Towards a functional label set for the online dictionary of Flemish Sign Language

Abstract

How do we know when, with whom and in what context to use a particular sign? Most traditional explanatory dictionaries of oral languages provide clarifying labels indicating the connotation and/or usage of specific words, e.g. archaic, neologism, offensive, euphemism, etc. These clarifying labels are, however, lacking in most sign language lexicographic research. In a continuing effort to improve online sign dictionaries, the expertise center for Flemish Sign Language (the VGTC) is currently conducting preliminary research towards a detailed label system and accompanying methodology suited for sign languages. The objective of this project is two-fold: 1) adapting our electronic lexical database and the online dictionary to make displaying these labels possible, and 2) compiling a practical set of labels primarily suited to Flemish Sign Language (VGT), as well as detailing a functional methodology to determine when (and which) labels of the aforementioned label set should be allocated to which signs. For the latter, a combination of corpus-based analysis and community-based approaches is proposed. This exploratory study has contributed to our wider understanding of label sets and their use, and it has reopened the discussion of languageand modality-specific labels.