I keep thinking about this whole issue about writing in English. In some ways I’m very fortunate, because, for whatever reason, I have always been a good writer. I think I benefitted from some very good teachers at just the right time along the way in my life, and perhaps there’s a natural talent to writing; I don’t know.
One thing that might be helpful to keep in mind is that written English is not actually the same as spoken English.
What??
Very true. Written English is quite a bit more structured than spoken English. I suspect if we ever got a written form of ASL down, the same thing would happen — written ASL would not be quite the same thing as spoken ASL.
Consider how the dynamics change when we are in written versus real-time (spoken or signed, although I consider the two absolutely equal/equivalent) modes. In written, the overall structure becomes more important, because the reader can always go back to review what was written down before. The reader is not giving any feedback to the writer (when the article is written; of course feedback can be given later on) so the writer is free to construct and build his or her argument as he or she wishes.
Speech is contemporaneous and will change and adapt on the spot based on the reactions of anyone who is listening to what is being said. If you do a transcript of a spoken exchange, that transcript looks very different from a written article.
Many hearing people fail to realize this difference and therefore they write as they HEAR — they write as they would talk/babble/etc. But this isn’t a good way to write things down.
In some ways, I would consider speech (verbal or signed) strictly linear, because nothing can change once it has been said, you can only go forward from that point. On the other hand, it can change dynamically from the original “plan”. If the audience is in sync, the speech can roar on in its original direction; if the audience does NOT understand, the speech adapts in midsentence. Maybe it repeats things maybe it rewords what it just said…there are may ways of adapting to an audience. But written communication does not have this dimension.
Written communication formulates an entire outline, and works within it. If you are writing something, and you realize you neglected some issue earlier, you can go back and add that in where it should have first appeared, and clean up your entire article with respect to that issue. You can go over and fix all the little things you find, in order to make an initial “perfect” presentation. This is actually fairly difficult to do (whether hearing or not): you have to go over the article as written, think of the different issues, make sure they are all addressed, order them comprehensibly, go back in and fill missing pieces, check your spelling and grammar, and so on.
The end result, of the written article, is far different than what one might have said in extemporaneous speech (whether verbal or spoken).
Sometimes I think that if ASL were to gain a written form, ASL native speakers would find themselves to be better writers in English; having faced and overcome the various different (generic) obstacles to writing in their native language before going on to another language, they would have the experience necessary to write well.
Or maybe it’s just the margaritas talking right now. It’s a hot day out there and I’ve been gardening all morning and early afternoon!
I agree on most points but I have to disagree about written ASL. However, you make good points.
The reason written languages are very similar to spoken ones is because the written originally were pictorial but evolved over time to be symbols of spoken letters.I do not remember where but I believe it was in Mediterrean Sea area that the written language finally follow the letters exactly. I am not because it had been long time since I learned about that.
The abstractions used to represent a language’s phonemes did originate around the mediterranean. However, there are two things to remember. First not all written forms are “phonetic” in nature. I give you Kanji, which is syllabic for both Chinese and Japanese. Secondly I point out that there is no reason that some sort of phonemic equivalent in ASL couldn’t be rendered in written form as well.
As I recall there are six basic handshapes in ASL for the nondominant hand: “ABCOS15″. There are also a basic set of handshapes for the dominant hand, as well as reflective or mirrored shapes when both hands are being used. There is absolutely no reason some sort of formal symbolism could be used to show each hand shape and relationship to each other.
I know there are several projects to create some sort of “sign writing” but I think the ones that try to draw a picture for each sign are missing the boat. Identify the “phonemes” of ASL and create something based on that.
The “phonemes†of ASL would be very difficult to put down in writing. Movement, location, hand-shape and orientation? Yikes. Good luck with that.
But I agree. Writing is a lot tougher than speaking, and I know I present myself differently and probably better as well in writing than in person. When I met someone from the blogs, she was startled. She told me that she would not have imagined me being the way I am, because I don’t talk (in sign terms) like how I write. She also confessed that if she had randomly bumped into me somewhere without ever seeing what I had written on the blogs, she wouldn’t strike up a conversation with me.
