KWIC view on Constructed Action (CA) and its Collocates in German Sign Language (DGS) – Possibilities and Limitations
Wähl, Sabrina 
- 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:
- 484–490
- Publisher:
- European Language Resources Association (ELRA)
- Licence:
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- sign-lang ID:
- 26036
- ISBN:
- 978-2-493814-82-1
Abstract
Constructed action (CA) is a phenomenon that is used in signed discourse to show the actions of a referent (cf. Cormier et al., 2015; for DGS, cf. Fischer and Kollien, 2010). To achieve this, the signer adopts the role of the referent. Most studies use retellings as their data base (e.g. Herrmann and Pendzich, 2018; Cormier et al., 2015). Consequently, there is less research on CA and its use in data that is not influenced by stimuli. Though there is a considerable number of studies on CA, the phenomenon is still not well understood. One possible way to understand this multifaceted phenomenon better is to analyse collocations in conversations. In spoken language lexicography concordance lines – also known as keyword in context (KWIC) – have proven to be a useful tool in the analysis of collocations. The data used in this study are Free conversations in the Public DGS Corpus. This paper explores the possibilities and limitations of concordance lines as a tool to analyse collocational behaviour of CA. It also presents preliminary results regarding CA and its collocates, which may be explored further in the future.Document Download
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Citation in ACL Citation Format
Sabrina Wähl. 2026. KWIC view on Constructed Action (CA) and its Collocates in German Sign Language (DGS) – Possibilities and Limitations. In Proceedings of the LREC2026 12th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Language in Motion, pages 484–490, Palma, Mallorca, Spain. European Language Resources Association (ELRA).BibTeX Export
@inproceedings{wahl:26036:sign-lang:lrec,
author = {W{\"a}hl, Sabrina},
title = {{KWIC} view on Constructed Action ({CA}) and its Collocates in {German} {Sign} {Language} ({DGS}) -- Possibilities and Limitations},
pages = {484--490},
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/26036.html}
}