writing multi-party conversation

[eghoffma at UMICH.EDU]

Hi - I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience writing 
multi-party conversations with SSW. I'm working on linguistic 
transcripts of naturally occuring conversation/interviews/etc in Nepali 
Sign Language. I've only done transcripts of single signers so far, to 
get used to Signwriting. Now I want to start doing these multiparty 
interactions. Does anyone have any tips about this? I figure that I 
will have each party's signing going down side-by-side vertical strips 
(which is nice because I can visually represent overlap and all that). 
I am writing from the receptive point of view for these transcripts as 
that seems more suited to what I am working on here (though I agree 
that expressive makes more sense for personal writing). In most of 
these conversations the signers are facing one another (and are 
therefore at 3/4 to the camera). Does it make any sense to represent 
the way that looks in the sign writing or does it make more sense to 
write the signs as if the signers were directly facing the camera? 
Also, I have a lot of home signers in my data, who often incorporate 
the physical environment in their communication (reaching out to 
physically manipulate objects, trace on table tops, etc). I don't 
suppose sign writing has any means of representing contact with 
external physical objects? If not I can always describe these actions 
along with the glosses. I think most of these questions will work 
themselves out as I keep working, but I thought I'd throw some of these 
questions out there so I won't reinvent the wheel if someone has 
already worked through all this.
Best,
Erika

Quoting Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org>:

> SignWriting List
> August 1, 2006
>
> On Jul 20, 2006, Kimberley Shaw wrote:
>> I've attached a picture of the first run of "ASL Story Book" as it  
>> was being assembled! The first 20 copies are spoken for already,  
>> leaving 30 up for sale to whomever ...Best, Kim
>
> --------------
>
> Hello Kim!
> This is very exciting. The ASL Anthology looks great. I can see  
> several stories I know. Congrats!
>
> Look forward to hearing about your time at Gallaudet this summer -
>
> And thanks for this photo of the ASL Anthology while it was being put 
>  together...what fun ;-)
>
>
> ?
>
>