What's the deal with SignWriting?

[Mark A. Mandel]

"Franz Dotter" <Franz.Dotter at uni-klu.ac.at> wrote:

#What is the function of writing? To give us enough information to keep spoken 
#or signed language in an "external storage" (external from our memory). Again: 
#Not all info, enough to identify (most of) the content.

#Does written material suffice for analysing a language? Hethitian linguists 
#would say: Yes, we don't have other sources. Linguists of languages still 
#spoken or signed would say: Writing is always only the second code, go for the 
#original one, i.e. real spoken/signed productions.

With respect, I don't think that this addresses Andrew's question. He didn't ask 
whether SignWriting was adequate as the only form of data to use for analyzing 
signed languages:

 (quoting Andrew)
#It seems true to me that a SignWriting transcription of an ASL
#utterance will certainly lack some linguistic and paralinguistic
#information, but probably no more so than a phonemic (NOT phonetic)
#transcription of a spoken English utterance will probably lack certain
#information about phonetic production and prosody.
#
#With that in mind, PHONEMIC transcription can still convey a lot of
#information about English which is useful to linguists, and there are
#even situations in which written English is sufficient as a medium for
#recording linguistic data about spoken English.

This is certainly true, for English and for any other living language that has a 
written form. As an example of Andrew's last sentence above, consider studies of 
word frequency and constructions based on transcribed speech. And in practice, 
for many (most?) linguistic endeavors, it is impossible to analyze a large 
corpus of speech without recourse to some form of transcription on the spectrum
between everyday orthography and narrow phonetics. 

Andrew's question then was:

#			         how good or bad is
#SignWriting as a tool for linguistic study? Where does it excel? Where
#does it fall short? Can people who use it interpret it accurately in a
#reliable way?

I don't read SSW, but of course I've seen it and I know its basic principles. 
And while I can't answer Andrew's question, it doesn't deserve summary 
dismissal. SSW can certainly be useful for many forms of linguistic study of 
sign languages. And not only in its present (still evolving) form: the 
International Phonetic Alphabet was originally developed from the Roman 
alphabet, and there are extensions (for disordered speech and non-phonemic 
sounds and qualities in normal speech).

-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania
 
PS: "Hethitian" = "Hittite"?

_______________________________________________
SLLING-L mailing list
SLLING-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l