Academics behind BSL Signbank, the first ever British Sign Language (BSL) usage-based dictionary, have added two new features to mark the second anniversary of its launch. The new functions will not only allow users to test their knowledge on BSL signs and regional variation but also to search the dictionary using specific sign features.
BSL Signbank is a dictionary that has been developed by researchers at the Deafness Cognition and Language (DCAL) Research Centre at University College London. Launched two years ago, BSL SignBank is based on signs collected from the BSL Corpus, a large video collection of signing by 249 Deaf people filmed in 8 cities across the UK.
It differs significantly from other dictionary-type BSL resources because it has been developed in a way that more consistently uses the same principles as dictionaries for spoken languages. Until BSL Signbank was established, online dictionaries available to BSL users and people learning the language just consisted of BSL signs that are translation equivalents of English words, perhaps based on information from only a small number of people.
To mark the Signbank’s second anniversary, researchers working on project have added two new features to the online resource – the first a quiz, to test users’ knowledge of regional signs and the second, a sign feature search tool that will allow users to browse by different handshapes and by different locations on the body where signs are produced.
Dr Kearsy Cormier is the Director of the BSL Corpus Project and is one of the leading researchers working on BSL Signbank. Commenting on the launch of the new features, Dr Cormier said:
“When my colleagues and I launched BSL Signbank two years ago, we said it would be a living dictionary that would grow as we view and study more of the BSL Corpus.
“The two new features being added to the website compliment the information included last year on regional sign variation and allow users to search and test their knowledge on these signs.
“For me, the sign search tool is an extremely innovative feature and will allow users to browse the dictionary specifically by handshape and by positions on the body where signs can be produced. This is the only online BSL dictionary resource that allows browsing by sign features – this is an important step towards making Signbank a bidirectional bilingual dictionary, like bilingual dictionaries of spoken languages where you can search by either language
“BSL Signbank will continue to develop and as we use crowdsourcing to seek more and more views of the Deaf community on missing signs, it will be the most up-to-date and informative resource available.”
BSL Signbank can be found on http://bslsignbank.ucl.ac.uk/.
Enjoying our eggs? Support The Limping Chicken:
The Limping Chicken is the world's most popular Deaf blog, and is edited by Deaf journalist, screenwriter and director Charlie Swinbourne.
Our posts represent the opinions of blog authors, they do not represent the site's views or those of the site's editor. Posting a blog does not imply agreement with a blog's content. Read our disclaimer here and read our privacy policy here.
Find out how to write for us by clicking here, and how to follow us by clicking here.
The site exists thanks to our supporters. Check them out below:
- BSL Zone: TV programmes in BSL for the Deaf community
- Deaf Umbrella: what support is available for deaf students?
- Bellman & Symfon: home alerting solutions, including the mobile phone transceiver!
- SignVideo: Instant BSL video interpreting online
- SignHealth: check out the BSL health library
- 999 BSL: call 999 in an emergency, in BSL
- Appa: Looking for RSLIs, TSLIs and CSWs, apply here!
- Signly: Adding BSL to websites
- Signworld: Learn BSL online!
- DCAL: world-class research into deafness, cognition and language
- Action Deafness: “A Deaf-Led Charity” – interpreting & community support services
- Sign Solutions: Instant access to Interpreters, training and BSL translation nationwide
- InterpretersLive: On demand BSL video interpretation
- Lipspeaker UK: specialist lipspeaking support
- BID: Deaf services, including advice and support, interpreting, employment and letters
- Performance Interpreting: BSL interpreting at concerts
- National Deaf Children's Society: The leading charity for deaf children
Hartmut
September 27, 2016
Developing a good bilingual dictionary will require a non-1-1 mapping between the semantics (=meanings) and usages of a BSL (ASL, DGS, LSF, etc.) and those of an English word equivalent. Most sign language dictionaries have this inadequacy that mislead correspondences between one sign and one English word. Dictionaries in other spoken/signed languages also have this problem due to the ignorance of what languages always do. An English word with multiple meanings may be signed differently in BSL and vice-versa, a BSL sign may be rendered by several translations.
That is what a bilingual dictionaries ought to show. NOT one sign equals a single word!
To get a good knowledge of the vocabulary of BSL, you need a huge corpus of BSL utterances to produce a satisfying dictionary to list the multiple meanings and usages of signs with their best translations in English.
Developing a BSL or ASL, DGS, LSF, etc.corpus requires huge amount of manpower of collecting samples and storage resources. That is not all, it requires much more manpower to transcribe the whole corpus to enable retrieving sentence examples of how a particular sign is actually used (There are different transcription methods, including mine called SignLettering, for this purpose).
In many countries, they are building sign corpora, in the line that there exist large corpora in many spoken languages.
Hartmut
September 27, 2016
In the above posting, the first sentence should read:
“Developing … between the semantics and usages of a BSL (…) sign and its English equivalents.”
The WordPress unfortunately does not allow Editing after sendng a comment prematurely.