September 18, 2020 Working paper Open Access

Gender-Fair Language in the Translation of Signed Utterances in the DGS-Korpus Project – Relevance and Challenges

Löffler, Jana; Molzer, Ronja; Rasch, Charis Jolanthe

Project note for work package 11 "Wörterbuch-Produktion / Dictionary Production" produced in the DGS-Korpus project.
This project note discusses the challenges of translating from German Sign Language (DGS) – a language that generally does not mark gender on a sign that refers to a person – into German – a language that requires overt gender-markings. This is done in light of the current on-going socio-political discussion in Germany about the best and most appropriate approaches to gender-fair and gender-inclusive forms for terms denoting people. This project note represents preparatory work based on which the lexicographic team of the DGS-Korpus project chose its policy for gender-fair language in the upcoming DGS-German dictionary. It focuses on the translation of DGS corpus material for the use of authentic examples as well as on the phrasing of additional explanatory information given in the dictionary in written German. Aspects considered are gender-inclusiveness, authenticity of translation, readability and socio-political impact of the choice to be made.