Gallaudet & TISLR

Fri Oct 8 12:41:44 UTC 2010

My only hope on Gallaudet is that perhaps with a doctoral student there they may 
take it seriously again. I taught a pilot course there more than 15 years ago 
and all the textbooks they have there are more than 12 years old. I live less 
than 5 miles from the school, and my attempts to engage any of the departments 
there has been fruitless, even for an informal class on campus.

I will try to save my pennies, apply to the London conference early, and maybe 
try to do something formal on signwriting, maybe on body switching.  I'm not 
connected to a university, so it makes it a challenge.  I'm hoping we get 
continued funding from Rachel to continue our perspectus.

The one experiment we have not done is taking SignTyp and using a sign that has 
been dissected in this system and projecting backward into SignWriting.  Then 
we'd have a true conversion program that can take Hamnosys and several other 
systems and cross the barrier so communication can happen across linguistic 
transcription systems.

Charles butler

________________________________
From: Shane K. Gilchrist <shane.gilchrist at GMAIL.COM>
To: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACC.EDU
Sent: Fri, October 8, 2010 8:28:14 AM
Subject: Gallaudet & TISLR

Hi everyone,

sorry for the silence here - im on the plane to London after my 3 weeks stay in 
the States. I have enjoyed myself very much there.

Want to talk about two things here:

1. Adam Frost at Gallaudet
To my surprise, I found myself sitting beside Adam Frost in one of the 
linguistics classes at Gallaudet - I didnt expect him to be there (I didnt know 
he was doing his MA at Gallaudet - maybe he did say something abt it on SW-L but 
I didnt follow SW-L until a few weeks ago :-( I have really enjoyed getting to 
know him and hes a cool guy - quite smart for sure :-)

I was wondering maybe Adam can set up an informal class after Xmas at Gally to 
teach signwriting and I could talk to Gaurav one of the assistant professors in 
the Linguistics department to see if they can set up a course module 
(creditable) next year to teach SW there - but they might not buy the idea.

2. TISLR Conference
As many of you know, TISLR is THE conference for sign linguists and researchers 
so it was natural that I had to be there - 400 were registered to attend but 
most did come - got to meet many big names and made new friends etc. There were 
a lot of SW supporters, especially the Belgians but unfortunately there were no 
talks on signwriting - it has to be addressed (no I didnt submit in time!) but 
hopefully that ll change at the next TISLR conference - it ll be in London - 
2013 - maybe Adam and I can submit a paper together there :-)

I got to meet Charles Butler - it was really nice seeing him - I introduced him 
to a few SignWriters there.

More signwriters there:

Isabella Heyrecik (sp?)
Thierry Haesanne
Danny de Woordt
Mim Veer-something ;-)

some more but I forgot their name - either way, we can get a special session on 
signwriting at TISLR11 as it will be hosted by Bencie Woll who is a supporter of 
SignWriting :-)

