writing signed languages: what for? what form?

Writing Signed Languages: What For? What Form? Donald A. Grushkin

American Annals of the Deaf, Volume 161, Number 5, Winter 2017, pp. 509-527(Article)

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VOLUME 161, NO. 5, 2017 AMERICAN ANNALS OF THE DEAF

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Grushkin, D. A. (2017). Writing signed languages: What for? What form? American Annals of the Deaf, 161(5), 509–527.

WRITING SIGNED LANGUAGES: WHAT FOR? WHAT FORM?

Keywords: writing, written signedlanguages, biliteracy, Deaf education,orthography

After years and years of study, sign lan-guage has proven to be extremelyvaluable. . . . If we had used sign lan-guage, it would have been faster to de-velop the written language . . . fasterthan the transfer of spoken languageto written language.

—JEAN-MARC-GASPARD ITARD (1821,quoted in Commerson, 2010)

Despite Dr. Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard’ssomewhat hypocritical private musings,

the development of a conventionallyaccepted written system for signed lan-guages has yet to take place. ModernDeaf1 audiences tend to point to the vi-sual-spatial-kinesthetic nature of signedlanguages as a rationale for why theybelieve it is not possible to encodesigned utterances in a static formatsuch as writing. What is often over-looked, however, is the fact that spokenlanguages, being transitory (speechsounds “disappear” almost instantly after being produced) and “invisible”(one cannot see speech), are seeminglyequally nonviable candidates for encap-sulation in the static, visible format ofwritten languages. Although speech is

IGNED LANGUAGES around the world have tended to maintain an“oral,” unwritten status. Despite the advantages of possessing a writtenform of their language, signed language communities typically resist andreject attempts to create such written forms. The present article ad-dresses many of the arguments against written forms of signed lan-guages, and presents the potential advantages of writing signedlanguages. Following a history of the development of writing in spokenas well as signed language populations, the effects of orthographic typesupon literacy and biliteracy are explored. Attempts at writing signed lan-guages have followed two primary paths: “alphabetic” and “icono-graphic.” It is argued that for greatest congruency and ease indeveloping biliteracy strategies in societies where an alphabetic scriptis used for the spoken language, signed language communities withinthese societies are best served by adoption of an alphabetic script forwriting their signed language.DONALD A. GRUSHKIN

GRUSHKIN IS A PROFESSOR, DEAF STUDIES

PROGRAM, CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY,SACRAMENTO.

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exceedingly ephemeral, numerous so-cieties have nevertheless developed avariety of ways to encapsulate the spo-ken word.What is the advantage to writing?

Carl Sagan (2011) put it grandly whenhe said, “Writing is perhaps the greatestof human inventions, binding togetherpeople, citizens of distant epochs, whonever knew one another” (p. 232).More prosaically, writing allows theeasy recording, storage, and retrieval ofrecords, history, and literature. Writingallows individuals to communicateacross distance and time (in the formof postal mail or e-mail), to sharethoughts trivial and major—shoppinglists or grand treatises, news and gos-sip, mental notes and manuals, booksand folklore, and much more. AsHagege (1988) observes,

The intangibility of its contents and itsdissimilarity to oral language alteredmany of the normal circumstances ofdiscourse, creating long-distance dia-logues where the usual proximity ofthe communicators was lacking. Yetprecisely because of this, knowledgecould become accessible to a fargreater number of recipients—writ-ing possessed the advantages of bothlongevity and range. In spreading todifferent areas and societies it allowedfor all the changes, input and varia-tions that any culture would require,permitting the encoding of newwords as well as of already existingones. (p. 72)

In the present article, I will not onlyadvocate the development and dis-semination of a written form of signedlanguages, but will also make a case forthe adoption of an alphabetically basedsystem over other potential ortho-graphic formats. Before this can be accomplished, however, the typical ob-jections to written forms of signed lan-guages must be addressed, along with

their potential benefits. Following thisdiscussion will come an examination ofthe history of writing and the varioustypes of writing systems that have beendeveloped (for both spoken andsigned languages) to date. Finally,since the American Deaf community(like many, if not most Deaf communi-ties worldwide) exists as a bilingualcommunity, the role of orthographic(writing) styles in the acquisition ofbiliteracy in biliterate populations willbe explored, especially in relation tothe impact of the congruency of styleson acquisition of biliteracy in popula-tions that are bilingual in both Ameri-can Sign Language (ASL) and English.

