A Lexicological Approach to Look-up Frequency of Turkish Sign Language Dictionary Users
Year 2021,
Volume: 7 Issue: 1, 193 - 217, 27.04.2021
Erdem Önal
,
Bahtiyar Makaroğlu
Abstract
From the point of lexicography, the phenomenon of dictionary look-up frequencies can answer many critical questions on dictionary users’ needs and relationship between corpus data and look-up tendencies. Although there have been a number of studies on the theoretical and functional aspects of look-up frequencies in the field of spoken language to date, there remain relatively a few attempts to describe the characteristics of look-up behaviour in sign languages. This paper investigates the relationship between the frequency list of Turkish Sign Language Corpus and The Contemporary Turkish Sign Language look-up occurrences. By using an approach to the comparison of corpus data and log files, the results demonstrate that there is a very limited similarities between both of them and no positive relation for percentage of top ranked items. Moreover, this corpus-based lexicography study concludes that objective corpus based-frequency list is a comparatively poor predictor of the dictionary look-up frequency and this difference might be direct result of the morphological structure of words/signs in TİD (rather simultaneous realization) compared to Turkish (rather agglutinative morphology).
References
- Aksan, Y., Aksan, M., Mersinli, Ü., & Demirhan, U. U. (2016). A frequency dictionary of Turkish. Taylor & Francis.
- Akşehirli, S. (2013). Türkçede et-katkısız eyleminin sözlüksel işlevleri. Electronic Turkish Studies, 8(9).
- Baayen. R. H. (2008). Analyzing Linguistic Data. A Practical Introduction to Statistics Using R. Cambridge. UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Börstell, C., Hörberg, T., & Östling, R. (2016). Distribution and duration of signs and parts of speech in Swedish Sign Language. Sign Language & Linguistics, 19(2), 143–196.
- Bergenholtz. H., & Johnson. M. (2005). Log files as a tool for improving internet dictionaries. Hermes, 34. 117–141.
- Brentari. D. (1998). A prosodic model of sign language phonology. Cambridge. MA: MIT Press.
- Brentari, D., & Padden., C. (200). Native and foreign vocabulary in American Sign Language: a lexicon with multiple origins. In: D. Brentari (ed.), Foreign vocabulary in sign languages. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 87–120.
- Cormier. K.. Schembri, A., Vinson, D., & Orfanidou, E. (2012). First language acquisition differs from second language acquisition in prelingually deaf signers: Evidence from sensitivity to grammatical judgement in British Sign Language. Cognition, 124(1). 50–65.
- De Schryver, G. M. (2013). Tools to support the design of a macrostructure. In R. H. Gouws, U. Heid, W. Schweickard and H. E. Wiegand (eds.), Dictionaries. An International Encyclopedia of Lexicography. Supplementary Volume: Recent Developments with Focus on Electronic and Computational Lexicography (pp. 1384-1395). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter.
- De Schryver. G. M., Joffe. D.. Joffe. P., & Hillewaert. S. (2006). Do dictionary users really look up frequent words? – On the overestimation of the value of corpus-based lexicography. Lexikos, 16. 67–83.
- De Schryver. G. M., Wolfer. S.. & Lew. R. (2019). The relationship between dictionary look-up frequency and corpus frequency revisited: A log-file analysis of a decade of user ınteraction with a Swahili-English Dictionary. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 19. 1-27.
- Emmorey. K. D. (2002). Language. cognition. and the brain: Insights from sign language research. Mahwah. NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- Fenlon, J., Schembri, A., Rentelis, R., Vinson, D., & Cormier, K. (2014). Using conversational data to determine lexical frequency in British Sign Language: The influence of text type. Lingua, 143. 187–202.
Fenlon, J., Cormier, K., & Schembri, A. (2015). Building BSL SignBank: The lemma dilemma revisited. International Journal of Lexicography, 28(2), 169-206.
- Frankenberg-Garcia, A. (2020). Combining user needs, lexicographic data and digital writing environments. Language Teaching, 53(1), 29-43.
