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From:
Steve/Dianne Parkhurst Date: Wed Feb 9, 2000 11:41 am Subject: SW for linguists | ||||||||
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Dear list members, Valerie wrote: <<SignWriting is for signers, and other systems are for linguistic research - there is a major difference...>> I'm not sure it's quite so cut and dry. My wife and I are linguists in Spain and we are using SW. SW works for lots of kinds of linguistic analysis. One area that it does break down a bit is in the area of phonology. The only real drawback for using SW as a linguistic notation system for phonology is that you can't always easily separate out each element of a sign. For example, in SW the handshape and the orientation are in one symbol, whereas in other systems there are two (or more) separate symbols. There is a very easy way around that problem: create another symbol for the orientation (shaded like SW symbols of course). By doing this (and a few other tweaks to the system) you can create a linear representation of SW (that is as unreadable as HamNoSys) that fits the needs for those linguists who have a passion for "linearality". I recently presented a paper here in Spain about Optimality Theory, a theory for analyzing languages; in several tableaus (a fun formalism used in that theory) I used SW as a notation system. In order to do that I needed to separate out each element. It is do-able. And SW is much more iconic and user friendly than the other systems. So, yes, I agree that the main purpose of SW is practical use, but there is a very valid linguistic aplication that shouldn't be overlooked. Have a good day, Steve :-) ------------------- Steve and Dianne Parkhurst | ||||||||
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