both automatically and manually, we show that MT has the potential to assist Deaf people by providing information in their first language.