Child HKSL Corpus

The Child HKSL Corpus was established in 2002 as part of a research project entitled "The Development of Hong Kong Sign Language by Deaf Children", which was supported by Hong Kong Research Grant Council. The corpus has been supported by Dr Alex K. Yasumoto's donation since 2006. The database represents the first systematic archive of child sign language acquisition in Asia. It documents Deaf interactions using digital technology so that the language data can be preserved to support future Deaf education projects. Documentation of the sign language acquisition data allows researchers to explore the nature of sign languages and thus support various theoretical research topics. The establishment of the corpus also offers insight on directions in Deaf education and gives support for the training of Deaf researchers.

The team on Language Acquisition of Deaf Children is prepared to anchor the Child HKSL Corpus to the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) at Carnegie Mellon University in the near future; it will be available from the CHILDES address below.
http://childes.psy.cmu.edu

Child	Period	Age	No. of clips
CC	May 2002 - Aug 2007	1;9 - 6;11	212 on HKSL
YY	May 2003 - Aug 2007	1;3 - 5;6	143 on HKSL

Child HKSL Corpus manual is downloadable here.

Child HKSL-Cantonese Bilingual Corpus

The Child HKSL-Cantonese Bilingual Corpus was established in 2008 with a donation from Dr Alex K. Yasumoto. This corpus is the first bilingual corpus examining the sign and spoken language development of Deaf children in Hong Kong. The inclusion of sign bilingual acquisition data, focusing on Deaf children's acquisition of Cantonese and HKSL simultaneously, represents another milestone in the field of language acquisition; given the fact that 90-95% of Deaf children are born to hearing parents, this corpus will provide insight into the nature of language development of Deaf children who are born to hearing parents. This corpus will also be significant in solving a theoretical puzzle, namely whether acquiring a sign language from an early age will delay the acquisition of spoken language. What the data have shown is that children can learn both Cantonese and HKSL at the same time and with ease. When more research has been developed and the results made known to the public, parents will be better able to understand the role of sign language in the language development of Deaf children.

Child	Period	Age	No. of clips
YC	Mar 2008 - Feb 2010	1;11 - 3;6	48 on HKSL, 44 on Cantonese
WT	Jun 2012 - Present	0;10 -	150 on HKSL (by 6/2016) 150 on Cantonese (by 6/2016)