Cat-in-Hat: Eyegaze of a Narrator

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
November 16, 2007

Cherie Wren wrote:
> Now here's the question:  Look at the head movement in that clip.   
> How much of it needs to be written?  here is what I had written for  
> that segment: I was not sure that I had the movement written  
> correctly, then on reexamining ithe video, I was not sure how much  
> needed to be there.  but I am looking at the door, and the cat  
> coming in, and back to the audience several times in that very  
> short sequence.  This is something I struggle with on a regular  
> basis.  How much detail is too much, how much is necessary?  I am  
> trying to tease out the required grammatical bits, which seems to  
> be becoming a game of  "why did I sign it that way?"


Hello Cherie -
There is so much to be discussed just in this one video clip, I think  
an entire college course could be established just discussing the  
grammar and writing issues in this one segment!

And there are several symbols that I feel should be added to the ISWA  
to give you the tools you really need to write this well, so you are  
working with a symbolset that is around 90 per cent there, but not  
all there, and so that is an added hardship that in time will be  
resolved...mostly size of movement symbols and body twisting choices...

This is a very hard document and quite wonderful....congrats on all  
this, Cherie...

I learn something every time we write a document, and the writing  
system really benefits from all our insights...especially when  
writing storytelling, which is so detailed, or at least can be, if we  
choose to write it that way ;-))

And there will always be several ways to write something too...which  
is true in English and other languages as well...

OK...now...relating to the corner and then to the audience...

By the way, the side view idea I had when I first saw the video was  
not right...when I started to write it myself I decided you were  
absolutely correct to keep it the back of the hands from the signers  
perspective for the sign for door...just seems easier to read for  
some reason, mainly because we are used to seeing the sign for door  
written with the backs of the hand...

So if we are going to write facing the corner, then the shoulders are  
needed at a slant. The Twisting arrow is one way to write that, but  
there is another way too, and that is not in the ISWA yet...

So working with the symbols we have, take a look at the attached  
diagram...my writing is the second column...the top figure in the  
second column is looking forward while twisted to the corner, but the  
second sign then remains facing the same corner, but the narrator  
turns the head to the audience and the eyegaze to the audience as  
well...

The eyegaze and head turning is also on a diagonal in this case,  
because the upper body is on a diagonal too...so the eyegaze is going  
to the opposite corner from the twisted shoulders, which brings the  
eyegaze ends up directly to the audience (front wall)...The double- 
stemmed arrow on top of the second head means the nose turns in that  
direction. There are other symbols not in the iSWA that could be used  
for this, and I will consider putting them in...but one idea is not  
to show the turn of the head at all, but just use eyegaze to get the  
feeling of the narrator...and just the writing of the eyegaze might  
be enough for the reader to know that you are looking at the  
audience...I will leave some of these thoughts for you to think  
about...reading eyegaze can be quite powerful....

By the way, in the first sign, if you place the fingers directly on  
the face, the touch star isn't really necessary...that is a form of  
simplifying the writing...and it seems to me the palm facing was in  
to the face for the sign for see...but the video was so fast....I may  
be wrong...

I am on another job this weekend...I hope to focus on Cat in the Hat  
starting next week until we post it in January, 2008...

Have a wonderful weekend everyone -

Val ;-)





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