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From:
Valerie Sutton Date: Mon Jan 10, 2000 5:10 am Subject: Writing Transitions Between Signs | |
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>So there are clear differences between compound signs and >phrases--blackbird, whitehouse, applesauce, appletree. English only gives >us three choices--two words, one word, or hyphen--but Signwriting should >allow us to record the exact pronunciation. If the word is not pronounced >the same as it is when by itself, then we are seeing this compounding >process, and should be able to record the difference in pronunciation, if >we want to. It seems like using hyphens is just choosing convenience of >notation over strict accuracy. (I don't delude myself that this is easy in >either case) >Joe Martin, Plain Old Ordinary Student >Top Left Corner USA ______________________________________ January 9, 2000 Dear SW List - I just wanted to comment on Joe's message about compounds, written before the holidays. Thanks Joe, for this message, and yes you are right that SW can write the difference in an individual's style of signing, a "difference in pronunciation", as you say. Obviously standardized "sign spellings" will emerge in time, but we can record the different styles of signing if we want to. When I first started writing signs from a videotape at the Unversity of Copenhagen back in 1974...The video was of hearing person's gestures and Deaf gestures being compared for a research project and I was notating all the movements, both the hearing people and the Deaf people. I had no idea what anything meant...and of course that was not the point...what the movements meant had nothing to do with it...the researchers just wanted the movement differences recorded, which I did for them and there were very clear differences between the hearing and the Deaf. I bring this up because I had an interesting experience in the beginning...I started writing the transitions between the signs or gestures, and did not differentiate between the beginning or ending of a sign, but instead wrote the steady flow so the signs blended into a "movement writing document". Years later someone asked me how I knew when a sign begins and when it ends...and I would tell them this story and explain that as I viewed more and more signed languages it became natural to know where signs started and finished. One of the reasons I am convinced that Lucinda and Meriam and other Deaf people are correct, that writing down the page is essential to writing good space location, is that when we used to write the signs from left to right, the same "movement transitional flow" that I just talked about, was harder to see...the vertical writing enhances the flowing quality of sign to sign to sign, and encourages using no hyphens, which would stop the flowing feeling. But right now, SignWriter 4.3 in MS-DOS does not type down in columns, so James and others in Nicaragua had no choice but to type left to right, and thus the hypens felt better writing in that direction, than they will when one writes down...So I suspect as we get better software, and we all start the process of learning to type vertically, that some of these issues will disappear and improve - Sorry to be so long winded!! Val ;-) |
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