A method for transcribing the manual components of Cued Speech

Designed to allow visual communication of speech signals, Cued Speech consists of discrete hand signals that are produced in synchrony with the visual mouth movements of speech. The purpose of this paper is to describe a method for transcribing these hand signals. Procedures are presented for identifying (1) the steady-state portion of the cue to be analyzed, (2) the cue’s handshape, and (3) the cue’s placement. Reliability is evaluated, using materials from 12 cuers that were transcribed on two separate occasions (either by the original rater or a second rater). Results show very good intra-rater and inter-rater reliability on average, which remained good across a variety of individual cuers, even when the cuer’s hand gestures were heavily coarticulated. Given its high reliability, this transcription method may be of benefit to applications that require systematic and quantitative analysis of Cued Speech production in various populations. In addition, some of the transcription principles from this method may be helpful in improving accuracy of automatic Cued Speech recognition systems.

Research highlights
► We describe a method for transcribing the manual components of Cued Speech by hand.
► We transcribe materials from 12 cuers and analyze reliability of the method.
► Intra- and inter-rater reliability was very good on average and for each cuer.
► We discuss potential applications of a reliable transcription tool for Cued Speech.