What's the deal with SignWriting?

Tue Jan 13 10:32:28 UTC 2009

Hoi,
I think you are wrong where you state that "writing is always the second
code". As I write this e-mail, my language is arguably very different from
my spoken language and I revisit the text to improve the structure of my
argument. The Chinese writing system is used by people speaking several
distinct languages and where these people can only communicate through their
writings.

When you look at transcription of a spoken text, interjections like "eh" are
often left out . When you read minutes of a meeting, you will find that
typically that only the essence of a conversation is written down. When you
have a need for a scientific transcrition, you will find that there is no
transcription method that captures EVERYTHING that can be seen in real life.
Arguably even a video recording does not do justice because it is more
focussed and is often taken from a wrong angle to capture important
occurrences at the time to the person(s) expressing language.

SignWriting is about writing language. This means that its usage is similar
to the usage for any other written expressionn.. SignWriting is arguably
superior to several other transcription methods for sign languages as it can
be expanded with a writing system for body movements.

SignWriting was not developed to annotate a signing conversation in a
scientific manner. It was developed to bring the gift of writing, of native
literature to the signing worlds. It can be used in scientific annotation as
much as any other transcription method and it can be integrated in
scientific annotations (for instance in combination with time markers or
annotations).
Thanks,
     Gerard

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

> Dear Gerard,
>
> I did not want to devaluate written sources at all! What I wanted to say,
> was just this: If you have real spoken/signed productions (the recordings of
> which do not reach very far back into the past), take them for linguistic
> analysis. If you don't have them, pray that you have written sources because
> having written sources is much better than to have none (cf. the unwritten
> American Indian languages).
>
> What I meant with "writing is always the second code" is that this writing
> never can replace direct info from the spoken/signed code. And writing is
> ALWAYS derived from speaking/signing; therefore I hold my statement, that
> writing is always a derived (second) code (that does not deny that it may be
> enormously helpful if we have no other sources). Think about the fact that
> e.g. early examples of written language mostly have a ritual/"official"
> background and cannot really show us the everyday conversation of the
> people.
>
> I also don't want to be understood as to oppose the use of SignWriting. The
> contrary is the case: maybe som on the list remember the discussion
> concerning the importance for any language of having a writing system. But
> to use SignWriting for linguistic analysis alone despite having actually
> signed productions would not be adequate. For several research questions
> (e.g. comparing sgns of different languages for a first time or for some
> questions of e.g. syntactic ordering) info coming from SignWriting may be
> very useful.
>
> Best Regards
>
> Franz
>
> >>> "Gerard Meijssen" <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> 01/13/09 9:54  >>>
> 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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