4.2. Lexicographic work
In LSC there are several lexicographic works available. On the one hand, there are four general dictionaries in print, such as the Lenguaje de signos manuales (Perelló and Frigola 1998), with 4,500 signs, the Diccionari Temàtic de llenguatge de signes català (Martin and Alvarado 2004), with 3,900 signs and the Primer diccionari general i etimològic de la llengua de signes catalana (Ferrerons 2011), with 3,350 entries. On the other hand, some multimedia resources have been created, both online, such as the Mira què dic, from the Departament d’Educació de la Generalitat de Catalunya, and the Vocabulari Bàsic de la llengua de signes catalana (Direcció General de Política Lingüística, de la Generalitat de Catalunya, 2017), and on DVD, such as the Dilscat (DVD) (Illescat 2004), with 1,500 signs.
Besides these dictionaries, there are also printed lexicographic materials that gather the specific lexicon of a particular domain, such as Aliments, alimentos, food (García and Codorniu 2007), Medicines i Salut (Codorniu, Fernández-Viader and Segimon 2002), Animals/Animales (Segimon and Fernández Viader 2001), Primer recull toponímic de Catalunya en llengua de signes catalana (LSC) (Fernández Viader et al. 2013), the specific vocabularies Àrees del coneixement del medi: natural i ciències de la naturalesa (DOMAD 2002a) and Àrees del coneixement i del medi: social i cultural i ciències socials (DOMAD 2002b) and the four posters with domain-specific basic signs “Salutacions i presentacions”, “Salut”, “Seguretat 1-2” and “Transports”, edited by the Direcció General de Política Lingüística de la Generalitat de Catalunya.
Finally, there are other LSC learning materials that also include glossaries or specific lexicon related to the thematic area that they focus on. For instance, Els Genís i l’Educació (DOMAD 2002c) and Els Genís i la Sanitat (DOMAD 2002d), on education and health, include a book and a DVD. Moreover, the main goal of the books Aprenem LSC 1-2! (Fernández Viader et al. 1999), and the two volumes Llengua de Signes Catalana (LSC) Nivell A1 i Nivell A2 (Fernández Viader et al. 2013), is the learning of LSC, but at the same time they include thematic glossaries and grammatical constructions of LSC.
New technologies have greatly facilitated the preparation of these materials and have taken into consideration the adaptation to the visual-gestural modality. For the creation of the LSC Lexical Database, currently in progress, some of these decisions have been made, which are relevant from the perspective of the signed modality. They are as follows:
- Existing lexicographic materials are being exhaustively studied and the lexical items occurring in them are being inventorized, in parallel to the LSC Reference Corpus.
- The video is the primary format for representing the entries, because it allows seeing the entire execution of the sign, from beginning to end. However, each sign is also associated with a gloss in Catalan, Spanish and English.
- Information on how the sign is articulated, its definition (based on the meanings derived from the corpus), its morphology (such as exceptions or irregular signs), synonyms and antonyms, and information on geographical distribution is incorporated.
- Presentation of the data is done according to the parameters of the language, namely handshape, location, or movement for searching a sign. The option to search through the gloss or keywords is also available.