Minimalist

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
September 7, 2005

Antonio Carlos da Rocha Costa from Brazil wrote:
> Unfortunately, it happened that I was not able to attend the  
> conference :-(


Val writes: Oh. Sorry to hear that! ;-)


> But later I talked to many french colleagues that participated in it.
> And I came to realize an interesting point: the french are mostly
> interested in the representation of dialogs, not of narratives.

That is very interesting. I believe the writing of dialogues was also  
discussed later in the summer, at the SignWriting Sympoisum in  
Brussels too...


> That is, they are more interested in learning what are the features
> needed for writing conversations between two or more people, than in
> writing stories.

Great. It would be fun to transcribe a video of a conversation  
between three or four Deaf people in French Sign Language! I would  
enjoy that...


> It seems that in sign languages, as in oral languages, the writing of
> dialogs will require special symbols and text formatting not usually
> present in the writing of narratives (for instance, indication of who
> has taken the turn in the dialog).

Sure. That makes sense. I believe we already have enough symbols and  
options to make such choices possible...It is just a matter of coming  
to a decision as to how to standardize the procedure of writing  
dialogues...so that will take some team work between countries...but  
a good subject to tackle...

>
>   But in sign languages, it seems that there is a special additional
> requirement: since virtual objects are created in the shared signing
> space, so people can refer to them during the dialogs, it seems  
> that the
> writing of dialogs require the explicit representation of such  
> objects,
> besides the representation of the two (or more) participants in the
> dialog.

Yes. You establish a REFERENCE POINT...the reference point that  
everyone is pointing to or referring to in the whole group, and then  
the group writing revolves around the REFERENCE POINT...


> I briefly tried to get a solution for that in SignWriting. I came out
> with the conclusion that it is not a problem that can be solved easily
> (but I confess I didn't try really hard :-)

I agree. It can definitely be done. If we could be given video clips  
of several conversations that include these Reference Points, the  
transcription could first be done in great detail in SignWriting, and  
then the writing and technique could be simplified later, once we  
know what is working for people...


> There was a paper by Patrice Dalle and Boris Lenseigne, presented  
> at the
> conference, that has pictures clearly illustrating the issue. It is at
>
>     http://tals.limsi.fr/actes/s7.pdf
>
> (the full proceedings is at http://tals.limsi.fr/actes ).
>
>   By just looking at the dialog pictures at that paper one can  
> understand
> the issue: How can a SignWriting dialog be structured so that those
> small elements representing objects and relations between them be
> represented in a clear way, showing that they are all accessible to  
> both
> participants in the dialog?

Wonderful! I look forward to reading Mr. Dalle's paper later...It  
sounds fascinating...and important work...


>
>   Anyway, just the point that french people are more interested in  
> dialogs
> than in story telling is an interesting point :-)

Very informative! Thank you for telling us...;-))

>
>   All the best,
> Antônio Carlos
> Escola de Informática - UCPel

Great to chat with you...I can imagine you have many projects  -   
Keep us informed occasionally -

Best to you too!

Val ;-)