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From:
Valerie Sutton Date: Fri May 19, 2000 5:53 pm Subject: Re: Lessons In Sign Language Transcription | ||||||||
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May 19, 2000 LESSONS IN SIGN LANGUAGE TRANSCRIPTION Below is an excerpt from this web page: https://www.SignWriting.org/scribe/scribe000.html INTRODUCTION by Valerie Sutton SIGNWRITING BEGAN WITH VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION To learn to transcribe Sign Language videos, you first need to understand the structure of SignWriting and how the system developed. The writing system has no connection to any signed language. To write signs from video, you do not have to know their meaning. In fact, to record pure movement, you are actually at a disadvantage if you know what the signs mean. Signers can become so interested in what is being said, that they forget to write what they see! Since SignWriting is a "generic" movement writing system, not associated with any one signed language, it becomes a tool for beginning Sign Language students, to record signs they do not know. Researchers can write signing styles and mime-like gestures they have never seen before. FIRST SIGNWRITING VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION PROJECT 1974 SignWriting began with a video transcription project at the University of Copenhagen. Lars von der Lieth, Jan Enggaard, and other researchers, wanted to record hearing person's gestures, and compare them to Deaf people's gestures. The research group asked me to view a videotape for three months. It was a very interesting video, with hearing people doing movements many hearing people take for granted, when speaking. The video also included Deaf people doing movements I had never seen before. That was the beginning of SignWriting. I developed a way to write signs, from viewing and studying several videotapes. See Figure 1 attached. I did not know Danish Sign Language at that time. In fact, I knew nothing about signed languages. This was very fortunate, since from that original video transcription project, SignWriting evolved to record any signed language in the world, or any mime-like gesture. Please see Figure 1: | ||||||||
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