Avatar technology can offer accessibility possibilities and improve the Deaf-and-Hard of Hearing sign language users access to communication, education and services, such as the healthcare system. However, sign language users acceptance of signing avatars as well as their attitudes towards them vary and depend on many factors. Furthermore, research on avatar technology is mostly done by researchers who are not Deaf. The study examines the extent to which intrinsic or extrinsic factors contribute to predict the attitude towards avatars across cultures. Intrinsic factors include the characteristics of the avatar, such as appearance, movements and facial expressions. Extrinsic factors include users technology experience, their hearing status, age and their sign language fluency. This work attempts to answer questions such as, if lower attitude ratings are related to poor technology experience with ASL users, for example, is that also true for Moroccan Sign Language (MSL) users? For the purposes of the study, we designed a questionnaire to understand MSL users attitude towards avatars. Three groups of participants were surveyed: Deaf (57), Hearing (20) and Hard-of-Hearing (3). The results of our study were then compared with those reported in other relevant studies.

Cultural diversity encoded within languages of the world is at risk, as many languages have become endangered in the last decades in a context of growing globalization. To preserve this diversity, it is first necessary to understand what drives language extinction, and which mechanisms might enable coexistence. Here, we study language shift mechanisms using theoretical and data-driven perspectives. A large-scale empirical analysis of multilingual societies using Twitter and census data yields a wide diversity of spatial patterns of language coexistence. It ranges from a mixing of language speakers to segregation with multilinguals on the boundaries of disjoint linguistic domains. To understand how these different states can emerge and, especially, become stable, we propose a model in which language coexistence is reached when learning the other language is facilitated and when bilinguals favor the use of the endangered language. Simulations carried out in a metapopulation framework highlight the importance of spatial interactions arising from people mobility to explain the stability of a mixed state or the presence of a boundary between two linguistic regions. Further, we find that the history of languages is critical to understand their present state.