Writing mouthing of words with SSW

AdamFrost icemandeaf at HOTMAIL.COM
Sun Feb 26 17:23:53 UTC 2006


Val,
You explained it beautifully. And those two ways that you showed are call sandwiching (sign with fingerspelling) and expansion technices of ASL. The latter is used among Deaf to Deaf conversation more often than the first since English is not considered very important to ASL. Sandwiching is used when the English word is important (like for education if Deaf to Deaf).
My expansion might be a little more, depending on the Deaf and how much the idea is important. For example, I might go into the idea that a ship is large and metal and usually used by the navy, and a boat is smaller and usually made of wood. Or it might be bar none to where I just sign BOAT for both if it isn't at all important.
However, what would be more important is this example "The ship is blue. The boat is white." in ASL would be the comparision. Ship (or BOAT as it might just be signed) would be placed on one side, discribed as blue (and anything else needed) and boat would be placed on the other side of the signer and discribed as white.
Sefan, there is a time where there is mouthing, but that is with transliteration (a branch off of Interpreting) which is English to Conceptually Acurreate Signed English (CASE). This is where it would be signed BOAT BLUE. BOAT WHITE. while mouthing The ship is blue. The boat is white. This would be the perfect time to write the mouthing if this was to be written. But this is not ASL, this is a form of interpreting. So even though ASL does not use mouthing as far as representing the English words, I am glad that the IWMA has a way for it so that if someone needs to they can.
Adam
-----Original Message-----
From: "Valerie Sutton" <sutton at signwriting.org>
Date: 02/26/06 07:58 AM
To: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
Subject: [sw-l] Writing mouthing of words with SSW

SignWriting List
February 26, 2006

Stefan Wöhrmann wrote:
> With my pre-knowledge of German Language and German Sign Language I  
> can make
> different observations /interpretations of what is being performed.
>
> Since this voiceless mouthing is a part of some  SL performances  
> (smile)
> in some SL of the world it should be important to find a way to  
> document
> these information.

Absolutely - you are right! Especially in Europe, where mouthing is  
used a lot...The key here is SOME sign languages...not all of them...


>
> Without knowing the spoken language of that given country it might be
> difficult or even impossible to capture the important aspects of this
> performance.

Yes. it relates to a signer who is using, or at least thinking of,  
some words from a spoken language...

It would be interesting to see a video of native DGS signers signing  
to each other without any hearing person in the room, to see if the  
same mouthing occurs...they might use classifiers too...that would be  
an interesting study...


>
> But as an informed observer there is now a possibility to provide  
> at least
> that bit of information that allows the reader to understand the  
> written
> document without any doubts.

Sure...for those who are writing a language that uses mouthing for  
meaning...absolutely...

>
>
> If you compare the SW spelling for ship and boat in the US - puddle  
> - you
> find no difference.
>
> If a teacher with ASL background wants his/her students to
> translate/understand the two sentences  -
>
> The ship is blue. The boat is white.
>
> What would they write? How do they know that the nouns are different?

They would write classifiers to describe the boat and the ship, not  
related to any English word...The actual English word has nothing to  
do with the concept...the concept is a large boat and smaller boat  
and those are described with classifiers...read below...



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