- Frishberg. N.. Hoiting. N.. & Slobing. D. (2012). Transcription. In: R. Pfau. M. Steinbach. & B. Woll (eds.). Sign Language. An international handbook (pp. 1045-1075). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
- Hanks, P. (2012). Corpus evidence and electronic lexicography. In S. Granger and M. Paquot (eds), Electronic Lexicography (pp. 57–82). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Johnston, T. (2012). Lexical frequency in sign languages. Journal of Deaf Studies and Education 17, 163–193.
- Karabüklü, S. (2016). Time and aspect in Turkish Sign Language (TİD): Manual and nonmanual realization of ‘FINISH’. Unpublished master thesis, Boğaziçi University, İstanbul.
- Koplenig, A., Mayer, P., & Müller-Spitzer, C. (2014). Dictionary users do look up frequent words. A log file analysis. In: C. Müller-Spitzer (Ed.). Using online dictionaries (pp. 229-250). Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.
- Kristoffersen, J. H., & Troelsgård, T. (2012). The electronic lexicographical treatment of sign languages: The Danish Sign Language Dictionary. In S. Granger & M. Paquot (eds.), Electronic Lexicography (1st ed., pp. 293–318). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Leech, G., Rayson, P., & Wilson, A. (2001). Word frequencies in written and spoken English based on the British national corpus. London: Longman.
- Lew. R., & De Schryver. G. M. (2014). Dictionary users in the digital revolution. International Journal of Lexicography. 27(4). 341–359.
- Lucas, C. (Ed.). (2001). The sociolinguistics of sign languages. Cambridge University Press.
Makaroğlu, B. (2020-in press). What the frequency list can teach us about Turkish Sign Language?. Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics.
- Makaroğlu. B. (2019). Methodological issues in the corpus based Turkish Sign Language dictionary. Presented at LSC Corpus Group. University of Pompeu Fabra. 1th February 2019.
Makaroğlu. B.. & Dikyuva. H. (2017). Güncel Türk İşaret Dili Sözlüğü. Ankara: Aile ve Sosyal Politikalar Bakanlığı. Erişim adresi: http://tidsozluk.net.
- Mayr. P. (2004) Website entries from a web log file perspective – a new log file measure. In: Proceedings of the AoIR-ASIST 2004. Workshop on Web Science Research Methods.
McKee, R., & Vale, M. (2017). Sign language lexicography. In P. Hanks & G. De Schryver (eds.), International Handbook of Modern Lexis and Lexicography (pp. 1–22). Germany: Springer-Verlag GmbH.
- McKee, D., & Kennedy, G. (2006). The distribution of signs in New Zealand Sign Language. Sign Language Studies, 6(4). 372–390.
- Morford, J. & MacFarlane, J. (2003). Frequency characteristics of American Sign Language. Sign Language Studies, 3. 213–225.
- Müller-Spitzer. C.. Wolfer. S.. & Koplenig. A. (2015). Observing online dictionary users: studies using wiktionary log files. International Journal of Lexicography. 28. 1–26.
- Nicholas. D.. Huntington. P.. Williams. P.. Lievesley. N.. Dobrowolski. T.. & Withey. R. (1999). Developing and testing methods to determine the use of web sites: case study newspapers. Aslib Proc.. 51. 144–154.
- Prinsloo, D. J. (2012). Electronic lexicography for lesser-resourced languages: The South African context. In S. Granger & M. Paquot (eds.) Electronic Lexicography (pp. 119–144). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Rayson. P., & R. Garside. (2000). Comparing corpora using frequency profiling. In: Proceedings of the workshop on Comparing Corpora. Association for Computational Linguistics (pp. 1–6).
- Santos. D., & Frankenberg-Garcia, A. (2007). The Corpus. its users and their needs: A user-oriented evaluation of COMPARA. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 12(3). 335–374.
- Schembri. A., Fenlon, J., Rentelis, R., Reynolds, S., & Cormier, K. (2013). Building the British sign language corpus. Language Documentation & Conservation, 7. 136–154.
