AW: [sw-l] Mouth Patterns

Sun Sep 21 22:29:02 UTC 2008

Hi Stefan,

Yes I NEED to add some information about what the mouth is doing while the
signer is signing at the same time. My first thesis actually took a look
at this subject - spoken mouth patterns in Maltese Sign Language (LSM).

To summarize quite drastically what happens: The Maltese Deaf add spoken
words to a lot of what they sign. (Not all of it - for example they don't
speak when they sign classifiers handshapes and their movements).

So there are mouth patterns that correspond to the words (or close to the
words) in the language. However these are not always minimally
significant. Therefore if someone signs MAMA' (mummy) and at the same time
produces the mouth pattern 'mama' - the mouth pattern is actually
redundant - and in these cases I do not need to signwrite the mouth
pattern, because the signwriting for MAMA' can be read without the mouth
pattern.

The problem occurs when the mouth pattern is the only visual clue that
disambiguates two identical signs. For example in LSM (Maltese SL) there
are two signs FENEK (RABBIT) and KELB (DOG) which are practically the same
except for the mouth pattern. In these cases I add the 'F' mouthpattern
and the 'L' mouth pattern to disambiguate these two otherwise identical
signwritten words.

However there are even more complicated examples where I need more that
one mouth-pattern, one example at hand is this:
There are two identical signs IZRAEL (Israel) and NAGHGA (SHEEP) - the
only disambiguater is the mouth pattern that corresponds to the spoken
word - in these cases I need at least two mouth pattern symbols per word
produced, i.e 'I-L' for Izrael and 'N-DJ' for Naghaga. This is actually
where I am stuck at the moment!

I think I can begin to see some of the problems you must have been faced
with! You HAD to come up with two different systems because the Deaf
usually use 'exaggerated/more defined' mouth patterns. e.g Hearing people
when speaking would not place their teeth on the lower lip when saying
'Fenek', however the Deaf usually do so in order to make the 'F' clearer.
Perhaps illustrations/photos accompanying the Mundbilder would really
clarify any confusions?

So for what I am signwriting I only need the Mundbilder and Mimic
mouthgestures which aren't discussed here, for both of these seem to be
present in LSM.

What you sent me helps to clarify all the Mundbildscrift movements -
because you have the International Phonetic Alphabet (Lautschrift) there -
so it's good because anyone can decipher the exact movements depicted in
the signwriting.  However I have a slight problem with the Mundbilder
because the Graphem is not clear enough for me (or anyone else who knows
no German) because I don't know how to produce these Graphems...What could
be done to improve this? :))

This is amazing work! I'm very sure that the Mundbildscrift is helping the
Deaf learn German, and the Mundbilder is great for Sign languages that use
a lot of 'spoken' words as part of the signs, such as Maltese Sign
Language.

Thanks again Stefan,

Maria

> Hello Maria,
>
> so you would like to add informattion about what the mouth is doing while
> the signer is moving his hands at the same time --smile.
>
> If you look up the terms "Mundbilder in der GebaerdenSchrift" and
> "woehrmann`s Speechwriting" you will understand that there are two
> different
> notation systems which are not to be mixed up.
>
>
> I guess you are not interested to find signwriting mouth pattern that goes
> along with a phonetic impression - since this information cannot be seen
> by
> deaf partners.
>
> So I decided to define a class of mouthsymbols to represent given
> mouthmovements that can be seen, while the signer is moving his lips as if
> articulating (without sound) a given word (or part of it) of the spoken
> language (in my case German -- in your case italien or french or spanish
> ???)
>
> So it would make sense to find some kind of international agreement -
>
> Do you know about the German Handbuch der GebärdenSchrift?  I discussed
> this
> topic in detail ... but for first information the following link may be
> helpfull:
>
> On this page you find two different tables as download options
>
> http://www.gebaerden.de/produkte.html
>
> 1) Mundbilder (direkter Download) (  mouthmovements in SignWriting - not
> sound based!)
>
> and
>
> 2) Mundbildschrift (direkter Download)   (Woehrmann`s SpeechWriting) each
> sound of German spoken language goes along with one and only one symbol
>
>
>
> In the past we have had some debate about this issue -- smile --
>
> I am interested to hear from you. Do you think that in your given
> SignLanguage mouthmovements are a part of the whole sign ...or at least in
> some percentage of the signs?
>
> In addition to that of course we use mimic and mouthgestures as well --
> but
> that is not discussed here.
>
> All the very best
>
> Stefan ;-)
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: sw-l-bounces at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> [mailto:sw-l-bounces at majordomo.valenciacc.edu] Im Auftrag von MARIA
> AZZOPARDI
> Gesendet: Sonntag, 21. September 2008 15:12
> An: SignWriting List
> Betreff: [sw-l] Mouth Patterns
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to figure out the exact mouth patterns for the signwriting
> symbols.
>
> Is there by any chance a list of the signwriting mouth patterns with the
> corresponding phonetic alphabet (IPA) letters that match the signwriting
> symbols? Or perhaps photos/illustrations of the mouth patterns produced by
> the signer with the correspoinding signwriting symbols?
>
> Many thanks,
> Maria
>
>
>
>
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