Objections to and PotentialBenefits of Written SignedLanguagesDespite the advantages of writing, Deafcommunities worldwide have remainedpredominantly, if not staunchly, “oral,”resisting the notion of a written formof their signed language as an impossi-bility. Over the years, I have seen vari-ous iterations of the same objections to the notion of writing signed lan-guages in various online forums such asthe Sign Language Linguistics List(SLLING-L, http://listserv.valenciacollege.edu), Teachers of American Sign Lan-guage List (TEACHASL, http://listserv.valenciacollege.edu), “vlogs” such aspresentations on SI5s by Robert Arnold(2013a, 2013b), and personal conversa-tions with others in forums such asFacebook and in person. These objec-tions are encapsulated below, with eachfollowed by a rebuttal.

1. Signed languages are not supposedto be written; signed languagesare languages in a visual-spatialmodality in which elements arepresented simultaneously, ornearly so. Moreover, signed lan-guages have features that are notpresent in spoken languages, such

as classifiers and spatial morphol-ogy, that cannot be adequately rep-resented in a two- dimensionalformat such as writing.

Although, in real time, signs may ap-pear to be occurring in time and space,with multiple syntactic and semanticelements embedded within the move-ments and facial/body grammar, Lid-dell (1984) and Liddell and Johnson(1989) observed that there is actuallyan element of sequentiality withinsigns themselves. Just as consonantsare often followed by vowels in manyspoken languages, sign movementscan be seen to have discrete compo-nents. For example, in even a simplesign like THANK YOU, the hand must firstmove away from the mouth before be-ginning its downward (and outward)motion. Therefore, sequential compo-nents of signed languages can be iden-tified and recorded in written form.

2. Signed languages are best re -corded by video technology, sincesigned language is produced inthe visual modality; indeed,video recording is sufficient forinstructional, linguistic, and so-cial purposes.

While it is true that video technology isprobably the best medium for captur-ing signed utterances exactly as theyare produced, the same could also besaid for audio technology. Yet audiotechnology is relatively little used incomparison to written language. Forexample, there are audio-recordedbooks. Even so, with the exception ofblind people and drivers with longcommutes, most people choose notto listen to a book played on a CD ordownloaded. This is primarily due tothe fact that audio recordings are sim-ply not as convenient as their writtencounterparts. One must listen to an au-dio recording sequentially, investing a


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certain amount of time to hear themessage, at the pace the message hasbeen recorded. With written works,however, one can skim or read fasterthan one can listen to the recordedmessage. Moreover, audio recordingsare not easily searchable or scannable;it is difficult to fast-forward through arecording to find a certain word or tosearch a recording by using a searchterm to identify instances of a word orphrase. With writing, however, one caneasily skim and search through sec-tions of a written work for those desired words or phrases. (This is par-ticularly true of works loaded ontoelectronic media such as word proces-sor or pdf files, or in e-readers such asa Kindle or Nook.) The same issues arepresent in video technology: It takesmore time to watch a video than itwould to read (or skim) a transcribedversion of the same video (given thesame degree of fluency in the writtensigned language as the average per-son has in written English), andvideos are also difficult to search andscan through. Although most Deafpeople presently would likely say theywould prefer to watch a video than toread a written version of it, it is proba-bly true that were they to learn and be-come comfortable with a written formof signed language, they would likelyprefer to read than watch the contentsfor time-saving purposes.

3. Developing a written form ofsigned language will promote theisolation of Deaf people from the“Hearing World”; with a writtenform of their signed language,Deaf people will not need or evenwant to learn to read and writeEnglish.

This is a variation of the (monolingual)oralist argument that exposing Deafpeople to signed language will hinderor even prevent them from learning