- Schermer, G. M. M. (2006). Sign Language: Lexicography. In: Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd Edition. Amsterdam: Elsevier Ltd.
- Sloetjes. H., & Wittenburg, P. (2018). ELAN (version 5.2). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Retrieved from https://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/elan/
- Tan. K. H., & Woods. P. C. (2008). Media-related or generic-related features in electronic dictionaries: learners' perception and preferences. GEMA Online® Journal of Language Studies. 8(2). 1–17.
- Tarp, S. (2009). Reflections on lexicographical user research. Lexikos, 19. 275–296.
- Vale, M. (2015). A study of the users of an online sign language dictionary. In: I. Kosem, M. Jakubíček, J. Kallas, & S. Krek (eds.), Electronic lexicography in the 21st century: linking lexical data in the digital age. Proceedings of the eLex 2015 conference, 11-13 August 2015, Herstmonceux Castle, United Kingdom. (pp. 281–303). Ljubljana / Brighton: Trojina, Institute for Applied Slovene Studies / Lexical Computing Ltd.
- Vale, M. (2017). Folk definitions as a model for sign language dictionary definitions: A userfocused case study of the Online Dictionary of New Zealand Sign Language. Unpublished doctoral thesis. Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington.
- Verlinde. S., & Binon. J. (2010). Monitoring dictionary use in the electronic age. In: A. Dykstra & T. Schoonheim (eds.). Proceedings of the XIV Euralex International Congress (pp. 1144–1151). Leeuwarden: Fryske Akademy.
- Zwitserlood, I. (2010). Sign language lexicography in the early 21st century and a recently published dictionary of Sign Language of the Netherlands. International Journal of Lexicography, 23(4). 443–476.
A Lexicological Approach to Look-up Frequency of Turkish Sign Language Dictionary Users
Year 2021,
Volume: 7 Issue: 1, 193 - 217, 27.04.2021
Erdem Önal
,
Bahtiyar Makaroğlu
Abstract
Sözlükçülük açısından, sözlük aramalarının sıklığı olgusu sözlük kullanıcılarının ihtiyaçları ve derlem verisi ile sözlük arama eğilimleri arasındaki ilişki konusunda birçok önemli soruya cevap vermektedir. Şu ana kadar konuşma dili alanında, kuramsal ve işlevsel açıdan birçok sayıda sözlük arama sıklığı çalışması bulunmasına rağmen işaret dillerinde, sözlük arama davranışını tanımlamayı amaçlayan çok az girişim yer bulmaktadır. Bu çalışma, Türk İşaret Dili Derleminin sıklık listesi ile Güncel Türk İşaret Dili Sözlüğündeki sözlük arama görünümleri arasındaki ilişkiyi incelemektedir. Derlem verisi ile günlük sistem dosyalarının karşılaştırılması yaklaşımı kullanılan çalışmanın sonuçları, her ikisi arasındaki ilişkinin çok sınırlı olduğunu ve en sık görünüme sahip birimlerin oranları arasında herhangi bir olumlu ilişkinin bulunmadığını göstermektedir. Ayrıca derlem-tabanlı bu sözlükçülük çalışması, nesnel derlem tabanlı sözcük sıklığı listelerinin sözlük arama sıklığını belirlenmesinde çok zayıf bir kestirim sağladığı ve bu farklılığın doğrudan nedeninin Türk İşaret Dilindeki (daha çok eşzamanlı gerçekleşim sunan) sözcüğün/işaretin biçimbilimsel yapısının Türkçeden (daha çok eklemeli biçimbilim barındıran) farklı olması olabileceği görüşüne varmaktadır.
References
- Aksan, Y., Aksan, M., Mersinli, Ü., & Demirhan, U. U. (2016). A frequency dictionary of Turkish. Taylor & Francis.
- Akşehirli, S. (2013). Türkçede et-katkısız eyleminin sözlüksel işlevleri. Electronic Turkish Studies, 8(9).
- Baayen. R. H. (2008). Analyzing Linguistic Data. A Practical Introduction to Statistics Using R. Cambridge. UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Börstell, C., Hörberg, T., & Östling, R. (2016). Distribution and duration of signs and parts of speech in Swedish Sign Language. Sign Language & Linguistics, 19(2), 143–196.
