00:00:00
over the course of the week we've been
talking about articulators for spoken
00:00:00
language
for example your tongue your lips how
00:00:00
they move when you produce
sounds whether the airflow is unimpeded
00:00:00
or it has
turbulence as it comes out we're going
00:00:00
to do the same with sign languages
we're going to describe sign languages
00:00:01
in terms of their articulators
for example your hands your fingers
00:00:07
parts of your face we're going to have
those articulators and we're also going
00:00:11
to describe
their actions for example the direction
00:00:15
for your palm whether you're moving
down or down leftwards or downwards and
00:00:22
so forth
so we're basically going to do the same
00:00:26
thing we did we're going to observe the
motions of articulators
00:00:29
and use a system of symbols to describe
those motions of articulators
00:00:37
the first thing i want to tell you is
that there's no single system
00:00:40
in spoken languages we have ipa and
that's pretty much what everyone uses
00:00:44
but for sign languages there's no agreed
upon system there's several of them
00:00:48
for example stokoe is has a broader
transcription it doesn't have as much
00:00:53
detail
the HamNoSys system which is the one
00:00:57
that i'll show you here
has narrower transcription these two by
00:01:01
the way
are the first few lines of goldilocks
00:01:04
and if you want to see the whole story
transcribed in HamNoSys from asl from
00:01:08
american sign language you can
click on that link on the pdf of this
00:01:13
video
00:01:17
let me show you an example of HamNoSys
the girl there
00:01:20
is making a sign from dgs (Deutsche Gebärdensprache)
00:01:26
the german sign language and the sign
means
00:01:29
house so we have a video of the girl
doing the sign
00:01:34
we have a schematic
of how the sign is made and we also have
00:01:41
here like a virtual avatar
of how the sign is produced as you can
00:01:47
see
several stages uh hands like this
00:01:51
hands going down and then flipping and
going downwards
00:01:56
as you can see two of the diagrams have
the fingers
00:01:59
pointing ahead and she also has a
variant in the video where she has her
00:02:04
hands
in a position like this and then going
00:02:09
down
so these are ways of saying house in
00:02:13
german and by the way very important
thing you might notice that
00:02:16
what she's doing with her lips is that
she's saying the german word
00:02:19
house for a house that is not a part of
the sign she is
00:02:23
mouthing the word unfortunately i
couldn't find a version
00:02:28
like a video version of the word that
didn't have the german word
00:02:32
superimposed upon it but as you can see
the
00:02:35
the sign for house has a
neutral lip position so
00:02:41
saying house as you produce it is not
part of the dgs word it's just
00:02:46
because it was i found it in a
dictionary
00:02:49
so this is the transcription of that
word
00:02:52
let's go one symbol at a time
00:02:56
HamNoSys breaks down a
sign into several components the shape
00:03:02
of your hand for example you can see
that she has her fingers
00:03:06
extended not as a fist
HamNoSys describes the direction and
00:03:12
orientation
of your hands it describes the
00:03:16
relationship
between the two hands one interesting
00:03:20
thing is that you only have one
tongue but you do have two hands so you
00:03:24
have to coordinate the movements between
the two
00:03:28
it describes the motions of your hands
here the hands are clearly going
00:03:32
sideways and down it describes the
location
00:03:36
so the sign is in a neutral location
around the neck and chest it's not for
00:03:41
example
to the right of your head and HamNoSys
00:03:45
describes the non-manual features
so for example if the sign has you
00:03:49
puffing your cheeks or doing something
with your mouth or your eyebrows
00:03:54
let's go through this transcription one
symbol at a time
00:03:58
the this one here describes the hand
shape
00:04:01
and this symbol is for all fingers flat
so position like this as you can see
00:04:08
these are just a few examples of
literally dozens probably hundreds of
00:04:13
symbols
um this one means index extended
00:04:18
this symbol here means fist hand so this
one tells you that the hand
00:04:24
should have all fingers flat and
