@inproceedings{desai-etal-2025-investigating,
title = "Investigating Dictionary Expansion for Video-based Sign Language Dictionaries",
author = "Desai, Aashaka and
Massiceti, Daniela and
Ladner, Richard and
Iii, Hal Daum{\'e} and
Bragg, Danielle and
Lu, Alex Xijie",
editor = "Christodoulopoulos, Christos and
Chakraborty, Tanmoy and
Rose, Carolyn and
Peng, Violet",
booktitle = "Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2025",
month = nov,
year = "2025",
address = "Suzhou, China",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2025.findings-emnlp.1243/",
pages = "22826--22841",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-335-7",
abstract = "Like most languages, sign languages evolve over time. It is important that sign language dictionaries' vocabularies are updated over time to reflect these changes, such as by adding new signs. However, most dictionary retrieval methods based upon machine learning models only work with fixed vocabularies, and it is unclear how they might support dictionary expansion without retraining. In this work, we explore the feasibility of dictionary expansion for sign language dictionaries using a simple representation-based method. We explore a variety of dictionary expansion scenarios, e.g., varying number of signs added as well as amount of data for these newly added signs. Through our results, we show how performance varies significantly across different scenarios, many of which are reflective of real-world data challenges. Our findings offer implications for the development {\&} maintenance of video-based sign language dictionaries, and highlight directions for future research on dictionary expansion."
}<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<modsCollection xmlns="http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3">
<mods ID="desai-etal-2025-investigating">
<titleInfo>
<title>Investigating Dictionary Expansion for Video-based Sign Language Dictionaries</title>
</titleInfo>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Aashaka</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Desai</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Daniela</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Massiceti</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Richard</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Ladner</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Hal</namePart>
<namePart type="given">Daumé</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Iii</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Danielle</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Bragg</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Alex</namePart>
<namePart type="given">Xijie</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Lu</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<originInfo>
<dateIssued>2025-11</dateIssued>
</originInfo>
<typeOfResource>text</typeOfResource>
<relatedItem type="host">
<titleInfo>
<title>Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2025</title>
</titleInfo>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Christos</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Christodoulopoulos</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Tanmoy</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Chakraborty</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Carolyn</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Rose</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Violet</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Peng</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<originInfo>
<publisher>Association for Computational Linguistics</publisher>
<place>
<placeTerm type="text">Suzhou, China</placeTerm>
</place>
</originInfo>
<genre authority="marcgt">conference publication</genre>
<identifier type="isbn">979-8-89176-335-7</identifier>
</relatedItem>
<abstract>Like most languages, sign languages evolve over time. It is important that sign language dictionaries’ vocabularies are updated over time to reflect these changes, such as by adding new signs. However, most dictionary retrieval methods based upon machine learning models only work with fixed vocabularies, and it is unclear how they might support dictionary expansion without retraining. In this work, we explore the feasibility of dictionary expansion for sign language dictionaries using a simple representation-based method. We explore a variety of dictionary expansion scenarios, e.g., varying number of signs added as well as amount of data for these newly added signs. Through our results, we show how performance varies significantly across different scenarios, many of which are reflective of real-world data challenges. Our findings offer implications for the development & maintenance of video-based sign language dictionaries, and highlight directions for future research on dictionary expansion.</abstract>
<identifier type="citekey">desai-etal-2025-investigating</identifier>
<location>
<url>https://aclanthology.org/2025.findings-emnlp.1243/</url>
</location>
<part>
<date>2025-11</date>
<extent unit="page">
<start>22826</start>
<end>22841</end>
</extent>
</part>
</mods>
</modsCollection>
%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Investigating Dictionary Expansion for Video-based Sign Language Dictionaries
%A Desai, Aashaka
%A Massiceti, Daniela
%A Ladner, Richard
%A Iii, Hal Daumé
%A Bragg, Danielle
%A Lu, Alex Xijie
%Y Christodoulopoulos, Christos
%Y Chakraborty, Tanmoy
%Y Rose, Carolyn
%Y Peng, Violet
%S Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2025
%D 2025
%8 November
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Suzhou, China
%@ 979-8-89176-335-7
%F desai-etal-2025-investigating
%X Like most languages, sign languages evolve over time. It is important that sign language dictionaries’ vocabularies are updated over time to reflect these changes, such as by adding new signs. However, most dictionary retrieval methods based upon machine learning models only work with fixed vocabularies, and it is unclear how they might support dictionary expansion without retraining. In this work, we explore the feasibility of dictionary expansion for sign language dictionaries using a simple representation-based method. We explore a variety of dictionary expansion scenarios, e.g., varying number of signs added as well as amount of data for these newly added signs. Through our results, we show how performance varies significantly across different scenarios, many of which are reflective of real-world data challenges. Our findings offer implications for the development & maintenance of video-based sign language dictionaries, and highlight directions for future research on dictionary expansion.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2025.findings-emnlp.1243/
%P 22826-22841
Markdown (Informal)
[Investigating Dictionary Expansion for Video-based Sign Language Dictionaries](https://aclanthology.org/2025.findings-emnlp.1243/) (Desai et al., Findings 2025)
ACL