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Signwriting (SW) of Maltese Sign Language (LSM) and Its Development Into an Orthography: Linguistic

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SignWriting (SW) of Maltese Sign Language (LSM) and its development into an orthography: Linguistic considerations Maria Galea A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics, Institute of Linguistics, University of Malta, Malta 2014 ii The research work disclosed in this publication is partially funded by the Strategic Educational Pathways Scholarship Scheme (Malta). This Scholarship is part-financed by the European Union - European Social Fund (ESF) under Operational Programme II – Cohesion Policy 2007-2013, “Empowering People for More Jobs and a Better Quality Of Life. Operational Programme II – Cohesion Policy 2007-2013 Empowering People for More Jobs and a Better Quality of Life Scholarship part-financed by the European Union European Social Fund (ESF) Co-financing rate: 85% EU Funds;15% National Funds Investing in your future iii ABSTRACT This study investigates the use of the Valerie Sutton SignWriting (SW) system, a non- linear featural writing system for the writing of LSM (Maltese Sign Language). Every SW glyph represents a feature and at times a phone of sign language (SL) articulation. Hence SW may be used to write any sign language. Available LSM SW texts were analysed and a number of reading difficulties were identified. These included LSM pointing signs in the LSM SW texts which were highly ambiguous and their representation in written form caused difficulty in reading the texts. The analysis of the reading difficulties led to the linguistic study of LSM pronouns and agreement verbs and to a consideration of how SW may be used to represent the grammatical level of LSM, rather than just the phonetic level of LSM. One main conclusion of the study was that marking LSM grammatical space in written form helps to disambiguate between LSM pronouns from other pointing signs in LSM and provides a ‘key’ to readable forms of all LSM signs related to pronominal affixing. This work also offers a description of LSM whole entity classifier verbs and handle classifier verbs and their representation in written form. LSM handshape and movement graphemes are suggested where the grapheme is indicative of corresponding LSM phonemes. Recommendations for a reduction in the number of glyphs used to write LSM is included and a manual for the teaching of the SW of LSM is also proposed. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would not have been able to complete this work without the support of my beautiful family that I am so gifted with. I thank Ivan for the mini-trips to Gozo, the housework, for all the laughter, the encouragement to keep going and for putting so many things on hold because of this work. I am blessed that he is my spouse and companion. I would like to thank my children individually. I thank my sweet daughter Adele for her especially taking care of her little brothers Mark and Joseph so cheerfully and without any complaining. I thank my strong son Thomas for always filling my glass with water for encouraging me so much: “‘Two weeks left! Two weeks!’”. I thank Mark for his constant kisses and hugs despite having less mummy-time during the intense phases of this work. I thank baby Joseph for kicking me while I worked, which helped keep a smile on my face, and later for simply being content to stay in my arms while I typed away. I would like to thank my very generous, sweet and loving parents –Josephine and John. They have been a tower of support and provided essential help with babysitting for Mark, and many wonderful meals! Thank you for all your prayers for me to see this through. I also thank my brothers John and Patrick and their spouses Natasha and Belinda and for helping out at times with babysitting and child-care. I must also thank my dear mother-in-law Miriam. Despite the months of grief after losing Joe she continued to provide me with practical support by babysitting, cooking and helping with the housework. I thank you also dear Joey who encouraged me so firmly to keep going, who made me coffee and who provided me with snacks of v delicious dried peas and chickpeas! I love you so much dear father-in-law and miss you. I am deeply grateful to my supervisor Profs Marie Alexander for all her support, recommendations, encouragement and her enthusiasm with the work. I thank her also for her friendship, her prayers and for trusting so much that with God’s help I would see the work through despite juggling the growing family. I also thank my co-supervisor and the inventor of SignWriting, Valerie Sutton. Valerie has been a crucial provider of information concerning SignWriting and its roots. She has been of constant support, not just during this work, but right from