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

Tue Dec 7 17:11:22 UTC 2004

I'm a bit confused then.  Of your three png examples, the middle would be the closest.  The body is shifted to one side (therefore the head) but the hands are the opposite side.  The middle drawing "feels" closer than the first drawing.

Charles

Stephen Slevinski <slevinski at signwriting.org> wrote:
Hi Charles,

You may disagree with me, but you're not talking about lanes.  The head and the hands are always in the same lane.  You can have the hands to the left, right, extreme left or extreme right, but they are always in the same lane as the head.  By definition, the whole body is always in the same lane.

View this online documents for the specifics.
http://www.signwriting.org/lessons/grammar/vertical/vert002.html

Talking pure mechanics, verticle writing centers the signs based on the head.  Without lanes, the head is always centered in the middle.  When you add lanes, you can put the head off center to the left or right.  Putting the head to the left will move the entire sign.  (The hands move with the head, because the sign is centered by the head).

Your example for Carmen Miranda is written horizontal.  See attached for additional ways to write it vertically with lanes.  There are three columns, each column has a head placement in the center lane for reference.  The first column has all signs in the middle lane.  The second and third columns use lanes.  Which column is the correct way to write Carmen Miranda vertically?

-Stephen
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu [mailto:owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu]On Behalf Of Charles Butler
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 9:19 AM
To: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
Subject: RE: [sw-l] left-handed or right-handed?

I would disagree with you Stephen.

When I'm signing about people on opposite sides, my head goes one way and my body shifts the other.  Sometimes the shoulders and the hips move in different directions.  The eyes focus on something to the left but my body has shifted to the right.  Here is the Brazilian sign for Carmen Miranda, for example.

There are two lanes here, the head and the hands.  I could have been more extreme and shown the hips in a third lane to the opposite side of the hands.

If I were to try to show a long narrative, the head could stay in the center, the body shifting to  one side or the other

Stephen Slevinski <slevinski at signwriting.org> wrote:
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 t! han 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

> ATTACHMENT part 2 image/png name=Carmen-Miranda.png

> ATTACHMENT part 3 application/octet-stream name=Carmen-Miranda.swml
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