What's the deal with SignWriting?

Tue Jan 13 08:54:06 UTC 2009

Hoi,
Most people use writing to preserve a linguistic expression for later times.
When Shakespeare wrote his plays, the script was used from that moment on to
reproduce the plays. Based on what was written in those days many linguists
have worked their magic on Shakespeare and even come up with conclusions
about the authorship of Shakespeare.

The notion that writing is always the second code is in my opinion silly
because you can only study a language as it is spoken now. It does not allow
you to understand the evolution of a language like you have it in a written
format. When you are only able to compare language evolution based on other
previous academic studies, you will find that your corpus is actually really
small and it is unclear if dialectal and sociolectal changes can be found in
this way.

When you compare written language for either spoken or signed languages, the
function of the written words is the same. We know Shakespeare because his
legacy was written down. We will not know first hand from great writers who
signed from the past because their language was not written.
Thanks,
       Gerard

2009/1/13 Franz Dotter <Franz.Dotter at uni-klu.ac.at>

> Dear Andrew,
>
> What is the function of writing? To give us enough information to keep
> spoken or signed language in an "external storage" (external from our
> memory). Again: Not all info, enough to identify (most of) the content.
> Does written material suffice for analysing a language? Hethitian linguists
> would say: Yes, we don't have other sources. Linguists of languages still
> spoken or signed would say: Writing is always only the second code, go for
> the original one, i.e. real spoken/signed productions.
>
> Best Regards
>
> Franz Dotter
>
> University of Klagenfurt
> Center for Sign Language and Deaf Communication
> Funded by: Provincial government of Carinthia, Bundessozialamt Kaernten,
> European Social Fund
> Head: Franz Dotter (hearing)
> Collaborators: Elisabeth Bergmeister (deaf), Silke Bornholdt (deaf),
> Christian Hausch (deaf), Marlene Hilzensauer (hearing), Klaudia Krammer
> (hearing), Christine Kulterer (hearing),  Anita Pirker (deaf), Andrea Skant
> (hearing), Natalie Unterberger (deaf).
> Homepage: http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/zgh
> Deaf server (in German): http://deaf.uni-klu.ac.at
> Fax: ++43 (0)463 2700 2899
> Phone: ++43 (0)463 2700 /2821 (Franz Dotter), /2822 (Andrea Skant), /2823
> (Marlene Hilzensauer), /2824 (Klaudia Krammer), /2829 (Christine Kulterer)
> Email addresses: firstname.lastname at uni-klu.ac.at
>
>
>
>
> >>> "Andrew Pidkameny" <pidkameny at gmail.com> 01/13/09 3:51  >>>
> Hi everyone,
>
> This is a question for any linguists out there who have direct
> personal experience with Sutton SignWriting.
>
> I've noticed that about half of the posts I've seen since subscribing
> to this list have made some mention of SignWriting. I've seen some
> information about it on the Internet (including a host of fascinating
> transcriptions on signwriting.org) and I thought it looked pretty cool
> and pretty useful as a way to record and transmit utterances in signed
> languages without the use of video.
>
> However, when I asked around about it in the ASL department at
> Northeastern University (where I am a student) I mostly got a lot of
> frowning and scoffing. The general opinion around here seems to be
> that SignWriting is not a useful tool for research because it is not
> precise enough in its descriptive powers. And as far as it is
> sufficiently descriptive, it is too rich to be useful, or too easy to
> misinterpret.
>
> It seems true to me that a SignWriting transcription of an ASL
> utterance will certainly lack some linguistic and paralinguistic
> information, but probably no more so than a phonemic (NOT phonetic)
> transcription of a spoken English utterance will probably lack certain
> information about phonetic production and prosody.
>
> With that in mind, PHONEMIC transcription can still convey a lot of
> information about English which is useful to linguists, and there are
> even situations in which written English is sufficient as a medium for
> recording linguistic data about spoken English.
>
> So my question (for experienced SignWriters) is, how good or bad is
> SignWriting as a tool for linguistic study? Where does it excel? Where
> does it fall short? Can people who use it interpret it accurately in a
> reliable way?
>
> Forgive me if this is not the appropriate forum in which to open such
> a discussion, or if my questions seem ill-informed. Any input
> (off-list or on-list) from people who use SignWriting on a regular
> basis would be enlightening and greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Drew Pidkameny
> Northeastern University
> pidkameny at gmail.com
>
> P.S. - Incidentally, I found that it was not too difficult for me to
> learn to read SignWriting representations of ASL using only my
> knowledge of signed ASL as a guide (and Goldilocks and the Three Bears
> as a Rosetta Stone). I'm sure learning to properly write ASL using
> SignWriting would be considerably more difficult, but probably not
> that much more so than learning to write in English when you already
> know how to speak it. I was also impressed by the fact that
> SignWriting seemed about as good at representing classifiers as it was
> at representing signs. I am worried, however, about jumping to
> conclusions regarding SignWriting's utility based on my own very
> limited experience with the system.
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