English. This premise has long beenfound to be false. Indeed, research hasconsistently shown that, on the whole,Deaf children of Deaf adults (whosefirst language would presumably be asigned language) outperform their Deafpeers in written-language skills (cf. Cor-son, 1973; Geeslin, 2007; Humphries etal., 2012; Meadow, 1968; Strong & Prinz,1997; Stuckless & Birch, 1966). If know-ing sign language were a deterrent tolearning the written form of a spokenlanguage, then one would expect thatnative signers would not be able tolearn how to manipulate a written lan-guage. But Deaf people are a small lin-guistic and ethnic minority (Higgins,1980; Padden & Humphries, 1988)within the majority “Hearing” society;Deaf people recognize that it is a neces-sity to be bilingual—to use their signedlanguage for daily communication, yetinteract with and contribute to the“Hearing World” through the writtenform of the majority’s spoken language.The same goes for a written form ofsigned language. Although Deaf peoplemight read Deaf newspapers, books,stories, and more in a written signedlanguage, by necessity they would alsoneed to be literate in the written formof the majority spoken language, foremployment and informational pur-poses. Thus, just as certain linguistic mi-norities like Hispanics, Chinese, andJews can be seen reading materialsprinted in the written languages of theircommunities, one also sees these samepeople speaking and writing in Englishor other languages spoken by the ma-jority around them. Indeed, in modernsociety, English has become a globallingua franca, and Deaf people willmaintain a need to know how to readand write English in order to participatein the global marketplace.

4. There is no conventionally ac-cepted form of written signed lan-guage; moreover, since there is no

significant community of writtensigned language users, there is noneed to learn and use a writtenform of signed language.

It is true that there is no conventionallyaccepted form of written sign language,and it is equally true that there is no sig-nificant community of written signedlanguage users. However, this argu-ment is somewhat circular: Effect im-plies cause implies effect. All writinghad to be developed at some point,and had to find a community ofadopters. Because of the utility of writ-ing, it became conventionalized amongearly human communities. One can alsolook to more recent innovations in writ-ing. In 1821, Sequoyah developed hissyllabary for use with the Cherokee lan-guage. Although his efforts to dissemi-nate this writing system among his tribewere initially resisted, the value of writ-ing their language was realized in lessthan 10 years, and a community of writ-ers and readers of written Cherokeequickly formed. Similarly, Louis Braille’ssystem for encoding written English intoa form accessible by blind people had itsearly detractors, but today is a standardfor blind people nearly worldwide.

5. It is hard enough to learn Englishwithout having to learn and usesome newfangled signed languagewriting system.

It has been argued by advocates ofASL/English bilingual education thatEnglish functions as a second lan-guage, rather than a first language, formost Deaf people (Grushkin, 1998; Is-raelite, Ewoldt, & Hoffmeister, 1992;Johnson, Liddell, & Erting, 1989). Con-sequently, any difficulties with devel-oping fluency in written English can besomewhat comparable to the dysfluen-cies of expressive English displayedby second-language learners (Berent,2009; Berent & Kelly, 2008; Berent,


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Kelly, & Schueler-Choukairi, 2012; Char-row & Fletcher, 1974; Strong, 1988). Itis well known that children learn toread and write in their first languageupon entering school (if not before),and with time, practice, and exposure,most become adept at manipulatingthe written form of their language. Al-though Deaf people may experiencedifficulties manipulating written Eng-lish as a second language, these diffi-culties might not be evident withwritten signed language, given familiar-ity and practice with this form of theirnative (or natural) language.

6. Deaf students need to learn thestate-required curriculum; in-struction in written ASL takes timeaway from learning English.

A primary argument of advocates ofASL/English bilingual/bicultural educa-tion has been that as a first (and natu-ral) language of Deaf people, ASLshould be used for “through the air”instruction. Krashen (1996) summa-rizes the rationale for this as follows:

When we give students quality educa-tion in their primary language, wegive them two things:

1. Knowledge, both general knowl-edge of the world and subjectmatter knowledge. The knowl-edge that children get throughtheir first language helps makesthe English they hear and readmore comprehensible.

2. Literacy, which transfers acrosslanguages. (p. 55, emphasisadded)

A number of studies, such as that ofKoda (1988), indicate that cognitiveskills developed in reading a first lan-guage do transfer to reading in a sec-ond language. Or, as Krashen (1996)says, “Once you can read, you canread. The ability to read transfers

across languages” (p. 55). He explainsthis as a natural consequence of learn-ing in a first language: “We learn toread by reading, by making sense ofwhat we see on the page. . . . If welearn to read by reading, it will bemuch easier to learn to read in a lan-guage we already understand” (p. 55,emphasis added).Although most efforts currently fo-

cus on pushing Deaf students to readin English, these efforts are somewhatcounterproductive, since, as Krashen(1996) indicates, Deaf students are be-ing taught to read in English, their sec-ond language, without first developingliteracy skills in their first, primary lan-guage: ASL. If Krashen and his adher-ents are correct, then it makes sensethat Deaf students should insteadlearn to first read and write in ASL be-fore beginning instruction in writtenEnglish. It is entirely possible to de-velop a body of work in written ASL(literary and academic) that can beused to bolster Deaf people’s linguisticand cognitive development in that lan-guage. Although their development inEnglish would be deferred to a laterpoint in their education, this delaywould likely be more than compen-sated for by increased competence inwritten English deriving from their in-creased competence in written andsigned ASL.

