What's the deal with SignWriting?

[K.J. Boal]

As far as I know, SSW is the best linguistic transcription tool available for signed languages (not just ASL) because of its versatility in representing classifiers, facial expressions and body positions/movements, all of which are important to signed languages.  I have been using SW for about two years now; I was reading it the first day I looked at it and writing it shortly afterwards, so I certainly find it intuitive!  I am hearing, but I'm also basically a native signer since my older brother is Deaf and I could sign before I could speak; and I'm also a visual learner (I can't remember a word if I can't spell it in my head), so those two factors probably make the most difference in how quickly and easily I picked it up.
 
I ran into the same attitude as you have, Drew, when I started mentioning SW around the Deaf; but I agree with others who have responded, that they mostly react out of fear of the new/unknown and have not taken the trouble to actually learn it.
 
KJ
> Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:51:12 -0500> From: pidkameny at gmail.com> To: slling-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu> Subject: [SLLING-L] What's the deal with SignWriting?> > 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.> _______________________________________________> SLLING-L mailing list> SLLING-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu> http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l> 
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