That’s very true, but consider how there’s a fair amount of information available in spoken mode that can’t be written down: facial expression, tone of voice, orientation toward other party and so on.
And in ASL, I’ve noticed you can sign with only one hand (and drink or baby or what have you in other); you can sign to the deaf-blind and so on. So not ALL info conveyed visually in ASL need have a written version. Just the minimum necessary, and then structures and conventions around that would evolve to help fill in blanks.
Notice in written novels how the expression is described in dialog, which helps to compensate for not actually seeing the expression as you would in “real life.”
I do honestly think it’s perfectly possible. I even think it would be beneficial for ASL. But I don’t know whether or not it will actually happen because of how it exists side-by-side with a “dominant” language that has its own written form.
ADP — I keep going back to the fact that speech is about 150,000 years old. Writing is 8,000 years old. There is absolutely nothing whatsoever natural about writing ANY form of language, speech any more than signing. When non-writing people who speak are introduced to writing for the first time, it literally blows their minds. They consider it sorcery, mindreading. In a way, it is.
I have no doubt whatsoever that a form of recording ASL in written symbols can and will be developed. The language is only 150 years old, roughly. And everyone who uses it has already been exposed to the idea of writing a language. In fact, I can see it working better and more naturally for ASL than for speech, since it is a visual medium being recorded visually. There’s no switching-of-modality that you find moving from sound to sight.
I understand that the Deaf schools in Nicaragua are using signwriting (a clumsy writing system but a writing system at least). That will be the first generation of Deaf kids growing up with a written language. I’m sure that there is a way to smooth and optimize writing for a signed language, and I’m sure that those kids will take the first steps.
I am as sure that it’s possible to develop writing for signed languages as I am sure that the sun rises in the east. It’s alien and almost inconceivable for spoken languages, to the point where 95% of the existence of spoken language was writing-less. It’ll happen for sign, and it won’t take 142,000 years to do it, either.
But I don’t know whether or not it will actually happen because of how it exists side-by-side with a “dominant†language that has its own written form.
Eh — it just happened on Ben Vess’s blog.
They’ll borrow written English, screw with it, iconize it until the words are hierogrlyphic-like scribbles that recall the bare shape of the alphabetic form, with stuff like “258″ sprinkled in among it. That’s how hiragana came about, from Chinese. One form of writing, optimized for one language — and borrowed by another, messed with until it was almost unrecognizeable, with some unchanged holdovers (kanji) sprinkled among them.
I remember my last college roommate telling me about Chinese poetry, where the placement of the characters relative to one another was usede to communicate meaning. Her favorite poem was “The sky above, the earth below,” and the way it was written had the character for “sky” above the one for Earth. It’s a small step from there to spatial placement and classifier use. (Think Chinese radicals — classifiers.)
Another idea — English and spoken languages use things called “pronouns.” They’re sort of used in ASL as well, but why not extend them? Instead of shorthand words that are meant to refer back to nouns, how about shorthand characters that are used to refer back to placeholders in space? Say the ASL written sign for “cat” is &. (Who knows, doesn’t matter anyhow.) “Dog” is #.
You then make symbols for position-behind:
Just like English having a zoo of prepositions, ASL would probably have a zoo of symbols for spatial placements.
Why not write the spatially-signed CAT CHASE DOG as:
&
or something similar?
Damn it, I used the greater-than and less-than, and they got swallowed. Let me try again:
Another idea — English and spoken languages use things called “pronouns.” They’re sort of used in ASL as well, but why not extend them? Instead of shorthand words that are meant to refer back to nouns, how about shorthand characters that are used to refer back to placeholders in space? Say the ASL written sign for “cat” is &. (Who knows, doesn’t matter anyhow.) “Dog” is #.
