Exploring Sri Lankan Sign Language (Slsl) and Its Role in Bridging Communication Barriers: A Review of Translation Tools and Techniques

Abstract

Deaf-mute persons frequently struggle to communicate their views to the speaking population in society since their major form of communication is Sri Lankan Sign Language (SLSL). This occurs in schools, government buildings, marketplaces, the availability of medical services, and when people's socioeconomic demands are met. As of the first quarter of 2020, the number of deaf people in Sri Lanka who use sign language is estimated to be 107,000, or around 0.4% of the country's total population and 1.2% of the labour force overall. The majority of issues are caused by the lack of SLSL interpreters and expertise or the scarcity of digital translation tools in SLSL. The National Institute of Education Sri Lanka (NIESL) publishes a variety of books that are utilized in deaf schools all around the island to address these kinds of issues. Additionally, the Sri Lanka Central Federation for Deaf (SLCFD) has helped with the publication of sign books. However, there are still several problems that cause the underutilization of the deaf population as a productive workforce, due to lack of SLSL vocabulary and public ignorance. Deaf-mute communication has been the subject of several studies and prototype implementations over the last three to four decades all over the world. Additionally, recent developments in parallel processing have allowed researchers to enhance these deaf-mute solutions. However, the majority of SLSL research focuses on language issues, with a few studies in the technological field. A significant reason for the decreased contribution to this field of study is the complexity of SLSL. A two-way conversation between a hearing person and a deaf person is necessary for typical communication between the two groups of people. The communication between deaf and hearing people is the topic of this study. SLSL's conversational approach often uses a Sign for each Tamil or Sinhala word or sentence. A single posture, multiple postures, and multiple postures with a movement sequence are the foundations for SLSL indications.