Generations in the DGS Corpus: Evolving Outreach Activities and Cross-Generational Stories on Social Media in a Long-Term Corpus Project

Fiedler, Anike | Schulder, Marc | Bleicken, Julian | Herrmann, Annika

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:: 155–163
Publisher:: European Language Resources Association (ELRA)
Licence:: CC BY-NC 4.0
sign-lang ID:: 26038
ISBN:: 978-2-493814-82-1

Abstract

Social media has become a powerful tool for research projects, community outreach, science communication, and to recruit participants. Due to its differences to traditional media and presentation modes, it provides a particular focus on producing very concise content that is entertaining and accessible while staying informative. In this paper, we describe how the long-term project DGS-Korpus, creators of a corpus and dictionary of German Sign Language, evolved its outreach strategies over time. One unique aspect of its unusually long project run-time of nineteen years is that it has involved several cases of multiple family members participating in the project at different points in time, resulting in cross-generational participation. The paper describes how the project's social media campaign uses these cross-generational connections to illustrate important aspects of the project, such as its relevance for cultural heritage and language identity, the different ways that members of the German deaf community were and are involved in the project, and its relevance to interpersonal connections.

Document Download

Paper PDF BibTeX File + Abstract

Video Presentations

Social Media Video 1: Heritage

Languages:: German Sign Language, English

Social Media Video 2: Recording Day

Languages:: German Sign Language, English

Social Media Video 3: Language Change

Languages:: German Sign Language, English

Social Media Video 4: Youth Language

Languages:: German Sign Language, English

Cite as

Citation in ACL Citation Format

Anike Fiedler, Marc Schulder, Julian Bleicken, Annika Herrmann. 2026. Generations in the DGS Corpus: Evolving Outreach Activities and Cross-Generational Stories on Social Media in a Long-Term Corpus Project. In Proceedings of the LREC2026 12th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Language in Motion, pages 155–163, Palma, Mallorca, Spain. European Language Resources Association (ELRA).

BibTeX Export

@inproceedings{fiedler:26038:sign-lang:lrec,
  author    = {Fiedler, Anike and Schulder, Marc and Bleicken, Julian and Herrmann, Annika},
  title     = {Generations in the {DGS} {Corpus}: Evolving Outreach Activities and Cross-Generational Stories on Social Media in a Long-Term Corpus Project},
  pages     = {155--163},
  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/26038.html}
}