- Bergenholtz. H., & Johnson. M. (2005). Log files as a tool for improving internet dictionaries. Hermes, 34. 117–141.
- Brentari. D. (1998). A prosodic model of sign language phonology. Cambridge. MA: MIT Press.
- Brentari, D., & Padden., C. (200). Native and foreign vocabulary in American Sign Language: a lexicon with multiple origins. In: D. Brentari (ed.), Foreign vocabulary in sign languages. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 87–120.
- Cormier. K.. Schembri, A., Vinson, D., & Orfanidou, E. (2012). First language acquisition differs from second language acquisition in prelingually deaf signers: Evidence from sensitivity to grammatical judgement in British Sign Language. Cognition, 124(1). 50–65.
- De Schryver, G. M. (2013). Tools to support the design of a macrostructure. In R. H. Gouws, U. Heid, W. Schweickard and H. E. Wiegand (eds.), Dictionaries. An International Encyclopedia of Lexicography. Supplementary Volume: Recent Developments with Focus on Electronic and Computational Lexicography (pp. 1384-1395). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter.
- De Schryver. G. M., Joffe. D.. Joffe. P., & Hillewaert. S. (2006). Do dictionary users really look up frequent words? – On the overestimation of the value of corpus-based lexicography. Lexikos, 16. 67–83.
- De Schryver. G. M., Wolfer. S.. & Lew. R. (2019). The relationship between dictionary look-up frequency and corpus frequency revisited: A log-file analysis of a decade of user ınteraction with a Swahili-English Dictionary. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 19. 1-27.
- Emmorey. K. D. (2002). Language. cognition. and the brain: Insights from sign language research. Mahwah. NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- Fenlon, J., Schembri, A., Rentelis, R., Vinson, D., & Cormier, K. (2014). Using conversational data to determine lexical frequency in British Sign Language: The influence of text type. Lingua, 143. 187–202.
Fenlon, J., Cormier, K., & Schembri, A. (2015). Building BSL SignBank: The lemma dilemma revisited. International Journal of Lexicography, 28(2), 169-206.
- Frankenberg-Garcia, A. (2020). Combining user needs, lexicographic data and digital writing environments. Language Teaching, 53(1), 29-43.
- Frishberg. N.. Hoiting. N.. & Slobing. D. (2012). Transcription. In: R. Pfau. M. Steinbach. & B. Woll (eds.). Sign Language. An international handbook (pp. 1045-1075). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
- Hanks, P. (2012). Corpus evidence and electronic lexicography. In S. Granger and M. Paquot (eds), Electronic Lexicography (pp. 57–82). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Johnston, T. (2012). Lexical frequency in sign languages. Journal of Deaf Studies and Education 17, 163–193.
- Karabüklü, S. (2016). Time and aspect in Turkish Sign Language (TİD): Manual and nonmanual realization of ‘FINISH’. Unpublished master thesis, Boğaziçi University, İstanbul.
- Koplenig, A., Mayer, P., & Müller-Spitzer, C. (2014). Dictionary users do look up frequent words. A log file analysis. In: C. Müller-Spitzer (Ed.). Using online dictionaries (pp. 229-250). Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.
- Kristoffersen, J. H., & Troelsgård, T. (2012). The electronic lexicographical treatment of sign languages: The Danish Sign Language Dictionary. In S. Granger & M. Paquot (eds.), Electronic Lexicography (1st ed., pp. 293–318). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Leech, G., Rayson, P., & Wilson, A. (2001). Word frequencies in written and spoken English based on the British national corpus. London: Longman.
- Lew. R., & De Schryver. G. M. (2014). Dictionary users in the digital revolution. International Journal of Lexicography. 27(4). 341–359.
- Lucas, C. (Ed.). (2001). The sociolinguistics of sign languages. Cambridge University Press.
Makaroğlu, B. (2020-in press). What the frequency list can teach us about Turkish Sign Language?. Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics.
