Disability and assistive technology

This article investigates the lexical and conceptual structure of the Accessibility domain drawing on Frame Semantics (Fillmore, 1982) and the FrameNet model (Ruppenhoffer et al., 2016). It aims to model Accessibility-related frames within FrameNet Brasil to improve the lexical representation of this domain. The study also incorporates Terminology (L’Homme, 2020) and Lexical Semantics (L’Homme, 2020) discussions to explore the role of language as a tool for social inclusion and constitution of social cognition. The corpus comprises glossaries, informational booklets, and other textual materials related to accessibility. Through corpus analysis, key lexical units were identified and used to model two primary frames — Disability and Assistive_Technology. Lexicographic annotation enabled the identification of the main usage of the lexical units that evoke these frames, which informed the identification of Frame Elements and supported the modeling of a third frame, People_with_disability. This study contributes to the development of an inclusive and socially informed lexical resource, emphasizing the role of language in social cognition, combating ableism, and promoting equity in communicative practices.