“Words and Signs Together: A Terminological Electronic Glossary for Interpreters of Italian Sign language”,

Italian Sign Language (Lingua dei Segni Italiana - LIS) is a language to all effects, but like other signed languages has no ‘written’ form as intended for the spoken word. The compilation of dictionaries in numerous signed languages throughout the world is an arduous task owing to the complex three-dimensional nature of signs accompanied by simultaneous gesture and facial expression. In Italy a number of general-purpose dictionaries of LIS have been published, however, interpreters who translate for the profoundly Deaf or severely hearing-impaired from Italian (and sometimes from English or other languages) into LIS, in the classroom, at university or during conferences, obtain little assistance in the form of specialist dictionaries and glossaries of language for special purposes like that of medicine, chemistry, psychology or linguistics. This paper briefly describes the compilation of a trilingual glossary on CD-ROM in English, Italian and LIS in the field of linguistics.