7. Written signs cannot adequatelyrecord prosody (speed), stress, or accents.

Writing is a limited medium. As manyhave found, most writing cannot cap-ture all the possibilities that one mightsee in a spoken text (Olson, 1993). De-spite this, writers have often foundways to convey at least some elementsof spoken languages through nonstan-dard forms (Frishberg, 1983). The useof words like shouted, screamed, orblurted gives clues to the speaker’s

tone. A young girl might be depictedas saying “OMIGODJOHHNYCALLEDMEANDHEWANTSTOGOWITHMETOTHEPROM!,” which conveys a sense oftalking fast; the use of capitals alsogives clues to the loudness of thespeaker’s voice, or the stress thespeaker may place on certain words.The underlining of the word is at thebeginning of this paragraph is anotherdevice to convey stress. Accents areshown through nonstandard spellingssuch as y’all, youse, or pahk your cah.A well-developed system of writtensigned language would also developways that would be conventionally un-derstood to convey elements of signedutterances that would otherwise notappear in the static, two-dimensionalformat of written language.

8. Most, if not all, signed languagesutilize classifiers, which are oftennovel forms and might not be un-derstood in writing.

Written language can introduce novelwords and forms that are understoodthrough context (Cain, Oakhill, & Elbro, 2003; Jenkins, Matlock, &Slocum, 1989; Nagy, Herman, & An-derson, 1985). One only needs toread Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabber-wocky” for an example of written lan-guage utilizing a large number oflexical inventions that nonethelessare understood by their syntactic andsemantic roles, as well as through theuse of metacognitive strategies suchas making use of context. Classifiers ina signed language can be treated inthe same way: Readers would usetheir skills in decoding written signedlanguage to grasp the new word be-ing presented and would likely usemetacognitive skills to recognize thatthe writer/signer was likely makingreference to a description of theitem’s size, shape, actions, and otherattributes.


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Benefits of Developing and Accepting WrittenSigned LanguageNow that it has been shown that thetypical objections to written signedlanguages are mostly without merit, itis time to address the potential bene-fits of developing and accepting a writ-ten form of signed language.

1. Elevation of the Status of ASLASL, like many signed languages, existswithin a diglossic-like situation (Fergu-son, 1959; Ramsey, 1989; Stokoe, 1969,1985; Woodward, 1980) in which themajority spoken language enjoys thestatus of “prestige language,” whileASL and other signed languages aredisfavored, or even suppressed, largelyas a result of the efforts of oralists suchas Alexander Graham Bell (Baynton,1996; Winefield, 1987) and his succes-sors. Adding to the denigration of ASLis its current status as an unwritten,“oral” language. It is largely true thatWestern society values literacy, and lan-guages that do not possess a writtentradition are often scorned as being inferior to those with written tradi-tions (Graff, 1986). Developing a con-ventionalized and accepted form ofthe language will place it in the ranksof written languages, and this will re-move a major argument for the rejec-tion of ASL as an academic as well associal language (cf. Frishberg, 1983).There are some who will point out

that many, if not most, of the world’slanguages do not have a written form,yet speakers of unwritten languagescan become bilingual in two or morelanguages. Though this is a commonlyrecognized fact, some people, such asMayer and Wells (1996), have arguedthat commonly accepted principles,such as the Linguistic Interdepend-ence Theory (Cummins, 1979), can-not apply to ASL/English bilingualeducation, since ASL does not have a

written form. That is, they argue thatwhile it is true that literacy skills in afirst language may transfer into a sec-ond language, it then stands to reasonthat when there are no literacy skillsto be developed in a first languagedue to its unwritten status, there arealso no skills to be transferred to thesecond (written) language. Develop-ing a written form of signed languagewill go a long way toward eliminatingthis argument as well. Indeed, thispoint will be addressed in more detaillater in the present article.

