Dictionaries: signs, heads, and facial expressions

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
June 19. 2004

Dear SW List - What great messages...My Dad just flew back to
Florida...He visited here for two weeks...very nice to see him again.
So I am back online and I look forward to answering all your messages!

Starting with the last message first...smile...

Stephen Slevinski wrote:
> With sign language, would it be valid to divide the various signs into
> 4
> categories?
>
> Facial expressions: www.pudl.info/dict/asl/happily.gif
> Signs that need facial expressions: www.pudl.info/dict/asl/who.gif
> Signs that need heads: www.pudl.info/dict/asl/deaf.gif
> Signs that do not need heads: www.pudl.info/dict/asl/sign.gif


Gosh, Stpehen, I am sure this can be pinned down for programming
purposes in time, but this is quite complex, because we can write very
detailed or very simply. And every signed language may have different
facial expressions that are important. That is why typing directly in
the visual symbols means so much to me, and why other methods, such as
pasting signs from a dictionary, or using glosses, fails in comparison.
When we type we can choose a myriad of facial expressions and combine
those facial expressions as well...

For example, if you are writing vocabulary lists of signs, you would
not need facial expressions for every sign, because the signs are not
being used in sentences...And in simple sentences, there would not be
that many facial expressions perhaps. But the moment you are writing
Deaf storytelling, transcribing from video, for example, suddenly there
are facial expressions on many signs, and it varies widely. In the next
message I will show you pages from a Goldilocks document that I
transcribed from videotape, from a Deaf native signer telling the
story...to see how many facial expressions I chose to write...but if
another scribe wrote the same videotape, they might see other details,
or choose to write other things.... We all have our own particular
style of writing...so that is another issue....Even though SignWriting
is 30 years old, it is really a new writing system, and we are not as
standardized in our writing..so maybe through computer programming we
can encourage more standardization...just as long as the beauty of the
writing system is maintained...Anyway, because we can type every facial
expression at will, with SignWriter, the pasting-signs-to-create
sentences method lacks the ability to type symbols when we need
them...but I bet this can be solved in time...

So let me start showing you pages and pages of written SignWriting
text, transcribed from different Deaf storytelling videos...in several
languages...I have some documents like that, and so does Stefan, and so
does GS-Media, in German-Swiss Sign Language, and I believe there are
some from Norway and Brazil...and I bet more countries too...so I will
start with an Intermediate Level transcription that I did of Darline
Clark Gunsauls in ASL... I will try to make a PDF for you tonight, but
for now, take a look at the next message...I will attach a document for
you to study....Val ;-)