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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I've run into most of the criticisms mentioned; one
other that I've heard (and I realize it's completely wrong, but it is the
opinion of one of the top people in Deaf education in Alberta) is that trying to
learn SignWriting as well as the majority spoken
language is "cognitive overload".</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Another "issue" brought up by a teacher I spoke to
is that a lot of the hearing-impaired kids she teaches have no language when
they start school; their hearing parents don't (and often won't) sign.
Since they're not starting with a signed language knowledge base, and
because the hearing parents generally don't want their kids involved with
the Deaf community and have no desire to sign with them, this teacher
really doesn't see any point in using SSW in her classroom.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>KJ</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=erhoffma@oberlin.edu href="mailto:erhoffma@oberlin.edu">Erika
Hoffmann</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=sw-l@majordomo.valenciacc.edu
href="mailto:sw-l@majordomo.valenciacc.edu">sw-l@majordomo.valenciacc.edu</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, November 05, 2009 1:40
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [sw-l] common criticisms of
signwriting?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>Hi! I mentioned the last time I posted that I'm working on a
paper<BR>about SignWriting for presentation at the American
Anthropological<BR>Association meeting in December.<BR>One of the things I'm
thinking about is the ways in which Signwriting<BR>and Signwriten documents
can be used to critique dominant ideologies<BR>about language and writing that
are common in Linguistics and related<BR>disciplines. At the same time, I want
to note that the radical nature<BR>of the script can sometimes be a social
barrier to its adoption by<BR>signers (particularly because of the historical
relationship between<BR>the Linguistic validation of sign languages with the
social validation<BR>of Deaf signers).<BR>I'm wondering if any of you would be
willing to share some of the ways<BR>you've heard people criticize or dismiss
SSW (or point me to places<BR>where these opinions are aired). I'm looking for
people's concerns<BR>about the script itself (i.e., "it looks like
hieroglyphics") rather<BR>than the other common arguments about the need for a
script at all<BR>(i.e., "Deaf people can just write in
English").<BR>Thanks!<BR>Best,<BR>Erika<BR><BR><BR><BR>____________________________________________<BR><BR>SW-L
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