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From:
Cecelia Smith Date: Wed May 19, 1999 6:50 pm Subject: Re: Researching... | |
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writes: > > 3. What are the linguistic challenges or ramifications of sign writing? One thing that I find exciting about it is the possible development of a good grammar. One of the reasons we have such detailed grammars of languages like English is that they are written. Native users know where to put the comma's to indicate clauses and where to put a sentence to say "that's it" and when a new paragraph has started, or even a new chapter. We don't have that in ASL, or most other signed languages. However, as more and more native users of ASL start using SignWriting, they will naturally break the sign stream up into clauses, sentences, paragraphs, etc. Then, once there is a definite body of work available, we can then decipher the grammatical structure of ASL much easier, and actually use it to teach the language. Another ramification is that the language cannot only be preserved but passed on. Many people are familiar with the words "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" but if it had not been written and preserved, would it have survived? Writing the English language (or any other language) did not prevent the natural changes to occur, but it sure make it possible for us to know what our predecessors said, at least while on stage. <smile> Cecelia Smith Gallaudet University (Grad student in Linguistics) |
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