Sign Proccessing Software

[Charles Butler]

Dear Louis-Felix, SW list, and other linguists.

I appreciate you bringing up the French translations of "text processors" as an example of where technology might get in the way of mutual understanding when a single term will do for both signed and spoken languages.

However, when I speak of spoken languages I use phonemes for the smallest recognizable unit of an utterance, for signed languages I use chereme because the parsing of the language is so different.  For speech it is only sounds that occur, for signs the entire body may be involved and the division of those articulations, in SW or in Hamnosys is different.

For the word "hello" in English there are four phonemes "h" + "e" + "l" = "o".  The "o" may be a diphthong depending on the dialect.  The same ASL sign is four cheremes, "the facial contact point," "the hand on edge", "the hand held at an angle"  and "the movement forward."  There is no way that I could call any of these signed parsings  "phonemes" though both sets could be called "morphemes" as "units of meaning."

The science of one is phonetics, the science of the other cheremics.  Related, but not the same terminology.   We will need to work through our common languages until we find analogous terms that are not confusing for "sign processing" , "sign editing" , and other terms.

Valerie Sutton <sutton at SIGNWRITING.ORG> wrote:
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-F }_ ix 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
>
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