The historical pandemic dictionary "Pandemictionary" as a lexicographical linked open data network

In subproject 1, we are developing the historical dictionary "Pandemictionary", which is part of the LODinG project of the Trier Centre for Digital Humanities and focuses on the vocabulary of historical pandemics such as cholera and the Spanish flu. It analyses how people spoke about these pandemics at the time by searching historical corpora and collecting pandemic vocabulary as linked open data. The data will be prepared for publication and retrieval in a Wikibase on the one hand and as a dictionary in a Wiki instance based on the structure of the Wiktionary on the other. The dictionary provides information on the meaning, pronunciation and grammar of keywords as well as authentic examples that illustrate the use and nuances of the words in different contexts.

TP1 (Digital Lexicography / German Studies): Pandemic vocabulary and LOD - (infectious) diseases in networked digital dictionaries

The influences of the corona pandemic can also be found in our language use, in particular at the lexical level in a new vocabulary (Klosa-Kückelhaus/Kernermann et al. 2022). This is recorded in digital dictionaries, such as the current, digitally compiled dictionary with the “New vocabulary around the corona pandemic” of the IDS neologism dictionary.1 However, epidemics or pandemics also had an influence on language use in earlier eras/centuries, which is documented, for example, in the Trier Dictionary Network (https://woerterbuchnetz.de), whose dictionaries depict the German language at different historical language levels. Our pilot project focuses on the networking of such lexicographical resources according to the principle of shared “semantics by reference point reference” (Cimiano/McCrae/Buitelaar project-specific 2016). The concept vocabulary for (infectious) diseases, whose entries are linked to Semantic Web standard data. The articles in the various resources are assigned to one or more concepts in the vocabulary on the basis of their meanings. This enables a cross-resource comparison: Which modern and historical terms exist in the field of (infectious) diseases? Can linguistic phenomena of the corona pandemic also be found in older vocabularies? Have changes in meaning or terminology taken place? At the same time, the project ties in with the increasing efforts in recent years to make lexicographical data available as linked open data and integrate it into the Semantic Web (see Wandl-Vogt/Declerck 2014; Chiarcos/Fäth/Ionov 2020; Zacherl 2022).

References

Chiarcos, Christian; Fäth, Christian; Ionov, Maxim (2020). “The ACoLi Dictionary Graph”. In: Proceedings of the 12th Language Resources and Evaluation Conference, 3281-3290. URL: https://aclanthology.org/2020.lrec-1.401.

Cimiano, Philipp; McCrae, John P.; Buitelaar, Paul (Hg.) (2016): Lexicon Model for Ontologies: Community Report, 10 May 2016. URL: https://www.w3.org/2016/05/ontolex.

Klosa-Kückelhaus, Annette; Kernerman, Ilan (2022). Lexicography of Coronavirus-related Neologisms. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110798081.

“Neuer Wortschatz rund um die Coronapandemie”. In: Neologismenwörterbuch (2006ff.). OWID – Online Wortschatz-Informationssystem Deutsch, hg. v. Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, https://www.owid.de/docs/neo/listen/corona.jsp#.

Wandl-Vogt, Eveline; Declerck, Thierry (2014): “Cross-linking Austrian dialectal dictionaries through formalized meanings”. In: Andrea Abel, Chiara Vettori und Natascia Ralli (Hg.): Proceedings of the XVI EURALEX International Congress. The User in Focus . Bolzano/Bozen, S. 329–343.

 

Team

  • JProf. Dr. Susanne Kabatnik
  • Dr. Claudia Bamberg
  • Anne Klee

Project Activities

Conference Presentations

  • Susanne Kabatnik, Anne Klee, Maria Hinzmann, Claudia Bamberg, Thomas Burch, Frank Queens: "Historischer Pandemiewortschatz und Linked Open Data (LOD): Lexikalische Veränderungen und kulturelle Reaktionen im Spiegel der Cholera", präsentiert auf der IDS-Jahrestagung, 12.03.25, Mannheim.
  • Susanne Kabatnik, Anne Klee, Maria Hinzmann, Claudia Bamberg, Frank Queens, Thomas Burch: "'Choleraausbruch zwang zur Rückkehr'. Die Auswahl von Beispielen für das Pandemictionary-Projekt als lexikographisches Linked Open Data-Netzwerk". Vortrag präsentiert bei der Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Angewandte Linguistik (GAL), Universität Dresden, 12.09.2024.

Publications

  • Susanne Kabatnik, Anne Klee (2024, i. Druck): "Historischer Pandemiewortschatz am Beispiel der Cholera - eine korpusbasierte quantitativ-qualitative Untersuchung historischer Korpora". In: Sprachwissenschaft 49 (3).

  • Claudine Moulin (2020): "Linguistische Kreativität in Pandemiezeiten - eine sprachhistorische Annäherung". In: Aptum, Zeitschrift für Sprachkritik und Sprachkultur 16 (2/3), S. 168-173.

  • Susanne Kabatnik, Anne Klee, Maria Hinzmann, Claudia Bamberg, Frank Queens, Thomas Burch (accepted): "Linked Open Data als neues geisteswissenschaftliches Paradigma? Zu einer aktuellen Debatte in den Digital Humanities am Beispiel des „Pandemictionary“". In "From Global to Local? Digitale Methoden in den Geisteswissenschaften im deutschsprachigen Raum: Ein Triptychon", herausgegeben von Ulrike Wuttke, Melanie Seltmann, Christopher Nunn, Anne Baillot, Christian Schröter und Christian Wachter.

Workshop zu Pandemiewortschatz und Neorate, mit Annette Klosa-Kückelhaus und Jan-Oliver Rüdiger vom IDS (via Zoom), 16.10.2024.