On the 28th of March we organised our 4th internal seminar. Rachel Moiselle (Trinity College Dublin) updated us on Depiction in Irish Sign Language. Depiction is a linguistic phenomenon which is defined as the ability to provide information about what an entity/event is like. Rachel shared the first research results on new vocabulary in Irish Sign Language, which is developing at high pace especially in the fields of the COVID-19 pandemic, STEM, politics and race/ethnicity. The research on new vocabulary includes a depiction analysis, in which various depiction strategies using were defined using a gesture studies approach. The first analysis results show a high incidence rate of depiction. In a next research phase, data analysis of the new terminology will be continued, as well as the role of depiction within this. Depiction strategies are also important to define for the purposes of the SignON project. As sign languages are embodied and multi-model, they are an interesting research object with regard to machine translation. Thanks, Rachel, for the interesting lecture on new vocabulary and depiction.
