[sw-l] left-handed or right-handed?

[Stephen Slevinski]

Writing in lanes is about body shifting.  When the body shifts to the left
or right, the head shifts.  Everything is centered around the head.  The
whole body shifts, so the whole signs is contained in one lane at a time.

Imaging a person sitting in a chair. If that person was discussing the
functions of the right-brain versus the left-brain, they may use body
shifting to identify what they are discussing.  They could shift to the left
and sign: sequential, rules, logical.  They could then shift to the right
and sign: simultaneous, open-ended, intuitive.  When transcribing this
signed presentation, lanes would be used to illustrate that the signer's
body shifted back and forth.  This is a great aid to reading, because it
becomes very obvious what the signer is talking about based on the lane.

People have asked if it is possible to have more than one lane on each side.
It may be possible to have two lanes on each side, but any more than that
and the signer would loose their balance (and fall off their chair if
sitting).

-Stephen

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
[mailto:owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu]On Behalf Of Sandy Fleming
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 3:40 AM
To: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
Subject: RE: [sw-l] left-handed or right-handed?


Me again!

> So meanwhile, there is this new program SignText which is the first in
> history to create Sign-Lanes...so you can place a sign to the right or
> left by saying which Sign-Lane it belongs in...This is a wonderful step
> forward...but...we will need both right and left handed signs for
> writing in the Sign Lanes, because the right and left handed signs
> interchange sometimes, because of grammer issues...
>
> Val ;-)

I had a niggling doubt about the lanes facility in SignText when it was
origanlly explained. As you say, you can place a _sign_ to the right or to
the left, but this isn't enough, is it?

Often the hands and the head are in different lanes - is this going to be
incorporated into the program? The origianl SWML that we saw just had one
element to say which lane the sign is in. At the very least we need two lane
elements, one to say which lane the head is in, and one to saw which lane
the hands are in.

Sandy