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<DIV><FONT size=2>In theory one should be able to use any appropriate
transcription system in one of ELAN's tiers. That is, once you've selected
a section of video, you can create an annotation for that stretch in a
particular tier, and then put a transcription of the data in that stretch into
the annotation. The catch here is that the transcription must be
representable using a font that ELAN knows how to use. I'm not up on all
the current technical details, but my understand/assumption has been that ELAN
only supports transcription systems that are supported in Unicode (and, last I
checked, there was the additional requirement that the Unicode characters you
needed had to be included in one particular font). Neither SignWriting nor
HamNoSys have been added to Unicode, although there are various people who have
given thought to how this might be done. (In the case of SignWriting, it's
not a trivial question what is the best way to do so.)
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Now, if there were some way to attach a graphic image as an
annotation in ELAN, then this would provide a workaround, because the graphic
could contain an image of the SignWriting or HamNoSys transcription. This
would provide a human-readable annotation, although it would not be
searchable. It would also probably be much more cumbersome than just
typing in a transcription.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>If one wants annotations in ELAN that can provide some of the
functions that a transcription would provide, then I think the main options
are:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>-- a system of glosses that identifies the signs, as mentioned
by <FONT face=Verdana>Louise de Beuzeville in a separate
post</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Verdana size=2>- a transcription system that is representable in
Unicode, e.g. StokoeAscii (an adaptation of Stokoe notation that is
representable with ordinary ASCII characters)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Verdana size=2>- a coding system that represents just the
phonetic/phonological/morphological details that you are interested
in</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Verdana size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Verdana size=2>Albert Bickford</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
href="mailto:gerard.meijssen@gmail.com">Gerard Meijssen</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=slling-l@majordomo.valenciacc.edu
href="mailto:slling-l@majordomo.valenciacc.edu">A list for linguists
interested in signed languages</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Friday, May 02, 2008 5:46 AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [SLLING-L] the benefits of
ELAN</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV> Is this where SingWriting / HamNoSys come in by associating it
with a time slot in ELIAN ?<BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>