SignSpelling Guidelines for multiple positions...

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
June 21, 2004

Sandy Fleming wrote:
> Is it acceptable in writing, when showing a repeated movement, to just
> draw
> as many handshapes as required? Or is this sort of thing not normal in
> sign
> languages?
>
> The Spelling Guide suggests that signs should be written as 3
> syllables, or
> 4 at most, whereas this could be said to have seven or eight. Is that
> OK?


Yes. It is acceptable to write as many positions as you want...It is
more for children and beginners...It does not require as much knowledge
of movement symbols, but takes up an awfully lot of space at times...so
you have to gear your writing to your audience...

In the SignSpelling Guidelines (see attached), I was referring to the
norm...Most people don't write multiple positions like this so I wasn't
thinking in those terms...I never broke down a series of positions into
syllables in my own mind before...I guess they would be all one
syllable, and the spelling for that sign would be all the handshapes in
the sequence they occur...

Usually the beginning handshapes are the first syllable, and the
movement symbols the second syllable...But in the above instance, there
would no movement symbols...just a series of handshapes...There are
some rare signs that have no hands at all, but one facial expression,
so that is an exception too! Val ;-)





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