This paper is concerned with research work in progress in the development of a Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) parser/generator for sign language, in particular, Irish Sign Language (ISL). RRG is a functional model of grammar. It incorporates many of the viewpoints of current functional grammar theories. RRG takes language to be a system of communicative social action, and accordingly, analysing the communicative functions of grammatical structures plays a vital role in grammatical description and theory from this perspective. It is planned to use RRG as the linguistic ‘engine’ in this development. It is envisaged that the RRG parser/generator described in this paper will later be used as a tool or component in the development of a computational framework for an embodied conversational agent (ECA) for ISL. We discuss the development of a linguistically motivated ECA to encode gesture. It is envisaged that the ECA undergoing development in this research will later be employed for real-time sign language visualisation, in particular, ISL visualisation
Main Topic: AVATAR ANIMATION
Requirements for signing avatar technology
Realistic animation of manual and bodily gestures
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