SignWriting on Bing - Improvements to Ordering Signs

[Trevor Jenkins]

Hi Charles,

I think the exact opposite! It is not that SignWriting (or HamNoSys or
Stokoe) needs to accommodate Bing, Google, Wolfram Alpha or so later search
engine. Instead the search engines need to change to accommodate SignWriting
(and everyother non-Latinate script). We should not change the order in
which signs are transcribed -- we do not alter the order of written lexemes
so that search engines can retrieve web pages or emails. What we do need is
for the present and all future search engines to be capable of searching on
inflected sign forms (for example using the Stokoe classification of
handshape, orientation, location, movement, repetition). It is us as users
who impose order on lexems whether signs or words.

We could be consistent in the way that we write each SignWriting symbol in
the same way that there is a convention for how Stokoe is written generally
following.*location, handshape, movement, orientation, repetition *and *
alterations* as we describe the full sign.

The ISWA will prove sufficent for Bing, Google, Alpha, Yahoo!, etc to
retrieve on because it is part of Unicode. But let's not make their lives
easier at the expense of making our own more difficult. We have better
things to do than help Microsoft, Google, Wolfram or Yahoo! fleece us.

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 11:50 AM, Charles Butler
<chazzer3332000 at yahoo.com>wrote:

>  Hello Folks,
>
> Although I don't know how to change Bing, I'm glad that the system
> footnotes my article, written back in 2001, on an ordering system for Sign
> Writing.
>
> http://www.signwriting.org/archive/docs1/sw0066-SW-Journal-Butler.pdf
>
> I believe that we need to fine-tune the system so that the order of
> handshapes follows logically, not simply as they are put into the system, as
> having the articulated fingers starting straight, then together, then
> curved, then bent, then crossed, seems logical but because of the order of
> creation of a given handshape in the historical progression of the ISWAthat
> sometimes does not follow.
>
> Ordering of the system now simply follows the order of the coding, so that
> signs using the same articulators can be put into a system.  The
> sign-shape-sequence which I have been trying to include or edit all the
> signs I find to include, follows the glyphs in sequence order internal to a
> sign.
>
> 1) Right hand (by hand group, sub-hand group, orientation, rotation)
> 2) Left hand (by hand group, sub-hand group, orientation, rotation)
> 3) Right hand contact (touch, grasp, brush, rub, in-between)
> 4) Left hand contact (touch, grasp, brush, rub, in-between)
> 5) Right hand location (include face or body) (location on the face,
> location on the body)
> 6) Left hand location (include face or body) (location on the face,
> location on the body)
> 7) Right hand movement (straight, curved, compound)
> 8) Left hand movement (straight, curved, compound)
> 9) Right hand speed (prosody) (slow, fast, smooth) There are signs in
> LIBRAS where the only difference is the speed of the sign)
> 10) Left hand speed (prosody) (slow, fast, smooth)
> 11) Facial expression (I have no idea how to order facial expressions)
> 12) Body posture (there are signs in LIBRAS where the only difference is a
> posture)
>
> Now that we have a sufficiently large corpus, I would propose we use this
> system for some experiments to see how clearly it actually works.  The only
> change I would put in might be in defining 1) as "Dominant Hand" and 2) as
> "non-Dominant Hand" but there are many signs such as "WITH" in ASL that have
> no clearly dominant hand, so that it might be simpler to continue with
> "right-hand dominant".
>
>
>
> Charles Butler
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________
>
> SW-L SignWriting List
>
> Post Message
> SW-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
>
> List Archives and Help
> http://www.signwriting.org/forums/swlist/
>
> Change Email Settings
> http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/sw-l
>



-- 
Regards, Trevor.

<>< Re: deemed!
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/sw-l/attachments/20091125/a8075568/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------



____________________________________________

SW-L SignWriting List

Post Message
SW-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu

List Archives and Help
http://www.signwriting.org/forums/swlist/

Change Email Settings
http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/sw-l