2. Preservation of DeafHistory, Literature, andLanguageWritten language has provided histo-rians, writers, and linguists with vastamounts of data from which insightscan be gained into past lives, thoughts,and ways language was used. Yet, forDeaf people, the lack of a convention-ally accepted writing system has led tothe loss of an incalculable quantity ofsimilar data on Deaf lives. As Bauman(2002) states,

Tracing early Deaf history is a bit liketracing the path of fireflies. The fieldis mostly dark, except for scatteredmoments of illumination. The dark-ness results in part because manuallanguages have had no written sys-tem, no way of preserving thoughtsbeyond the moment of utterance.One is always haunted by the sense ofhow much may have occurred amongDeaf individuals and communitiesthroughout history but was neverrecorded. (p. 452)

Similarly, DeFrancis (1989) observesthat writing allows people to “revisit”the earlier forms of their own lan-guage. It is well known that in 1913George Veditz collected $5,000 fromthe Deaf community to produce a series of films through which the Sign

Language, as it was called then, mightbe preserved. Yet, with this money, hewas able to produce only seven sam-ples of ASL as it existed at that time. Ifa written form of ASL had existed, onecan only dream of how many samples,as well as the variety of samples, thatwe might have today through whichwe could better understand the originsof ASL and the changes that have oc-curred in it over the past 200 years!With writing, ASL poetry, stories,

plays, and other forms of ASL literaturecan be created and preserved on paperor electronically, as well as on video-recorded media. It is even possiblethat new forms of signed language lit-erature might arise with the develop-ment of a writing system, forms thatmight not be entirely possible to create“through the air.”

3. Enhancement of ASLInstructionThe benefits of a written signed lan-guage system do not extend solely toDeaf people; nonsigners, both Deafand hearing, have the potential to gainfrom the introduction of written signedlanguage into signed language instruc-tional curricula. There are two ways inwhich this would happen.First, many teachers, following the

lead of several different sign languagecurricula, teach signs and sometimessigned language grammar through theuse of “glossing,” which is the repre-sentation of words in one language inanother. Thus, the French sentence Il fait chaud would be glossed as “Itmakes hot,” since this is a direct, one-to-one correspondence between themeaning of the lexical terms in Frenchand that of the equivalent Englishwords. This French-English example il-lustrates a primary problem withglosses: There is often not a true one-to-one correspondence in meaningbetween languages; one must oftenmake certain adjustments (translation)


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if an utterance in one language is tomake full sense in another. For signedlanguages, glosses are more problem-atic due to the diglossic-like setting inwhich they are frequently situated (Co-lonomos, 2007; Frishberg, 1983; Hoit-ing & Slobin, 2002; Johnston, 2010;Pizzuto & Pietrandrea, 2001; Slobin,2008; T. Supalla & Clark, 2015). Whilemost people understand that lan-guages such as French and English areseparate entities, people often takesigned languages to be a form of themajority spoken language. The repre-sentation of signed language lexicalitems in the written system of the ma-jority language only compounds thismistaken impression (Frishberg, 1983;Hoiting & Slobin, 2002; Slobin, 2008).Further, due to the grammatical differ-ences between spoken and signed lan-guages, glosses of signed languagesmake them appear to be ungrammat-ical and incomplete, and therefore inferior to the spoken language. To il-lustrate, the signed sentence “I will goto the store, and afterwards, I willcome home and take a shower” mightbe glossed as ME GO STORE, FINISH, COMEHOME SHOWER. Although the gloss cap-tures the order of the signs, without fa-cial grammar (nonmanual signals) anddirectional information contained insome verbs and other signs, under-standing of the semantic intent of thesigned utterance is frequently ren-dered incomplete.For learners of signed languages,

glossing also tends to “lock” studentsinto a one-to-one correspondence be-tween the gloss and the sign, whereasa sign can often have more than onesynonymous meaning in English, espe-cially when modified by nonmanualsignals and other information. In addi-tion, the glosses are represented inwhat is usually the students’ first lan-guage. As a result, signed language stu-dents are often led to maintain theirthinking in their first language rather

than attempt to make the mentaltranslation into the second language(Switzerlood, 2010). Most sign lan-guage dictionaries reinforce this Eng-lish-dominant pattern by establishing aspoken-language (gloss) meaning asthe primary means by which a sign canbe identified. With a writing system,signed vocabulary can be taught andlearned through signs first, before stu-dents are provided with a possiblerange of semantic equivalents in theirown language; this enables studentsand instructors alike to break free ofwhat Slobin (2008) has termed the“Tyranny of Glossing.”One notable ASL curriculum, Sign-