extended as you can see there
00:04:32
these symbols here tell you the
direction and orientation
00:04:36
so this one means what she's doing there
is this one which is upwards like
00:04:43
pointing forth if you're looking from
above this is the one she's doing
00:04:48
um if it was just the arrow without this
little line
00:04:51
it would be what the other versions of
the side were doing which is just the
00:04:55
fingers pointing
forward so that's the direction and this
00:04:59
one is the orientation
of your palm as you can see here this
00:05:04
would be totally down position
and this would be slight rotation so
00:05:10
that is
what both hands are doing
00:05:15
this little tilt here tells you that
they are flipping
00:05:18
as they move and as you can see they are
going to change
00:05:24
these symbols tell you the relationship
between the hands
00:05:28
this one tells you that the sign is
symmetric vertically as you can see
00:05:31
what this hand is doing the other hand
is doing as well
00:05:37
it is vertically symmetrical i apologize
and the two hands are touching each
00:05:45
other
as they start so they start to gather
00:05:50
there we go and then they separate
00:05:54
we have the motion of the hands which go
uh apologies from
00:06:01
this motion of 135 degrees and then turn
downwards to 180.
00:06:07
the transcription is has no explicit
features for the location because it's
00:06:11
set
in the general location
00:06:15
it could have an additional
descriptor if
00:06:18
it was made above the head for example
or on your forehead or around your teeth
00:06:25
it also has descriptions for different
parts of your torso
00:06:28
and as you can see you can specify a lot
of narrow
00:06:32
transcription of whether it's left of
your forehead
00:06:36
or right to your forehead and so forth
this restriction also doesn't have
00:06:42
explicit
transcription for non-manual features
00:06:46
because she's not doing
making any of them she's not moving her
00:06:49
eyebrows she's moving
again her mouth to say the german word
00:06:53
but that's not part of the sign
but the system does include uh details
00:06:59
for how your limbs
are moving for what your mouth is doing
00:07:02
and what your face
would be doing for example whether your
00:07:05
cheeks are puffed or whether you puff
them
00:07:07
gradually whether you suck them in
without sucking any
00:07:11
air and so forth so
this transcription as you can see tells
00:07:17
you
the shape of your of your hand the
00:07:21
direction
and orientation of your palm what you're
00:07:25
not so if you're right-handed your
dominant hand is going to be your right
00:07:30
if you're left-handed it's going to be
your left
00:07:33
the symmetry refers to your dominant
hand
00:07:37
executing the symbol and your
non-dominant hand following
00:07:40
so if you're right-handed this is going
to mean that
00:07:45
whatever your right or dominant hand is
doing
00:07:48
your left hand is following and flipped
if you're left-handed and these tell you
00:07:54
the motions
this is another example so this is the
00:07:58
word
germany in dgs the first part of the
00:08:03
transcription
is as you can see index and thumb
00:08:07
extended going upwards and i have the
palm wrong
00:08:13
so these are extended the sign goes
upwards
00:08:17
and the palm has to be completely
towards the left
00:08:20
so i start like this
the second part of the transcription
00:08:24
tells you that you need to touch your
forehead
00:08:28
with your index
00:08:32
again what he's doing with his lips is
saying deutschland
00:08:36
but that's not part of the actual sign
so that's an example of how you can
00:08:42
transcribe phonetically
a sign from a sign language there's no
00:08:47
standard way to do it there's several
systems i showed you just one of them
00:08:50
however HamNoSys is very
very good for narrow transcriptions as
00:08:56
you can see it gives you a lot of
details
00:08:58
and it decomposes each sign into its
hand shape
00:09:01
the directional orientation of your
hands the relationship between the two
00:09:05
hands
the motions of the hands the location
00:09:09
on which the sign is produced and any
non-manual features that may accompany
00:09:13
it
so as you can see you describe it in
00:09:16
pretty much the same way
as a spoken language
