Target group: deaf students or deaf people interested in signlanguage
research
Prerequisites: courses A1 and A2; course A4 is recommended
Type of course: seminar
Level: intermediate
Language of instruction: German Sign Language
Length: 2 weeks, 7 hours of instruction daily
Total hours:B 70
Proportion of independent work: appx. 50%
The seminar is directed at all those who are involved or interested in empirical sign language research, either as students or professionally. The seminar will enable the participants to prepare transcriptions independently, using the synchronization program syncWriter. In addition, the theoretical foundation and the resulting practical consequences and the problems of empirical sign language research will be discussed.
After natural-language data is collected (on video), a corpus for each direction of research will be put together and transcribed. Only after the language is transcribed can it be analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. At the same time, the transcription itself is influenced by the theoretical assumptions, which, in concrete situations, can produce practical problems. Common transcription systems are gloss transcriptions and more or less highly varying transcription systems which describe the form of sign language expressions, such as the Stokoe notation system or the Hamburg Notation System for sign languages (HamNoSys).
Gloss transcriptions forgo a detailed description of the form of a sign and instead make use of the fact that a certain manual form is named with a word in the spoken language which has approximately the same meaning as the sign. The word recalls the sign language form, since this form is nearly always present in this meaning. Nevertheless, the gloss is a description of the form and does not define the meaning of the sign. Gloss transcription is less time intensive, but it can often be inexact or applied falsely.
HamNoSys is designed to describe the concrete structure of a signed expression in such a way that it can be reconstructed authentically. The four parameters of the signed expression -hand form, hand position, position of execution and movement -are the basic components of the description. The oral (mouth position) and the non-manual (mimicry and gestures) components can also modify the meaning of a signed expression, and can be included in gloss transcriptions as well as in formal notation systems in addition to the manual components.
With the help of the computer program syncWriter, the different levels of transcription can be combined with each other or expanded by synchronizing them with the corresponding signed form. In addition, syncWriter makes it possible to incorporate the original data as a digitalized video sequence (QuickTime-Movies) in a film track. This allows for quick access to the spoken-language data, and the transcription can be produced, corrected or expanded on the monitor
We will first introduce the synchronization program syncWriter, which substantially simplifies the practical facet of transcribing. The participants will then prepare a transcription using the computer in order to become accustomed to the program. The transcriptions will then be compared and the problems which arose in preparing them will be discussed.
Using specific examples, the capabilities and the limitations of gloss transcriptions and of formal transcription systems (HamNoSys) will be discussed in light of the theoretical assumptions of empirical linguistics. For the greatest part, the seminar will treat the problems of practical transcription and possible solutions. It will not impart linguistically-based knowledge with which participants would be able to engage in independent empirical research.
Instructors' qualifications: The seminar will be led by deaf and hearing instructors who are familiar with working with computers and videos in sign language research and who have experience with transcription in research projects.