Sign Proccessing Software

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
June 17, 2004

Dear SW List, and Louis-Felix!
Thanks for this message, and it was interesting reading for me...As you 
know, I am not a linguist, and although I did start SignWriting at the 
University of Copenhagen, because researchers asked me to write some 
Danish signs (and some hearing persons' gestures)....even so....after 
that...I worked directly with Deaf people. There were 10 Deaf people 
who worked as Sign Language reporters for the SignWriter Newspaper, and 
wrote their articles directly in SignWriting in ASL, without any spoken 
language...no translations from spoken language to signed 
languages...instead the translations were reversed and the spoken 
language came after the signed language articles were written...After 
that, more and more Deaf people became involved and in 1988, Lucinda 
O'Grady Batch suggested starting a Deaf Action Committee for 
SignWriting, the DAC...and that had a profound influence on the writing 
system...

You probably wonder why I am rambling on like this about Deaf 
influence, and not linguistic-research influences...but there is a 
reason...Reading what you say below, and following the linguistics 
terminology that all units of languages are called words...which is 
logical, I can see that....this would mean that the name Sign Language, 
would have to be changed to Word Language, and the term SignWriting 
would have to be changed to WordWriting...and would deaf people really 
recognize that we are talking about signed languages, when we say Word 
Language? No...I don't think so! And if we call SignWriter DOS a word 
processor..that is only ok as long as you say: .....word processor for 
signed languages...if you don't add that information, they will think 
you are talking about English or French...so I was just using the term 
Sign, as the unit of Sign Languages...and for the everyday person who 
signs, I don't think that is illogical at all! it is faster, and less 
dependent on the spoken language terminology...

Recently there are more and more linguists using SignWriting in their 
research, and so now, as the everday world of writing, and the detailed 
analysis of researchers combine, there may be more terminology 
confusion...but in time, as you say, it will work its way out...

And ironically, in the past, I was criticized for calling SignWriting 
text...it is, and you are right, but computer programmers did not treat 
it as text - it was only text inside the SignWriter environment, and 
when it left SGN or DIC or DIN files, and was used in other computer 
programs, it was considered graphics, not text...so there is an example 
of how terminology is different, depending on the profession that uses 
it...

Val ;-)





On Jun 17, 2004, at 6:06 AM, Louis-Félix Bergeron wrote:

> I'm glad that we don't have that "word processor" terminology problem 
> in
> french.
>
> We call it "text processor" (traitement de texte)... And a text is a 
> text,
> either it is written in spoken language or in sign language.
>
> For the word definition, I think "word" is generally considered as a
> structure level in linguistics. Like the structure levels in chemistry
> (quark, electrons-protons-neutrons, atoms, molecules, etc.), language 
> has
> its structure levels too (phonologic features, phonemes, syllables,
> morphemes, words, phrase, sentence, etc.). Even if some level names 
> were
> created for spoken language structure levels, I don't think it is 
> really
> useful to have different names for sign language structure levels, just
> because some names (like phonemes, for example) could include a "sound
> related" meaning. And it doesn't seem useful for me especially when we 
> are
> talking about writing.
>
> But maybe we are rushing things... Terminology have been gradually 
> designed
> with years of reflexion, usage and convention. As it has been said in 
> this
> list, written forms for spoken language and relfexion on spoken 
> languages
> have centuries of history. Sign language research and written forms for
> sign language have a history of just only very few decades... Even if 
> we
> try to have the best terminology, usage and time will make their way. 
> And
> this way may be different that what we wish it could be.
>
> Louis-Felix
>