LL-L "Language programming" 2009.01.19 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

=======================================================================

 L O W L A N D S - L * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226

 http://www.lowlands-l.net * lowlands.list at gmail.com

 Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/rules.php

 Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org - lowlands.list at gmail.com

 Commands ("signoff lowlands-l" etc.): listserv at listserv.net

 Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html

 Archives: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html

 Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8) [Please switch your view mode to it.]

 Administration: lowlands.list at gmail.com or sassisch at yahoo.com


 You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
 To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
 text from the same account to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or
 sign off at http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.


 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
 L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
 S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West) Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)

=======================================================================

===========================================
L O W L A N D S - L - 19 January 2009 - Volume 04
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please set the encoding mode to Unicode (UTF-8).
If viewing this in a web browser, please click on
the html toggle at the bottom of the archived page
and switch your browser's character encoding to Unicode.
===========================================


From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language programming" 2009.01.17 (03) [E]

> From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
> Subject: LL-L "Language programming" 2009.01.17 (01) [E]
>

> As for what the difference between real space and token space and
> surrogate space .., and blended space, it is probably better if you
> track down Liddell's book (should not be too hard), but if you will
> allow my gross simplification:

> Real space is, well, real space. So if I point at a book sitting on
> the table in sign language discourse, i mean the book on that table.

> Surrogate space is when I, in the course of sign language discourse, a
> "locate" my coffee cup on the table in front of me, even though the
> table has no coffee cup, and then talk about how i spooned sugar into
> it , etc, all the whilke using that bit of empty (or, perhaps NOT
> empty) bit of real space on the table to BE my coffee cup. Or, when we
> hold the non-dominant hand in a certain configuration for the sign
> cut, showing that we are cutting a watermelon and not a chilli pepper,
> that watermellon is also located in surroagte space. It is like when
> we watch a play: Lawrence Olivier is NOT REALLY Hamlet ... but he is a
> (good) surrogate.

Thanks for the explanations, Mike, I see what you're saying.

When I first tried designing my BSL course last year I had quite a lot
of spaces lined up, though I don't remember what I called them all:

Surrogate space (as you describe it)
Real space (as you describe it)
(Blended space was something I never thought of)
Grammatical space (for agreement verbs)
Cartographic space (a vertical plane on which you describe locations or
journeys on maps or draw shapes)
Mannequin space (the imaginary human being in front of you on which you
can describe actions done to a person)

I suppose you could go further, such as distinguishing between
"Cartographic space" and "Blackboard space"!

But I felt that this was far too much terminology to teach: I mean,
people grasp some of these concepts quite intuitively. So when reading
about the brain-activity distinction between Topographical (surrogate +
real) space and Grammatical (or syntactic) space, I decided to go with
just those two ideas and let the lesser and similar spaces all get
subsumed under Topographic space.

Here's something about these spaces that might interest everybody...

As you might have gathered, when signers communicate, they tend to place
objects in imaginary spaces and talk about them as if they were really
there. This means that when a Deaf woman talks about something she was
doing at her dressing table, she tends to describe objects such as the
hairbrush, the perfume &c, in terms of where they are on her dressing
table.

There's a theory, I don't know how well verified, that this means that
Deaf women have a thorough knowledge of how each others dressing tables
are arranged, and that this results in Deaf women's dressing tables
gradually taking on very similar arrangements over time!

I think this is probably the nearest thing I can think of to a specific
language "programming the brain". But does anything similar happen with
spoken languages?

By way, Mike, thanks for the idea about putting language students in
competition with each other. Today I divided the class into two teams
and held a trivia quiz, and suddenly, in their determination to win,
their ability to understand my signing took a great leap forward! Then
when it turned out to be a draw, they didn't want to stop, and insisted
on a tie-breaker question!

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

•

==============================END===================================

 * Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.

 * Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.

 * Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.

 * Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l")

   are to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at

   http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.

*********************************************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20090119/791de02c/attachment.htm>