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From:
Stefan Woehrmann Date: Sun Jun 18, 2000 3:15 pm Subject: write what you see ---- Re when the palm facing doesnīt change | ||||||||
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Hello Valerie and listmembers, . Val wrote: >> write the finishing position is because there was no palm facing >> change nor was there any other kind of change. So there was no reason >> to write anything more. At 12:39 PM +0200 6/17/00, Stefan Woehrmann wrote: >I understand: Donīt interpret anything. Just read the signs as they are >presented ! Hhmm. In case I īve got no idea about the meaning of a sign , in >case of gymnastics , dance or mimic art - no problem - but as soon as I try >to understand the message or as soon as I am interested to learn another >SignLanguage it is important to be able to learn what the author of the >SW-sign had in mind. Valerie wrote on June 17, 2000 No Stefan. You MISUNDERSTOOD. I never said anything about meaning. I didn't say "don't interpret anything". I am not talking about interpretation AT ALL. And I would never say to a person "Just read the signs as they are presented" - That would be TERRIBLE if I said that. That would be unkind and unrealistic, since you do not know ASL. How could I expect you to know the meaning behind signs that are not from your language? Pardon the intruson. ;-) Communication is a difficult thing. How to make sure that the "receiver" of the message gets the chance to understand what the "sender" tries to express. In our case - I should go for additional English courses .-) I think that I donīt express anything different from what you have in mind ?! SW is writing movement as it looks in space. There are two parts of it: the scribe and the reader " (www.SignWriting.org/lessons/transcribe/scribe004.h The scribe views the movments on the video, without making linguistic judgements. What is wrong or right is not the issue. The goal is to write what you see, without imposing your opinion. So to think like a movement scribe, use your eyes and brain like a camera...Look at what you see, and record the movement position by position, almost as an animator would capture movement frame by frame. I tried to focus on the reader : The point can be that I didnīt use the right terms . The movement that is written down is called "sign " ??? The process of understandig or recognizing what kind of movement is described is called "to read the sign" ???? Iīm not talking about the meaning of a special sign in a special SL. Iīm talking about the movement that is performed, written down, performed or just imagined -- Itīs the strenght of SW to describe movements that can be taken for "meaningfull signs depending on the background" So the scribe writes signs. And the reader reads signs. "So...if you want to discuss language with other people, that is fine. But that is not my purpose. " I understand. No problem ;-)... Whenever I am writing about SignWriting, I am NOT talking about language. I am talking about writing movement as it looks in space and nothing else. Yes ! So now....let us take a look at what I DID say. >> write the finishing position is because there was no palm facing >> change nor was there any other kind of change. So there was no reason >> to write anything more. In this special case "sign for peace" in the Irish blessing Charles described "a" movement. I studied the movement description and felt insecure. Does he want me to move my hands this way ? " I asked for additional information. Charles was so kind to inform me : "Your intuition is correct, looking at the ASL dictionary sign for Peace, the hands end up parallel with the floor. To be ABSOLUTELY exact, one should show the end position and some sort of rotational arrow. I don't. I am writing what I believe to be sufficient for me to understand and for those who know ASL well to be able to follow. All of us have variant spellings and we probably always will. Charles " So this exchange in our emails shows one very important point. Sometimes SW is used in a different way. Sometimes you donīt write the movement as it should be performed but you just inform the "informed" reader what kind of "sign" you have in your mind. Would be interesting to find out if there are other areas than poetry written for a special audience where in order to write "nice signs" we can neglect "accuracy" . If I replace "scribe" by "reader": The reader views the written movements, without making linguistic judgements. What is wrong or right is not the issue. The goal is to perform the movement as it is written down, without imposing your opinion. Puh - a long posting - From my point of view it is important to discuss these questions ! ;-) SW is a great movement -writing system :-) All the best Stefan ;-) | ||||||||
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