[sw-l] SignWriting Report with Ingvild Roald from Norway ;- )

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
March 12, 2005

Hello Everyone on the SignWriting List!
Ingvild Roald left last night. It was a pleasure to have her here! I
read Ingvild's new book on SignWriting, which is still being
developed...And we also read SignWriting documents together...For
example, Ingvild wrote a Norwegian short story from video, that was
signed by a Deaf Norwegian woman...I saw the video and then we
discussed Ingvild's transcription of this charming little story about a
woman taking her dog for a walk in the park, and the dog sees a cat,
and the cat gets upset and then the dog tries to catch the cat, and the
woman holding the leash of the dog, has her arm pulled because the dog
wanted to run while she was still holding the dog-leash....it had quite
a bit of mime and gesture, and the cat had one handshape all the time
(a bent-five hand), and the dog had another handshape representing him
(a tight fist), and the woman had another handshape representing
her...the handshape that holds the leash...so each sentence in
SignWriting was easy to read, because you could recognize which
character was doing the movement, by the handshape used...Video
transcription is an art as well as a science, and there are many
different methods you can use...It is not always necessary to write all
the details...because a simplified transcription can be just as good,
if that is what your readers need...Val ;-)