You then make symbols for position-behind: (
and position-ahead: )
Just like English having a zoo of prepositions, ASL would probably have a zoo of symbols for spatial placements.
Why not write the spatially-signed CAT CHASE DOG as:
&( #) (chase)
or something similar?
I’d have to disagree with that! To me spoken english and written english by most hearing people are the same. There are variations, perhaps due to some people being able to speak better than writing or vice versa. There really isn’t much difference. One more thing to consider is that formal speaking and casual speaking depends on the time and place or circumstances. I think, writing in ASL is not a good idea, it gives people the wrong impression (general hearing population). However, writing in ASL would probably be excellent if it was written as poetry.
One thing I want to add is that I have noticed some hearing people find that they write better than speaking because they have time to consider what they want to put down on paper whereas when they speak it’s “live”. My deaf spouse writes in excellent English grammar and his thought process is awesome, but he does not sign exactly like he writes. This is interesting - similar to Deaf Pundit.
Hi, C — Well in the first place, most hearing people don’t write all that well (which has been one of my main points all along)
When you write the same way you speak, it isn’t very good writing.
I found this site which might help illustrate what I’m talking about; googling up the phrase “difference between speaking and writing” (without the quotes) gives a list of possibly interesting sites to check out as well….
Where I work, most hearing people write very well. I agree that there are many that do not and they don’t have jobs where writing skill is a requirement.
As for that site you linked. Exactly what I mean about casual speaking and formal speaking.
Ok, i’m going to ask you something that is totally off the point here. Checked your profile. You were born profoundly deaf. Your English grammar is good. You did not learn ASL until very late in life. This is where I’m confused. I’m still not sure if the argument that ASL in early years are critical for deaf children along with English so that they will possess better english writing skills. I’m HOH, my parents are deaf and use ASL. They originally thought I was hearing but found out through school testing in kindergarten that I’m HOH. Because I hear better than my siblings, my parents assumed I was hearing. MY brothers and sisters are all either deaf and HOH. Deaf family. I credit my English skills due to being able to communicate with my hearing peers in my neighborhood. They always correct me and taught me how to speak right. I understood english better after I took Italian. But, I’m thinking your english is GOOD! But it wasn’t because of ASL. I’m a skeptic in that area. Someone pointed out to me that the reason why my english is good was because ASL was my first language. I’m still having a hard time buying that theory. What are your thoughts on that?
My thoughts are that it all depends on early language acquisition. It doesn’t matter WHAT language. It simply has to occur somewhere in the ages of 0-3, the earlier the better. The catch is, of course, for deaf children, a verbal language won’t do in most cases. Some can; I was one of those where HA worked well enough. Most of the time English cannot be well acquired and if ASL is not offered early enough, people will struggle quite a bit from then on. There’s a lot of cognitive development that goes on between 0-3 years of age — even just watching my nephews grow up shows me that.
I have always assumed that reading is a factor (and it may well still be), but I have since heard from a number of people that they read well, enjoy reading, but still struggle with writing, so there you go. It’s complex, that’s for sure.
Of course nothing is cast in absolute stone, you will find exceptions everywhere. I have no doubt, however, that if HA had not worked for me, I would be struggling considerably now, because I’m not sure that I would have gotten ASL early enough in that case.
Hey BEG!
Thank you for continuing to introduce topics and energizing my brain juices. 
Love this kind of topic. I thrive on this kind of discussion.
Even though a person would say things verbatim from their mouths when they speak about their beliefs or decisions, they are always given a chance to reconsider their position. They are not taken seriously except perhaps on radio and formal speeches at the podium. Interesting you talked about adapting according to an audience, the word is shifted a bit to cater to the tone of the audience. What if the house was black? How would a person signing in ASL see or hear the audience? How about ASL vLogs? Are they taken seriously?
Alternatively, in written form, it is not always true. Since they have had time to reflect before “publishing,” their written word is like the “sentence” handed down, so they should be sure to reflect on several positions to support their argument.
