Type of Project: Funded project
Development of a corpus-based electronic dictionary German Sign Language (DGS) - German

The project combines two goals: on the one hand, the collection and processing of sign language data in an annotated corpus and, on the other hand, the creation of an electronic dictionary German Sign Language - German. The corpus comprises more than 1000 hours of video recordings, which were collected nationwide from 330 deaf informants and are systematically processed and analyzed in a specially developed database. This sign language corpus is comparable to large corpora of spoken languages. Not only does it form the basis for the linguistically validated compilation of a DGS dictionary, but it also offers a variety of long-term possibilities for empirically based research into DGS with regard to grammar, meaning structure and usage. The dictionary will contain about 6000 entries. Due to the lexical structure of sign languages, this corresponds to a multiple of this number in spoken languages. The selection of entries will be based primarily on actual sign usage as documented in the corpus. In this approach, sign language will be the starting point. This allows for a better capture and representation of sign language vocabulary than would be possible by starting from a German word list. The electronic dictionary to be created presents the sign characters as movies and offers more differentiated access, search and display options, e.g. a search by sign form, compared to a book. The corpus-based basic linguistic research on DGS is still in its infancy. However, it is a prerequisite for the development of teaching and learning materials and a well-founded use of DGS, especially in sign language teaching and in the school sector. In this respect, the new project is of outstanding importance. For the sign language community, the creation of a DGS dictionary also has a high idealistic value and contributes to the documentation as well as to the further social acceptance of their language. The language community is involved from the beginning by actively participating in the corpus creation and is also involved in the evaluation through an internet-based evaluation as well as a selected group of native speakers from different regions. The target group of the dictionary are learners with German as their first language (e. g. E.g. parents and teachers of deaf children), professional sign language interpreters, native deaf DGS speakers (deaf adults, children of deaf parents, deaf children and students learning DGS as their first language), sign language course instructors, linguists, language typologists. In order to take into account the diverse usage interests of the different groups, a survey of the needs and desires of potential users is planned. Since the dictionary is intended to be used in different learning situations, translation and interpreting contexts, it is designed to be bilingual, allowing access to the content via both languages, DGS and German. The project is being carried out in close international cooperation with leading sign language research institutions, especially in Europe, the USA and Australia.