While what Cheryl is talking about as "transliterating" in the
vernacular it is not technically so. In order to transliterate a spoken
language into sign it is necessary to spell. Names are a good example:
to transliterate a name into ASL, it is necessary to finger spell it.
There are good arguments to be made for and against calling work with
Cued Speech transliterating. The strongest one against is that CS is
not a language but a mode of presentation. So there is a modal change
but not translation, interpretation or translation. We have good words
for other modal changes (e.g., transcribing, reading) and the one I see
most often for CS is "cuing." Seems good enough.
More complex English into less complex English is not transliterating
since the actual content changes, not the language. That might be
called simplifying, clarifying, explaining, teaching, dumbing down; none
of these are translating, interpreting (although an argument could be
made for this one in its most basic meaning) or transliterating.
The most common method of transliterating into ASL is fingerspelling. I
suspect this is also true of other signed languages.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ben Karlin
Staff Interpreter for the Deaf, St Louis Psychiatric Rehabilitation
Center
5300 W Arsenal St, St Louis, MO 63139-1494
Phone 314 644-8270 V/TTY | Fax 314 644-8115
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> From: Cheryl Zapien on Wednesday, 14 October, 1998 7:39PM:
> Hi Valerie: I've been told that transliteration means taking
something from one
> language, a word, phrase, whatever), changing its form, while
retaining the
> substance of the original language. For example, the word "shalom" is
a Hebrew
> word, which in this case, has been transliterated into a different
symbol
> system--one of several that English can use. A person that is signing
in Signed
> English could, arguably, be transliterating spoken English into a
different
> mode. More complex English, for example, can be transliterated into
less
> complex English (in the case of Legalize *smile*). People who use
Cued Speech
> to communicate have CS transliterators--although I've heard it argued
that CS
> isn't a language so there is no such animal as a CS transliterator.
That's
> another story altogether!
> I do not know if taking something from a signed or spoken mode and
putting it
> into a written mode is considered transliteration, although by the
above
> definitions, I suppose it would qualify. Now it's time for all you
linguists
> out there to jump in! Hope this helps. Cheryl
>
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