Terminology "swim lanes"

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
June 18, 2004

Bill Reese wrote:
> The poetic nature of columnar sign writing does not change with such a
> concept.  That would still hold true.  It's simply that the concept of
> a couple "lanes" seems to restrict the descriptive spaces available in
> a sign.


Thanks for this comment, Bill...Writing in columns is meant to be good
for the language, not to restrict it...So if more lanes are needed, we
could add them...all ten positions marking ten people can be written
but actually that may have little to do with body shifting...Those ten
positions will not necessarily create more lanes from side to side,
because some of them might be in front, not just to the side...The
Lanes are not representing how far the arm can reach to the side...they
are representing how far the body shifts to the left or right, when
comparing a group on the right or a group on the left...So how many
degrees of body shifting do we do from left to right? I remember
noticing that there probably are two shifts possible on each side of
center...but probably not more, without falling off your chair! Anyway,
I want to thank you all for putting up with all my postings...I have
been holding all this inside for so long, and it is a relief to explain
it to someone!  Val ;-)


On Jun 18, 2004, at 4:29 PM, Bill Reese wrote:

> I was wondering how you expand upon the concept to include more than 2
> or 3 people.  Let's say you have two people on the left and a person
> on the right.  How would you distinguish between the two people on the
> left?  When I sign, I would show a small separation between them.
> Conceivably, I could be talking about 10 different people and giving
> each their own descriptive space.  Is it possible, then, to have 10
> separate positions in vertical column layouts?  Additionally, these 10
> separate places in space could have vertical components - for
> instance, if one of the people were on a mountain, or a ladder.  This,
> then would require horizontal "lanes" in a sign, whether it's written
> horizontal or vertical.  The interesection of vertical and horizontal
> "lanes" then becomes a set of areas more dependent on the centroid of
> the signing space rather than the orientation of the signs to one
> another.
>
> The poetic nature of columnar sign writing does not change with such a
> concept.  That would still hold true.  It's simply that the concept of
> a couple "lanes" seems to restrict the descriptive spaces available in
> a sign.
>
> Bill
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Charles Butler <chazzer3332000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Date: Friday, June 18, 2004 12:22 pm
> Subject: Re: Terminology "swim lanes"
>
>> On terminology:
>>
>> I like "swim lanes".  A keystroke, like a breast-stroke" goes into
>> a proper motion lane.  It implies motion and dance.  Definitely
>> keep the "lanes", how about "motion lanes", people understand
>> keeping in a lane of traffic.  Sign lane would definitely work but
>> motion lane helps people understand why SW is written vertically.
>>
>> So, for example,
>>
>> "Always keep your signwriting properly centered in the motion
>> lane, moving outward from the center line.  In this way you can
>> show relative locations, particularly when placing classifier
>> markers, as in showing several people in conversation or setting
>> up a description space (like putting up bookshelves)."
>>
>> Charles
>>
>>
>> Valerie Sutton <sutton at SIGNWRITING.ORG> wrote:
>> SignWriting List
>> June 18, 2004
>>
>> Stephen Slevinski wrote:
>>> I thought I would play a bit with the PUDL site and try to implement
>>> gloss
>>> translation with swim lanes. My dictionary still doesn't center the
>>> head in
>>> the middle of the swim lanes, but my next dictionary will.
>>
>>
>> Smile...Shall we establish some new terminology? Let's not call them
>> swim lanes...What about Sign Lanes (grin) or SW Lanes or Width Lanes,
>> or Spatial Comparison Lanes....you can see how new terminology gets
>> re-defined daily!
>>
>>> So attached is the translation of "there_2 your >dog."
>>
>> OK. Let me re-write this, by typing it in SignWriter Java, showing you
>> how I would do that...keystrokes and all!....
>>
>> Here is Stephen's example and mine will be coming next...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> ATTACHMENT part 2 image/gif x-unix-mode=0644; name=example.GIF
>>
>