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<TITLE>Re: [sw-l] LESSONS in Transcribing a Poem from Video</TITLE>
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hi all,<BR>
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I think there are a lot of open questions here, about receptive vs. expressive signing and about level of phonetic accuracy (e.g. whether to show the tilt on "H" etc).<BR>
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I have been trying to teach myself SignWriting specifically in able to be able to transcribe ASL texts from video. As most of the available materials are for expressive view, that's how I've learned it, both to write and to read. I do remember reading about receptive view, but frankly I find it easier to mirror and then look at my hands than to transcribe right off a video, because it often takes me awhile to figure out just how a sign is really made. <BR>
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If I were trying to transcribe a language I didn't know I might be less able to mirror, so I can see that receptive view would help for that. And I know this is an international list. And I understand Charles' point that seen side by side with video stills, receptive view is easier to compare. But for a long transcription, I can't make transparencies of everything anyway nor is it always easy to segment a video into stills.<BR>
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If we're going to transcribe in receptive view, then if what we transcribe is for anyone besides ourselves, the reading audience will also have to be able to read in receptive view. As I understand it, the SignWriting transcription of "Little Red Riding Hood" on the web was transcribed from a video. But it's published in expressive view. So it was either written in expressive view, even though the transcriber was not the original signer, or it was "flipped" afterwards. <BR>
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If we want to make extended transcribed texts available for a larger audience, do we really want to ask the audience to learn both expressive and receptive views depending on what the source of the text is? Or do we want to go back and "flip" our whole transcription from one form to another before publishing? Or, can we agree that some people can transcribe in expressive view if it works better for them?<BR>
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As for level of accuracy on things like tilting the H, I think that's also open for discussion. Are you trying to transcribe to the highest degree of phonetic accuracy, or are you trying to produce something with the relevant phonological distinctions, which can be read and understood by people who didn't see the video? I know that when I fingerspell my name, N-A-N-C-Y, my little finger starts coming out for the Y as soon as I start the C. (For those who don't know the ASL alphabet, that distorts the handshape into one which has no official place in ASL.) If I were studying handshape assimilation I might try to transcribe that (though I don't know that the IMWA has such a handshape), but not if I were transcribing my name for any other purpose. Of course, sometimes signs are changed for artistic effect and we want to be alert to that. But I don't think we can avoid making a certain number of judgment calls, if only in where to segment a stream of signing.<BR>
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Again, if you don't know the language you're transcribing, you don't know what distinctions might be relevant. So there can be different transcriptions for different purposes.<BR>
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This is an interesting conversation (to me anyway), and I don't mean to say that Charles is wrong, just that I think other perspectives are possible.<BR>
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Nancy<BR>
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on 11/16/04 9:16 AM, Charles Butler at chazzer3332000@YAHOO.COM wrote:<BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>Dear Sign Writers,<BR>
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Perhaps it's just me, but I really think that in transcribing a video, one should learn and use "receptive" sign writing. You are writing, NOT your own hands, but those of someone else. The man's left right hand points to right, but in the sign writing, written right next to the slide, it is YOUR hands pointing to the left, not HIS.<BR>
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The switch from receptive to expressive Sign Writing has made it very difficult to show that BOTH are valuable, and in the context of writing sign, it makes it very difficult, as the videos show, to compare what are back-to-front mirror images.<BR>
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I understand the desire to write one's own hands, because that it what you can see, all the time, but if I'm writing, in court, or in the classroom, someone else, i write what I see, which is resolutely NOT my own hands in motion. I want to be able to print my writing, on transparency, and lay it right down on the video. If the hands don't match shape, and orientation, then it's not transcription, it's mirroring, which is something entirely different.<BR>
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Right now, one has to mentally flip the sign writing over to match the video, as if the signer is printing his hands on the video and you are folding it over and opening the page like an ink blot, not actually have a sign-to-sign comparison of someone else's hands written and what those "someone else's hands" are doing.<BR>
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This is the only time when I feel that receptive writing is appropriate, when you all are looking at the same subject, and it is NOT you signing. We need to compare what is actually THERE, not our own hands, HERE.<BR>
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Plus, if it is literal transcription, the handshape of the H should be tilted slightly upward, not presumed to be an H and written horizontal. That is editing the orientation, not writing exactly what is seen, which is what I thought this class was to be about.<BR>
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Charles Butler<BR>
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<B><I>Valerie Sutton <sutton@signwriting.org></I></B> wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE>SignWriting List<BR>
November 16, 2004<BR>
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LESSONS IN TRANSCRIBING A POEM FROM VIDEO<BR>
http://www.signwriting.org/lessons/transcribe/poetry/oneharbor<BR>
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LESSON ONE continued...<BR>
Stefan's complete transcription of the first 8 photos:<BR>
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> ATTACHMENT part 2 image/jpeg name=OneHarbor02.jpg; x-mac-type=4A504547; x-unix-mode=0644; x-mac-creator=3842494D<BR>
</BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
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