Of course, sometimes people get the two messed up. Maybe that’s why I was nervous in making my vLogs.
Heh. And certainly with the Internet, that’s spawned a whole subgenre of casual back and forth writing such as we’re doing right here. And yes, vlogs — whether of people speaking or signing — are more “permanent” in a way. Hard to say. I do think I’ll look back on these early vlogs of mine at some point and cringe, but it will also be fun to see how I’ve progressed (which was kind of what prompted me to start in the first place).
Deaf Pundit, think of it this way.
Written ENGLISH doesn’t code for the phonemic components of spoken language, either. Absolutely nowhere does it tell you how to place your tongue, whether to drop your soft palate and allow air through your nose, whether to voice, or any of that. Those things (nasalization, tongue placement, continuance, and voicing) are to spoken language what palm orientation, handshape, motion, and location on the body are to signs. The written coding of a language shouldn’t need to show you any of that — and you will find damned few written languages that do. Korean is the only one that I can think of that codes for thjis sort of thing in any way whatsoever.
For example, the spoken letters “t” and “d” differ only in their voicing. Point to the parts of their written symbols that code for that.
Trust me, the phonemic components of a given sign do NOT have to be coded into the writing system for the language. Look at written Chinese — doesn’t give you a scrap of information about how to pronounce it. In fact, several completely distinct languages use those characters to mean exactly the same things, pronounced totally differently.
I used to think that written ASL had to code for that, but I’ve entirely backed off from that notion. All it has to do is correspond abstractly to the language’s grammar and articulation. If you study the insane zoo of ways in which spoken language is converted to writing, and how these systems correspond well and poorly to their spoken counterparts, you really get a grasp of this. Again, they precise mechanics of articulation has bupkis to do with writing. Nowhere in the symbol “s” does it say, “Place the top of your tongue against the roof of your mouth just behind your front teeth and hiss.”
Hi BEG: Fascinating topic and amazing comments. I am hearing (pointy ears too!) but I took one year of ASL because I found it visually lyrical. Several friends from college signed as they sang some hymns and I thought it was beautiful so I signed up for a class.
Regarding writing verse talking. I feel like my talking is richer than my writing because of intonation, pacing, volume and other factors. (He says quietly with a hint of sadness in his voice.)
One of the studies that I’ve read is that something like 85 percent of information is contained in visual cues and the last 15 percent is auditory. So a face to face meeting has a richness that you don’t get over the phone. Interaction also plays a part regarding feedback from the audience. And if someone isn’t paying attention they can miss some auditory clues in something like a phone call. (What does that pause mean? Is he mad? Distracted? Thinking? Wanting to ask a question?)
[Meta comment:. I just was rereading this post and added a bit about audience feedback. If I was speaking to you I would not have been able to do that.]
I read a book about the profound effect the development of writing had on the brain.(The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image by Leonard Shlain” One of it’s premises is that writing has a tendency to encourage
the subjugation of women by men throughout all but the very recent history of the West,
“Shlain, a surgeon and the author of Art and Physics, argues that when cultures acquire literacy, the brain’s left hemisphere dominates the right with enormous consequences. Alphabetic writing, Shlain believes, “subliminally fosters a patriarchal outlook” at the expense of feminine values.”- Library Journal
If you haven’t read it, you might find it interesting.
Finally I’m very impressed with all the writing and comments here. On some blogs comparing your writing to their writing is like comparing Wallace Stegner to 5th grade text messaging. “OMG! ur l8!” (Of course since I’m a proud liberal I’m speaking of the grunts from right-wing blog like Little Green Footballs)
But I digress -After one year of sign I went to an all sign language retreat. No spoken words. It was insanely frustrating. But it was a real eye opener. I had a crush on one of the counselors and I was reduced to my toddler signing ability to try and meet her. “I think you pretty. My name Spocko”
I couldn’t sign anything funny or clever (like I would have said in English).
It increased my empathy for people from other countries or with hearing problems who want to interact in my English speaking world.