Valerie -
I'm progressing fairly well with the SW symbols, and I'm dreaming up
all sorts of incredible ways of using them. As an example, I'm teaching a
short course in teaching techniques to Deaf signers here in Taiwan who are
involved in teaching TSL to hearing people. I'm using ASL as an example
language so as to put the teachers in the place of their students. I'm using
the Signing Naturally curriculum, which I was trained in at a workshop in
Maine. After teaching each lesson, I review the new vocabulary taught in
that lesson by showing an overhead of the SW symbols for each sign (without
English glosses which would be lost on many of these teachers anyway). The
students are responding well to the symbols, and are producing the signs
from the symbols on their own before I get to them on the list. I'm also
thinking of including the SW symbols for TSL in the materials that we are
preparing for the TSL Interpreter Training program that I'm working with
here in Taipei.
Anyway, my immediate reason for writing is to ask for clarification of
the orientation symbols when the hand is not pointing up or out, but rather
to one side or the other. An example is the ASL sign "across" as found on
p. 3 of the dictionary. It's listed twice, once with the LH black and with
a break, indicating parallel to the floor, and the other with the top part
black and the bottom part white, but no break. Is this just two ways of
writing the same thing? or are you referring to different forms of the sign
"across"? I can only think of one way to sign "across" and either notation
seems to be referring to that way of producing the sign. Am I missing
something?
I think the origin of my confusion is in the SW Lessons which are well
illustrated with pictures of the handshapes when the hands are pointing up
or ahead, but I can't find enough consistent examples of the hands pointing
L or R to see what the pattern is between using, for example, a black hand
and the break symbol or a half-black half-white symbol without the break
symbol.
I hope I've made my dilemma clear. I wish I were where you are with SW
- able to read it as fast as a Deaf person can sign it, but I'm not. I
would appreciate your help in clearing this up.
Thanks, with love,
- Wayne
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