Social Welfare Bureau (IAS) President Wilson Hon Wai has said in response to a written interpellation by indirectly-elected lawmaker-cum-banker Alan Ho Ion Sang in late May that his bureau’s project to standardise the sign language used in Macau through the compilation of a glossary of local signs is underway and expected to get off the ground next year.
According to an IAS statement on July 3, the bureau is currently working on the establishment of a sign language database and analysing it with linguistics, so as to build up a set of common and universal sign language vocabulary for the local deaf community, thereby exploring the direction of the development of a sign interpreter accreditation system.
In his interpellation, Ho suggested the government build a barrier-free communication platform for the hearing-impaired through artificial intelligence (AI) sign language interpretation technology. The bureau pointed out that given the regional nature of sign language and the population’s preferences, as well as the fact that sign languages in different places have their own agreed grammatical structures and rules, and taking into account the experience of the mainland and its neighbouring regions in the implementation of AI in sign language interpretation, the application of the technology was still in its infancy, and the effectiveness of such application had yet to be seen.
The interpellation quoted the bureau’s statistics as noting that as of the end of March, among the holders of valid Disability Assessment Registration Cards, 5,256 were persons with hearing disabilities, accounting for about 29.48 percent of the total.
Ho’s interpellation stated that the bureau has still to announce the latest number of sign language interpreters.
Meanwhile, with the aim of updating the existing and enriching Macau’s online sign language resources, while showing the diversity of sign language in Macau, the Macau Deaf Association has collected and rearranged the current sign language vocabulary used by the deaf in Macau, the number of words used, and their typing styles, displaying the commonly used local sign language on its website at https://mda.org.mo/macsl.
Image courtesy of KidsCare Home Health