ing Naturally (Lentz, Mikos, & Smith,1988; Mikos, Smith, & Lentz, 2001;Rosen, 2010; Smith, Lentz, & Mikos,1989), deliberately avoids the use ofglosses as an instructional tool formuch the same reasons outlinedabove. Teaching is instead conductedthrough a notional-functional approach,in which vocabulary and grammar arepresented through illustrations andmodeling by the teacher. While this approach is effective in its own right,students often do not recognize or remember the grammatical elementsbeing taught and instead maintain theirspoken-language grammatical patterns(Rosen, 2010). Moreover, while stu-dents may make the semantic connec-tions between a sign as taught “throughthe air” and their own cognitive under-standings of a concept, they may havea limited range of semantic equivalentsto draw from, and therefore may at-tach an incorrect semantic meaning tothe sign. With a written system forsigned language, the signs could betaught, with a resource list of the vo-cabulary provided from which stu-dents could study to reinforce theirlearning. Moreover, students could beprovided with work sheets or a text-book with which their learning ofgrammatical concepts could be taught

and reinforced through written expla-nations and exercises.

4. Communication in theLanguage of the CommunityAs members of a linguistic minoritysituated within a majority group thatoften does not speak or know our lan-guage, Deaf people are frequentlytaught to read and write in the lan-guage of the majority. While this isworthwhile in its own right, it often rel-egates signed languages to a lesserplace, even in the minds of those whovalue and support the use of theirsigned language. Most Deaf peoplefeel more comfortable communicatingin a signed language; indeed, due to in-effective instructional practices em-phasizing spoken-language dominancein almost all areas of a Deaf person’seducational experience, Deaf peopleare commonly not comfortable withusing the spoken language, in its spo-ken or written form (Berent & Kelly,2008; J. H. Bochner & A. M. Bochner,2009). Even those who are comfort-ably bilingual in signed language andthe written (majority) language oftenfind themselves wishing at times to ex-press ideas or concepts that are pres-ent in their signed language butlacking a sufficiently adequate Englishtranslation of the sign (Arnold, 2010).Further, Deaf people often report adisconnect and struggle with express-ing and writing about themselves inEnglish, a language that many feel doesnot represent their identities and dailylives, yet have no other way of accom-plishing a cognitively congruent meansof doing so in writing (Harmon, 2007;Lindgren, 2012). As a result, one oftenhas to resort to glossing (with all its at-tendant problematicity, as discussedearlier) or resort to a crude means ofconveying which sign was intended.For instance, there is a Facebook pagetitled “ORANGE-THROAT,” a gloss that ref-erences an ASL sign whose meaning


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has nothing to do with oranges orthroats in general. With a written sys-tem of signed language, Deaf (andhearing) signers could communicatewith others in their preferred lan-guage. Although other technologysuch as video does exist and can beused, writing offers a quick and easymeans of communication that videotechnology cannot always match, asdiscussed earlier under Objection 2.

5. Discussion of SignedLanguage in Signed LanguageSince Stokoe (1960/1993) identifiedASL as a language with linguistic prin-ciples equivalent to those found inspoken languages, Deaf signers havedeveloped a newfound pride in theirlanguage, and today there are fre-quent discussions in the communityabout signs and signing. Yet too oftenthese discussions (when they occuron the Internet, as in chatrooms andsocial media) occur in English, with itsinherent limitations in representingsigned language. In bringing up orreferencing a sign, people often re-sort to a gloss of the sign or provide alengthy description of the sign suchas “hand in ‘claw’ handshape atthroat, palm inwards, hand closes intoa fist.” In these situations, an ex-tended discussion typically follows inwhich people ask for clarification ofwhat is meant by the gloss or the lin-guistic parameters of the sign. With awritten system for signed language,the sign could be raised in writtensigned language, and discussionsabout the sign could start immedi-ately; furthermore, the discussionscould be entirely in the language underdiscussion. That is, instead of allowingEnglish to maintain its colonization(Ladd, 2003) of signed languages,Deaf audiences could decolonizethrough their use of their own lan-guages in video and written mediawithout using English.