the very beginning of my use of SignWriting 16 years ago. SignWriting is 40 years old this year, 2014 and I am so happy that this work has been produced during the 40th anniversary of Valerie’s invention. I am very grateful for the cheerful help of ASL SignWriting Bible translator Nancy Romero who answered all my many questions with clarity and length and provided so many examples from her work to illustrate her answers. Stephen Slevinski, the producer of SignPuddle 2.0 always offered immediate technical help and support while using SignPuddle 2.0. I thank him for this and also for creating a copy of the Malta Literature Puddle (the LMAP) to be used in this work. Many scholars have been wonderful at answering questions, generously sending pdf files of their work and even sharing discussions related to this work. I am indebted to the following people: Dr Terry Joyce, Dr Hoffmann-Dilloway, Dr Claudia Bianchini, Dr vi Onno Crasborn. Prof Dan Slobin, Prof. Prof Penny Boyes Braem, Dr Adam Schembri, Dr David Quinto-Pozos, Dr Steven Morey, James Shepard-Kegl, Adam Frost, Charles Butler, Stefan Wöhrmann, Joe Martin, Robert Arnold. I would like to thank all the members of the SignWriting ListServ ([email protected]) for their contribution in answering many questions I have asked concerning SignWriting over the years. I would also like to thank the following people who gave me permission to use their illustrations in this work: Simon Ager (www.omniglot.org), Marc Renard, Valerie Sutton, Adam Frost, Stefan Wöhrmann. I also thank Ms. Kristine Saliba and Daniela Camilleri from the Library Reference Section, University of Malta who provided me with assistance. I am extremely grateful to the ten Maltese Deaf participants who willingly participated as readers in this work. They offered 45min-2hrs of their free time to work with me. I cannot name the Deaf readers here, but I am truly indebted to each one of them. Finally I would also like to thank some very dear friends, Shirley, Cathleen, Charlotte, Fefi, Jimmy Bartolo SJ, Fr Martin Micallef, Fr Cyril Axelrod, Nicole Shirilla, Family Skorich and Hesley, Fr Dione, Dorothy, Silvana, Joan, Angela, AnneMarie, Graziella, Angela, Mariella, Aunty Helen, Aunty Joan, Aunty Rita and for all those who have been close to me in companionship and prayer. “The one who calls you is faithful and He will do it” 1Thessalonians 5:24. Above all, thank You for doing this through me sweet Lord and friend. vii viii In the sweet memory of papa’ and nannu Joe Galea (1944-2013). May the sound of your beautiful laughter, that we miss so much, now be heard in Heaven. ix ACRONYMS USED SL Sign Language SW SignWriting LSM 1 Lingwa tas-Sinjali Maltija. (Maltese Sign Language) WE classifier Whole Entity Classifier CL- Classifier ASL American Sign Language BSL British Sign Language LSQ Quebec Sign Language Auslan Australian Sign Language LS Langue de Signes (sign language) IPA International Phonetic Alphabet LIBRAS Brazilian Sign Language LSE Lengua de Signos Española (Spanish Sign Language) ABSL Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language ISL Israeli Sign language LSC Catalan Sign Language 1LSM is the acronym that has been adopted for Maltese Sign Language since the 1990s. It also happens to be the acronym used for Mexican Sign Language (LSM) (cf. Quinto-Pozos, 2008). In this work LSM refers only to Maltese Sign Language. When any reference is made to Mexican Sign Language the name of this sign language is given in full. x LIS Italian Sign Language LSF Langue de Signes Française (French Sign Language) DGS German Sign Language LMAP Literature Malta Archive Puddle UoM University of Malta CONVENTIONS USED C.A.P. S (with full-stops) Fingerspelling e.g. P. A. R. I. S CAPS Glosses in Maltese e.g. GĦADA Brackets (CAPS) Glosses in English e.g. (TOMORROW) Brackets <> Representation of graphemes Brackets [ ] Representation of phones Brackets / / Representation of phonemes Italics Title of books Also, the Maltese gloss for verbs is always presented in the 3rd person masculine perfect inflection, i.e. QAM, TELAQ etc. xi GLOSSARY SignWriting (SW): SW is the general writing system invented by Valerie Sutton that consists of 652 BaseSymbol glyphs of the ISWA 2010 (International SignWriting Alphabet). When used to write any sign language (SL) from its complete list of symbols of the ISWA, it is best described as a featural system. When applied to the writing of a specific language, with decisions taken by users of the system regarding the phonemic level of the language it may best described as an alphabet. Glyph: A glyph as used in this work refers to the SW symbols of SW when used as a general system for writing SL without any conscious choices for symbol preferences made. Thus, all the SW symbols found in the LMAP are referred to as glyphs.
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