A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

Several lexicographic works have been produced since the research on LIS started. This section provides an account of the most important resources available in this field. Some details concerning the external form of the text (printed or digital), the internal structure of the text (as a proper context for the examples or the inclusion of socio-linguistic and geographic variations), and other specific information about the existing lexicographic work will be provided.

            In the past, several collections of signs have been prepared as handouts to support LIS courses. One example of these first attempts is Il Corso di lingua italiana dei segni (‘The Italian Sign Language Course’) written for the course organised by the provincial section of ENS and the Institute of Regional training (IRFOP) in Trieste. Another example is L’Abecedario della LIS (‘The Spelling Book of LIS’), created for the course in LIS organised in Rome with the support of the CNR. However, these collections have never been published, and have been disseminated only as didactic tools for people who attended the LIS courses.

            The first nationally published works are more detailed and present more complex and different internal structures. I primi 400 segni in LIS (‘The First 400 Signs in LIS’) (2008) is the first attempt to create a national list of signs. This work is structured in topics (as the family, the club, the work) and it was collected for Deaf and hearing people, both Italian and foreign. Each sign is briefly described and glossed in Italian, Spanish, English and French. The purpose was to make Deaf culture accessible also to foreigners who were interested to learn and study LIS.

Other dictionaries of LIS were published before, but with completely different purposes. As a matter of fact, they appeared to be oriented to the needs of hearing people, such as speech therapists, educators or teachers. Examples of this tendency are Il Dizionario dei segni (‘Dictionary of Signs’) (1991) or Il vocabolario della lingua gestuale italiana dei sordi (‘The vocabulary of the Italian gestural language of deaf’) (1996). These works are alphabetically organised, following the order of the Italian alphabet. Similarly, the most recent Dizionario tematico dei segni (‘Thematic Dictionary of Signs’) (2004) shares the same hearing-oriented purposes, even though it is thematically organised. These dictionaries could be defined as bilingual, however, they are more based on Italian criteria.

            Il Dizionario bilingue elementare della Lingua dei Segni (‘The Bilingual Elementary Dictionary of Sign Language’) (1992) represents a useful tool for academics and linguistic researchers. Signs are grouped according to their handshapes and each sign is accompanied by a drawing, a transcription and a translation into Italian. Furthermore, each sign is followed by: examples of contexts where it could be found, the grammatical category it belongs to, a list of possible signs as synonyms and, some sociolinguistic variants of the signs.

            Other dictionaries focus on specific domains, for instance: i) a specific vocabulary about the catholic signs, ii) the colourful child-oriented Immaginario: immagini per un abecedario (‘Imaginary: Images for a Spelling Book’), and iii) the local dictionary of signs promoted by Regione Marche: Dizionario Regionale del Linguaggio Mimico Gestuale Marchigiano (‘Regional Dictionary of Mimic-gestural Marchigiano Language’).

The publication of dictionaries is a useful for researchers who are interested in linguistics. For instance, the presence of dictionaries allowed Paola Pietrandrea to analyse a corpus of 2.055 signs. They also support the linguistic value of sign languages with respect to spoken languages. According to the same linguistic purpose, Parole e numeri (‘Words and Numbers’) explores the relation between arbitrariness and iconicity in LIS, defending the linguistic nature of signs.

            The works described so far are written and printed, however, in the last 20 years several dictionaries have started to be available in a computer readable form. Some examples are Il Dizionario mimico gestuale essenziale (‘The Essential Mimic-Gestural Dictionary’); the Dizionario Italiano/Lis (‘The Dictionary Italian/LIS’) available online and created by the coop Alba; the multimedia dictionary Dizionario multimediale dei termini informatici per audiolesi (‘The Multimedia Dictionary of informatics terms for people with hearing impairments’) planned by ASPHI (Acronym for Avviamento e Sviluppo di Progetti per ridurre l'Handicap mediante l'Informatica), in Bologna. Moreover, in 2005, StarLIS, a company which develops multimedia tools for deaf and hearing people, promoted the first illustrated multimedia dictionary of LIS in 12 CD-ROM.  It includes 2000 signs translated in four languages. One year later, an e-LIS Electronic Bilingual Dictionary LIS-Italian was created in Bolzano by the Eurac group.

            Thanks to these open-access tools, an important Glossary for mobile devices has now been properly created for Deaf people who work with media and communication: Sign Media Smart. The concepts and words are designed according to topic criteria. It was financed by European funding and is available online in four different sign languages: LIS, British Sign Language (BLS), Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS), Swedish Sign Language (STS). Finally, Spread the Sign is one of the biggest international projects of sign language dictionaries in the country. It started to be available online between October 2008 and October 2010 and it is still growing in the amount of available videos. Today, it includes signs of 35 different sign languages and it represents one of the most detailed lexical resources online.