AW: [sw-l] common criticisms of signwriting?

[Stefan Wöhrmann]

Hi Erica and list members, 

well it is not the first time that we discuss this question - smile. From my
point of view it makes sense to discuss this question the other way round.
What is the great advantage of becoming a competent SignWriting reader - or
even SignWriting scribe?
Already 10 years ago some of us tried to explain their feeling and ideas
about the advantage of SignWriting. Looking at the different letters of
support Valerie got from SignWriting users from different parts of the world
you will get the feeling that there must be something exciting about it.

http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/pipermail/sw-l/attachments/20080103/808edca6
/sw0015-Researchers-Say-0001.pdf


It does not make sense to ask people for their opinion about SignWriting if
are not willing or if they do not feel the need to improve their signing
skills - or spoken language skills (!!!) You may even ask "What is the
advantage of these people to avoid the idea that there is a writing system
that allows you to describe any SL -performance in the world as detailed as
you want to. ... (ha!) 

In the past years I lost any interest to run after people to convince them
that they would take advantage out of this. Now I prefer to support those
people you become interested, who develop kind of desire to become more and
more familiar with SignWriting in order to create documents and materials
you would not be able to create in such an easy to understand way!!

Many teacher for deaf students are still convinced that the oral method
would work for them (hopefully for their students as well!) So ther is no
need for this group to even think about a writing system for SL.

But what about the other people? Teacher for deaf students, DEAF SL
instructors, Interpreters, Linguist, Dictionary Editors ..SL students. What
about them? 
What if you ask people themselves who - from our point of view - should take
advantage from SignWriting but did not find their way to really invest time
and energy to learn it. Eventually we will learn something about prejudice
or some kind of believe system ...

Perhaps a good place to discuss this questions with people who are
interested in Sign Language would be another list - forum  

http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo

SLLING-L  	TeachASL 	A listserv for teachers of American Sign
Language
Terps-l 	A list for interpreters whose working languages include a
signed language.


All the best - and thanks for your input

Stefan ;-)


-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: sw-l-bounces at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
[mailto:sw-l-bounces at majordomo.valenciacc.edu] Im Auftrag von Erika Hoffmann
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 5. November 2009 21:40
An: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
Betreff: [sw-l] common criticisms of signwriting?

Hi! I mentioned the last time I posted that I'm working on a paper
about SignWriting for presentation at the American Anthropological
Association meeting in December.
One of the things I'm thinking about is the ways in which Signwriting
and Signwriten documents can be used to critique dominant ideologies
about language and writing that are common in Linguistics and related
disciplines. At the same time, I want to note that the radical nature
of the script can sometimes be a social barrier to its adoption by
signers (particularly because of the historical relationship between
the Linguistic validation of sign languages with the social validation
of Deaf signers).
I'm wondering if any of you would be willing to share some of the ways
you've heard people criticize or dismiss SSW (or point me to places
where these opinions are aired). I'm looking for people's concerns
about the script itself (i.e., "it looks like hieroglyphics") rather
than the other common arguments about the need for a script at all
(i.e., "Deaf people can just write in English").
Thanks!
Best,
Erika



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