Mundbilder, Mouth writing, vertical columns

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
August 21, 2003

Stefan Woehrmann wrote:
> sometime people lift their hand more or less - therefore the two 
> different handpositions (parallel to the floor, parallel to the wall) 
> , you notice that I use Mundbilder to support the reader to identiy 
> the exact term that I have in mind - "Geld" is a typical example that 
> there are not two many guesses possible at least in DGS  (money 
> (Geld), how much?, ..) Nevertheless it is up to future experiences how 
> much we will/should include Mundbilder.


Dear SW List members, and Stefan...
I think you are right, Stefan, that some mouth movements could help 
people differentiate between signs, if they are not reading complete 
sign-sentences for context. That is an interesting reason for writing 
mouth movements...to clarify what the meaning is of a sign is, for 
those signs that have multiple meanings in a dictionary...

I have also been criticized for writing too many facial expressions. 
Some linguists prefer to only write a few, and not to clutter the 
writing...but my feeling is that since we always have our heads on our 
shoulders when we sign anyway, we might as well write the body as it 
looks while we sign...even if a facial expression is repeated from one 
sign to the next, what does that matter, since we see it repeated in 
real life anyway?...

And there is also another reason that repeated facial expressions have 
value...when writing down in columns, the circular head symbol anchors 
the "center of the body", so that you can see the comparison of the 
hands going to the right or the left of the center of the body...so 
when writing down in columns the facial circle actually gives us a way 
to eliminate shoulder lines at times...If anyone is interested in 
seeing what I mean, I can do a diagram to show you...

So your MundbildSchrift, Stefan, can also serve as an anchor for the 
center of vertical writing...;-)

Val ;-)




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