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As far as I know, SSW is the best linguistic transcription tool available for signed languages (not just ASL) because of its versatility in representing classifiers, facial expressions and body positions/movements, all of which are important to signed languages. I have been using SW for about two years now; I was reading it the first day I looked at it and writing it shortly afterwards, so I certainly find it intuitive! I am hearing, but I'm also basically a native signer since my older brother is Deaf and I could sign before I could speak; and I'm also a visual learner (I can't remember a word if I can't spell it in my head), so those two factors probably make the most difference in how quickly and easily I picked it up.<BR>
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I ran into the same attitude as you have, Drew, when I started mentioning SW around the Deaf; but I agree with others who have responded, that they mostly react out of fear of the new/unknown and have not taken the trouble to actually learn it.<BR>
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KJ<BR>
<BR>> Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:51:12 -0500<BR>> From: pidkameny@gmail.com<BR>> To: slling-l@majordomo.valenciacc.edu<BR>> Subject: [SLLING-L] What's the deal with SignWriting?<BR>> <BR>> Hi everyone,<BR>> <BR>> This is a question for any linguists out there who have direct<BR>> personal experience with Sutton SignWriting.<BR>> <BR>> I've noticed that about half of the posts I've seen since subscribing<BR>> to this list have made some mention of SignWriting. I've seen some<BR>> information about it on the Internet (including a host of fascinating<BR>> transcriptions on signwriting.org) and I thought it looked pretty cool<BR>> and pretty useful as a way to record and transmit utterances in signed<BR>> languages without the use of video.<BR>> <BR>> However, when I asked around about it in the ASL department at<BR>> Northeastern University (where I am a student) I mostly got a lot of<BR>> frowning and scoffing. The general opinion around here seems to be<BR>> that SignWriting is not a useful tool for research because it is not<BR>> precise enough in its descriptive powers. And as far as it is<BR>> sufficiently descriptive, it is too rich to be useful, or too easy to<BR>> misinterpret.<BR>> <BR>> It seems true to me that a SignWriting transcription of an ASL<BR>> utterance will certainly lack some linguistic and paralinguistic<BR>> information, but probably no more so than a phonemic (NOT phonetic)<BR>> transcription of a spoken English utterance will probably lack certain<BR>> information about phonetic production and prosody.<BR>> <BR>> With that in mind, PHONEMIC transcription can still convey a lot of<BR>> information about English which is useful to linguists, and there are<BR>> even situations in which written English is sufficient as a medium for<BR>> recording linguistic data about spoken English.<BR>> <BR>> So my question (for experienced SignWriters) is, how good or bad is<BR>> SignWriting as a tool for linguistic study? Where does it excel? Where<BR>> does it fall short? Can people who use it interpret it accurately in a<BR>> reliable way?<BR>> <BR>> Forgive me if this is not the appropriate forum in which to open such<BR>> a discussion, or if my questions seem ill-informed. Any input<BR>> (off-list or on-list) from people who use SignWriting on a regular<BR>> basis would be enlightening and greatly appreciated.<BR>> <BR>> Thanks,<BR>> <BR>> Drew Pidkameny<BR>> Northeastern University<BR>> pidkameny@gmail.com<BR>> <BR>> P.S. - Incidentally, I found that it was not too difficult for me to<BR>> learn to read SignWriting representations of ASL using only my<BR>> knowledge of signed ASL as a guide (and Goldilocks and the Three Bears<BR>> as a Rosetta Stone). I'm sure learning to properly write ASL using<BR>> SignWriting would be considerably more difficult, but probably not<BR>> that much more so than learning to write in English when you already<BR>> know how to speak it. I was also impressed by the fact that<BR>> SignWriting seemed about as good at representing classifiers as it was<BR>> at representing signs. I am worried, however, about jumping to<BR>> conclusions regarding SignWriting's utility based on my own very<BR>> limited experience with the system.<BR>> _______________________________________________<BR>> SLLING-L mailing list<BR>> SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu<BR>> http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l<BR>> <BR><BR><br /><hr /> <a href='' target='_new'></a></body>
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