In this article, we describe DGS-BIGEKO, a sign language dataset containing a conversation in a crisis scenario signed by a professional interpreter in German Sign Language (DGS). The dataset comprises 14 sentences with common questions and answers from protocols occurring in emergency call scenarios translated into DGS. Additionally, the dataset contains signs for an additional 108 concepts that are relevant to emergency call scenarios. The dataset is intended to support research in sign language linguistics and sign language machine translation by providing resources in a very specific domain, where no previous resources are available in DGS. The dataset is freely available for research purposes at the following address: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18458557

Emotion Recognition research in Sign Languages is still in its infancy. Still today, there exists a lack of knowledge about appropriate annotation guidelines and the impact that facial expressions, body postures and head positions have in recognizing emotions while signing, considering that sign language encompasses manual and non-manual cues with linguistic purposes. In this article, we present an acquisition protocol to record acted emotions in German Sign Language under four scenarios (High-Valence and High-Arousal, High-Valence and Low Arousal, Low-Valence and High-Arousal, and Low-Valence and Low-Arousal). The goal is to provide a reference dataset to explore the use of machine learning techniques for an automated classification of emotions in sign language utterances. As a baseline reference, we trained static models with features extracted from the facial muscle activations. The best model achieved an accuracy of 68.84% and a F1 of 67.96% with a random forest trained on the statistics extracted from Action Units. These results highlight the importance of facial expression in sign language, not only for carrying linguistic information but also for transmitting emotions. Results also indicate challenges in detecting emotions in the High-Valence and Low Arousal scenario, which suggests future investigation lines to explore.