- Makaroğlu. B. (2019). Methodological issues in the corpus based Turkish Sign Language dictionary. Presented at LSC Corpus Group. University of Pompeu Fabra. 1th February 2019.
Makaroğlu. B.. & Dikyuva. H. (2017). Güncel Türk İşaret Dili Sözlüğü. Ankara: Aile ve Sosyal Politikalar Bakanlığı. Erişim adresi: http://tidsozluk.net.
- Mayr. P. (2004) Website entries from a web log file perspective – a new log file measure. In: Proceedings of the AoIR-ASIST 2004. Workshop on Web Science Research Methods.
McKee, R., & Vale, M. (2017). Sign language lexicography. In P. Hanks & G. De Schryver (eds.), International Handbook of Modern Lexis and Lexicography (pp. 1–22). Germany: Springer-Verlag GmbH.
- McKee, D., & Kennedy, G. (2006). The distribution of signs in New Zealand Sign Language. Sign Language Studies, 6(4). 372–390.
- Morford, J. & MacFarlane, J. (2003). Frequency characteristics of American Sign Language. Sign Language Studies, 3. 213–225.
- Müller-Spitzer. C.. Wolfer. S.. & Koplenig. A. (2015). Observing online dictionary users: studies using wiktionary log files. International Journal of Lexicography. 28. 1–26.
- Nicholas. D.. Huntington. P.. Williams. P.. Lievesley. N.. Dobrowolski. T.. & Withey. R. (1999). Developing and testing methods to determine the use of web sites: case study newspapers. Aslib Proc.. 51. 144–154.
- Prinsloo, D. J. (2012). Electronic lexicography for lesser-resourced languages: The South African context. In S. Granger & M. Paquot (eds.) Electronic Lexicography (pp. 119–144). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Rayson. P., & R. Garside. (2000). Comparing corpora using frequency profiling. In: Proceedings of the workshop on Comparing Corpora. Association for Computational Linguistics (pp. 1–6).
- Santos. D., & Frankenberg-Garcia, A. (2007). The Corpus. its users and their needs: A user-oriented evaluation of COMPARA. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 12(3). 335–374.
- Schembri. A., Fenlon, J., Rentelis, R., Reynolds, S., & Cormier, K. (2013). Building the British sign language corpus. Language Documentation & Conservation, 7. 136–154.
- Schermer, G. M. M. (2006). Sign Language: Lexicography. In: Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd Edition. Amsterdam: Elsevier Ltd.
- Sloetjes. H., & Wittenburg, P. (2018). ELAN (version 5.2). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Retrieved from https://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/elan/
- Tan. K. H., & Woods. P. C. (2008). Media-related or generic-related features in electronic dictionaries: learners' perception and preferences. GEMA Online® Journal of Language Studies. 8(2). 1–17.
- Tarp, S. (2009). Reflections on lexicographical user research. Lexikos, 19. 275–296.
- Vale, M. (2015). A study of the users of an online sign language dictionary. In: I. Kosem, M. Jakubíček, J. Kallas, & S. Krek (eds.), Electronic lexicography in the 21st century: linking lexical data in the digital age. Proceedings of the eLex 2015 conference, 11-13 August 2015, Herstmonceux Castle, United Kingdom. (pp. 281–303). Ljubljana / Brighton: Trojina, Institute for Applied Slovene Studies / Lexical Computing Ltd.
- Vale, M. (2017). Folk definitions as a model for sign language dictionary definitions: A userfocused case study of the Online Dictionary of New Zealand Sign Language. Unpublished doctoral thesis. Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington.
- Verlinde. S., & Binon. J. (2010). Monitoring dictionary use in the electronic age. In: A. Dykstra & T. Schoonheim (eds.). Proceedings of the XIV Euralex International Congress (pp. 1144–1151). Leeuwarden: Fryske Akademy.
- Zwitserlood, I. (2010). Sign language lexicography in the early 21st century and a recently published dictionary of Sign Language of the Netherlands. International Journal of Lexicography, 23(4). 443–476.