Shane

On 3 October 2010 18:17:37 UTC+1, Erika Hoffmann <erhoffma at oberlin.edu> wrote:
> Wow! I really regret that I was unable to get funding to attend TISLR
> this year - not only could I have me you and the SignWriting people
> you mentioned, but I just learned that a Deaf Nepali friend was there!
> Best,
> Erika
>
> On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 12:33 PM, Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org>
> wrote:
>> SignWriting List
>> October 3, 2010
>>
>> Hello Charles and everyone!
>>
>> I am sooo glad you enjoyed the TISLR! And that you saw so many people -
>> terrific! And I am really impressed and happy with the poster presentation
>> on SignTyp and SignWriting that was presented at TISLR by you and Rachel
>> Channon from the University of Connecticut. Thank you to you both for your
>> hard work on that project.
>>
>> Yes, typing fingerspelling in vertical columns would be a wonderful
>> feature in any computer program. The old SignWriter DOS program can only
>> type fingerspelling from left to right like English...
>>
>> Regarding the older program....Anyone is welcome to use SignWriter DOS
>> right now...just use DOS BOX on either Mac or Windows, and SignWriter DOS
>> works on modern computers...You can download it for free on the internet.
>>
>> Richard Gleaves and I worked hard on the development of SignWriter and
>> certainly loved the keyboarding we developed together, but there was never
>> any mouse action in SignWriter - there is literally NO capability to use a
>> mouse in any SignWriter program, whether it was SignWriter DOS, SignWriter
>> Java or the old SignWriter for the Apple //e and //c.
>>
>> When we switch countries in SignWriter DOS, it is always done through the
>> keyboard...the entire thing is keyboarded, with NO mouse.
>>
>> The reason I do not personally use SignWriter DOS any longer? Because
>> Lucinda O'Grady Batch and other Deaf people who are members of our Deaf
>> Action Committee (DAC) requested that we write down in vertical columns, and
>> that is what we have with SignPuddle software by Steve Slevinski, and with
>> other programs such as the new SignWriter Studio by Jonathan Duncan, that is
>> not ready yet but is coming...I know Steve would love to add keyboarding to
>> SignPuddle someday...it is just a big job to program that, and meanwhile
>> some people love using a mouse to drag and drop - not everyone loved
>> keyboarding, by the way...only some people do - I used to get complaints
>> from some people that they didn't want to learn to type and preferred a
>> mouse, back before SignPuddle was developed...so since people think and work
>> differently it would be nice to have BOTH options...
>>
>> So what we really need is to combine the old with the new...we need the
>> keyboarding of SignWriter DOS and Java, with the vertical columns of
>> SignPuddle - and then we are set - ha!
>>
>> Meanwhile, if you want to use SignWriter DOS or Java right now, I can help
>> you set it up on your computer so you can keyboard again if you prefer...it
>> doesn't use the up-to-date symbols of course - that is another drawback,
>> darn it...
>>
>> Welcome home, Charles - smile -
>>
>> Val ;-)
>>
>> ----------
>>
>>
>> On Oct 3, 2010, at 9:10 AM, Charles Butler wrote:
>>
>>> TISLR was fantastic, I just wish I had not been so antsy and having to
>>> get back so early.
>>>
>>> Shane Gilchrist
>>> Ronice Quadros
>>> Lucinda Batch O-Grady
>>> Charles Butler
>>> Eyasu Tamene
>>>
>>> These were the people I recognized immediately by face from on line. It
>>> was so good to be among so many people that are using sign writing even in
>>> the face of opposition.  I met one professor (name gone) whose doctoral
>>> student is doing a project on keyboarding SignWriting, which I really
>>> believe would be a good thing.  I used the SignWriter program in Brazil.
>>>
>>>
>>> There were so many things that one could do on the old SignWriter program
>>> that are awkward to do at best.
>>>
>>> Fingerspelling is one, you can't simply TYPE and get fingerspelling, you
>>> have to look up each sign individually.  The old interface was better as you
>>> could learn to type a sign in at speed without thinking.  A mouse you have
>>> to look for everything all the time.
>>>
>>> We need to really look at all the developments that are happening in
>>> processing and find our way back in new computer languages to our old
>>> capabilities.
>>>
>>> Before, with a swipe of a mouse I could change from English to ASL (or
>>> other language) fingerspelling, substitute vocabulary in English sentence
>>> phrase by phrase and eventually end with an ASL sentence in proper
>>> grammatical order.
>>>
>>> Can't do that on the computer anymore, everything is mouse-mouse-mouse,
>>> and no interaction between two writing systems.  We do it in space, and on
>>> paper, we need to be able to do the same thing on computer.
>>>
>>> Charles
>>>
>>>
>>> From: Shane K. Gilchrist <shane.gilchrist at GMAIL.COM>
>>> To: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACC.EDU
>>> Sent: Mon, September 27, 2010 1:40:16 AM
>>> Subject: Re: SignWorkshop OASLTA
>>>
>>> Don't worry Charles
>>>
>>> I used to be one of the skeptics until Belgium's Kathleen & Sara
>>> discreetly introduced me to SW.
>>>
>>> The rest is history.
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>
>>> On 26 Sep 2010, at 20:45, "Valerie Sutton" <sutton at SIGNWRITING.ORG>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> > SignWriting List
>>> > September 26, 2010
>>> >
>>> > Hello Charles!
>>> >
>>> > First of all, a big hug from me, and a big THANK YOU for being so brave
>>> > to present at any conference - It takes courage to present in front of a
>>> > skeptical audience (if that was what they were...they may not have 
been)...
>>> >
>>> > I am sure you did an excellent job and please do not be hard on
>>> > yourself...
>>> >
>>> > All presentations help SignWriting, no matter what the reaction,
>>> > because people become interested later. Even if they express some doubts
>>> > right now, it is because it is the first time they have heard of it and we
>>> > all are skeptical about new ideas - but then later, they hear about it a
>>> > second time from someone else, and they remember the discussions with you
>>> > the first time they heard about it, and they decide to look into it 
because
>>> > now their interest has been stimulated a second time -
>>> >
>>> > So you have really helped SignWriting no matter what -
>>> >
>>> > Thank you for telling us about the presentation so quickly after it
>>> > happened -
>>> >
>>> > And Kelly Jo was there? Wow - that is so great!
>>> >
>>> > So is there more time at the conference now? It will give you a chance
>>> > to talk to some of the people with questions - don't worry, Charles, this
>>> > was a real blessing -
>>> >
>>> > Val ;-)
>>> >
>>> > -----
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > On Sep 26, 2010, at 5:33 PM, Charles Butler wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> Well, I presented the workshop but I felt that I fell on my face for
>>> >> the following reasons:
>>> >>
>>> >> 1) Too much information, too little time.
>>> >> 2) Lack of vocabulary, all of the attendees were interpreters AND
>>> >> teachers of the deaf, and my vocabulary was inadequate to the task.  I
>>> >> should have asked for help from KJ or another interpreter at the 
>beginning.
>>> >> 3) I got positive responses from a couple of people, but the most
>>> >> common one was "how many people IN OHIO are using this system", "why 
>should
>>> >> MY students have to learn anything else?"  Half of them maybe "got it" 
but
>>> >> the others just kept with questions.
>>> >> 4) I should have simply linked to the website and gone from there as
>>> >> the website is informative, answers most of the common questions, and I
>>> >> could have had a Deaf Advocate actually talking to the group.
>>> >>
>>> >> Lessons learned, but I feel very small and inadequate right now.
>>> >>
>>> >> Charles Butler
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway
> Assistant Professor of Anthropology
> Oberlin College
>
>
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