[sw-l] Dissertation by Sarah Pearson

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
October 22, 2004

Dear SW List, Sarah and Trevor!
Thank you for this information, Trevor...In just skimming some of the
previous messages about handwriting and simplification of writing...I
noticed that Dan Parvaz mentioned another system developed by Don
Newkirk...So let me expound for two minutes...;-)

The reason I believe that SignWriting has a good chance of becoming the
written form for signed languages around the world, is the very fact
that it is visually connected to the way signs look....both the Stokoe
system and Don Newkirk's system do not portray the pictorial nature of
signs...and that is where I feel SignWriting has strength...even if it
is simplified over time, and I am sure it will be, it started with that
visual component, and that is why people can get started using
it...because it connects with the visual nature of signed
languages...that is why Trevor is able to follow along, even if he has
not studied SignWriting deeply.

Sarah, I know you are comparing SignWriting to the more-abstract Stokoe
system, so you might mention that the visual nature of SignWriting adds
sophistication to writing the nuances of the hundreds of signed
languages in the world...The Stokoe system was not developed for that
purpose. Years ago, people used to criticize stick figures or visual
writing systems as "not sophisticated"...but actually I believe the
visual writing systems are VERY sophisticated...and in the case of
writing signed languages...the visual qualities are not only
sophisticated, they are essential to capturing the beauty and depth of
the signed languages...When people criticized the visual nature of
SignWriting in the past, it was oftentimes connected to the fact that
it would be a lot of work to develop a way to type the visual
qualities, where the abstract systems, like Stokoe, or Don Newkirk's
writing system, were easier to develop computer programs for...

In SignWriting history, we refused to let computers hinder our visual
writing system, which we were using long before the use of personal
computers...Today, there are so many computer programs for SignWriting,
that in my Year-End Report for 2004, I went 6 pages listing programs
that got started in 2004...and finally at the end of the Report, I had
to thank all the other programmers that were not mentioned in the
report! So computers are no longer an argument against visual writing
systems...in fact, the visual writing systems are the challenge that
many computer programmers enjoy...

Want to read more? Go to:

SignWriting Linguistics Forum
http://www.SignWriting.org/forums/linguistics

SignWriting Software Forum
http://www.SignWriting.org/forums/software

I hope this has helped, Sarah! And thank you, Trevor, for responding
too...It was good to hear from you...

Val ;-)

--------------------


On Oct 22, 2004, at 10:17 AM, Trevor Jenkins wrote:

> On Fri, 22 Oct 2004, Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org> forwarded
> to
> SignWriting List the following:
>
>> On Oct 14, 2004, at 8:13 AM, Sarah Louise Pearson wrote:
>>> I feel i may have emailed you before but am not sure! I am a student
>>> at
>>> Central Lancashire university in the UK, doing my final Year in Deaf
>>> studies, i am doing my dissertation on the stokoe sign notation
>>> system
>>> and your notation system,
>
> I'm a 2nd year student at Middlesex University on their new Deaf
> Studies
> degree programme, which is run in collaboration with City Lit's Centre
> for Deaf People. As part of my Introduction to BSL Level 3 module last
> year I did a little comparison of Stokoe and SignWriting in an essay.
> Preparation for which included creating a glossary of IT terms using
> Stokoe notation as coursework for another module. For a short while I
> was
> very good at parsing those funny Stokoe squiggles but without constant
> exposure that knowledge has completely evaporated whereas I can follow
> the
> gist of written SignWriting even though I've not completed Valerie's
> training materials.
>
> Regards, Trevor
>
> <>< Re: deemed!
>
>