Long-Term Sign Language Data Crowdsourcing Through Collaborative Lexicons

Poitier, Pierre | Fink, Jérôme | Basso Madjoukeng, Ariel | Couplet, Adelaide | Leleu, Margaux | Frénay, Benoît

Volume:: Proceedings of the LREC2026 12th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Language in Motion
Venue:: Palma, Mallorca, Spain
Date:: 16 May 2026
Pages:: 419–428
Publisher:: European Language Resources Association (ELRA)
Licence:: CC BY-NC 4.0
sign-lang ID:: 26022
ISBN:: 978-2-493814-82-1

Abstract

While there exists a multitude of different sign languages (SLs) across the world, Deaf communities often lack the digital tools required to document and process their languages. In this work, we introduce Mot-Signe (MOSI), an application designed in close collaboration with actors from the French Belgian Deaf community. Our tool enables users to search for French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB) translations or to propose new ones by recording signs themselves. This crowdsourcing approach facilitates the collection of SL data in the wild, enriching the available documentation on LSFB and proposing an innovative response to the data scarcity issue inherent to sign language processing. To evaluate the sustainability of this community-driven data collection, a longitudinal user study was conducted. Following its public release, MOSI demonstrated significant real-world adoption, enabling the collection of over 3,000 distinct LSFB signs. Notably, MOSI captures highly valuable linguistic variations and specialized vocabulary often absent from traditional corpora.

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Citation in ACL Citation Format

Pierre Poitier, Jérôme Fink, Ariel Basso Madjoukeng, Adelaide Couplet, Margaux Leleu, Benoît Frénay. 2026. Long-Term Sign Language Data Crowdsourcing Through Collaborative Lexicons. In Proceedings of the LREC2026 12th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Language in Motion, pages 419–428, Palma, Mallorca, Spain. European Language Resources Association (ELRA).

BibTeX Export

@inproceedings{poitier:26022:sign-lang:lrec,
  author    = {Poitier, Pierre and Fink, J{\'e}r{\^o}me and Basso Madjoukeng, Ariel and Couplet, Adelaide and Leleu, Margaux and Fr{\'e}nay, Beno{\^i}t},
  title     = {Long-Term Sign Language Data Crowdsourcing Through Collaborative Lexicons},
  pages     = {419--428},
  editor    = {Efthimiou, Eleni and Fotinea, Stavroula-Evita and Hanke, Thomas and Hochgesang, Julie A. and Mesch, Johanna and Schulder, Marc},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the {LREC2026} 12th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Language in Motion},
  maintitle = {15th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation ({LREC} 2026)},
  publisher = {{European Language Resources Association (ELRA)}},
  address   = {Palma, Mallorca, Spain},
  day       = {16},
  month     = may,
  year      = {2026},
  isbn      = {978-2-493814-82-1},
  language  = {english},
  url       = {https://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/lrec/pub/26022.html}
}