6. StandardizedUnderstanding of What “ASL” IsDue to the colonization of signed lan-guage, especially ASL by Englishthrough the introduction of English-based sign systems such as Signing Ex-act English (SEE2; Gustason, Pfetzing, &Zawolkow, 1972) and the push for Eng-lish monolingualism through oral in-struction, ASL, like many other signedlanguages, has undergone significantchanges that some would not considerto be a part of the “natural” evolution-ary process all languages undergo(Kuntze, 1990; Lucas & Valli, 1992; Ram-sey, 1989; Reagan, 1995; T. Supalla &Clark, 2015). When this process is con-sidered in conjunction with the fact thatmost Deaf people are not exposed tosigned language at an early age, or, if ex-posed to sign language, are not using a“natural” sign language (such as ASL),but, rather, a signed version of the ma-jority spoken language, one quickly re-alizes that most Deaf (and hearing)signers are not native users of ASL orother natural signed languages (Kuntze,1990). As a result, the expressive flu-ency of signers often varies widely, fromnative fluency to signing that is heavilyinfluenced by spoken language, withmost signers falling somewhere be-tween the two extremes. Lucas and Valli(1992) argue that these varieties are ex-pressions of language contact betweenEnglish and ASL, and some have takenthis to mean that all ASL signing,whether English-influenced or not, is“ASL.” While this may be true, the use ofwritten ASL, like the use of other signedlanguages, could go a long way towardstandardization and understanding ofwhat “grammatically correct” ASL is, es-pecially among the non-native signingpopulation.

7. Reduced ExpensesWriting, for all its drawbacks, is still farless expensive than any other record-

ing medium. Video and audio technol-ogy requires the purchase of equip-ment to produce and play backrecorded information, which can costhundreds to thousands of dollars. Writ-ing, on the other hand, requires onlypen and paper, at a cost of less than adollar per unit.

Literacy and BiliteracyMany researchers studying the issue ofreading skills development in Deafreaders have stressed what they viewas the need for phonological encodingstrategies for this population. They ar-gue that this is important because, likethose of many other alphabeticallywritten languages, the letters of writ-ten English represent the phonologyof spoken English. S. Supalla, Wix, andMcKee (2001) note that for Deaf read-ers, the focus on English phonology(and therefore the sound base of theEnglish language) is problematic, sinceDeaf readers do not have full access tothe sound system of English, yet “[Eng-lish] is an alphabetic system, even thevisual form of English refers to sound;that is, English graphemes representphonemes” (p. 178). In response, oth-ers have supported alternative strate-gies for use with Deaf readers, such as whole language and visual and cog-nitively based approaches to under-standing the written English word (cf.Grushkin, 1998; Hoffmeister, 1999; Liv-ingston, 1997; Padden & Ramsey, 1999;Simms, Andrews, & Smith, 2005).If it is indeed true that the develop-

ment of phonological awareness is im-portant in reading, especially readingin alphabetic languages like English,then it might make more sense forDeaf readers to develop phonologicalen/decoding skills in their first (ornatural) language, ASL, which then(according to Cummins’s Linguistic In-terdependence Theory) would likelybe more easily transferred toward theen/decoding of written English. Thus,


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the development and use of writtenASL would afford opportunities tostudy how Deaf readers can learn toread in their first, natural language. Al-ternatively, it might be that phonolog-ical encoding is not a requirement forreading in signed languages, in whichcase the emphasis on phonologicalen/decoding in English would need tobe de-emphasized in favor of lexical,syntactic, and metacognitive strategiesfor learning to read and write English,as many have advocated (e.g., Grushkin1998; Hoffmeister, 1999; Livingston,1997; Padden & Ramsey, 1999; Simmset al., 2005). An example of such astrategy is the sequential presentationof ASL and English in order to providecomparisons and contrasts betweenthe grammatical structures of the twolanguages. While this strategy can beeffective, it can be rendered even moreso by making the same contrasts usingthe two languages in a static format,such as writing. To date, most peoplehave attempted to write ASL in glossformat; however, as discussed earlier,this introduces confusions regardingthe relationship between ASL and Eng-lish. The use of a written form of ASLwould provide the benefit of the com-parison/contrast approach, while elim-inating the potential for confusion asto the nature of ASL. Written ASL canalso be a useful tool for developing vo-cabulary in English as well as signedlanguage, such as through bilingualdictionaries. Most current dictionariesonly allow for a unidirectional ap-proach to learning: from English toASL. The American Sign LanguageHandshape Dictionary (Tennant &Brown, 2010), although it does not uti-lize written signed language, providesan insight into how Deaf signers (orsigned language students) can use asigned language dictionary in a bidirec-tional manner (from sign to spokenlanguage or vice versa), using the

handshape as a primary organizingprinciple for the ordering of signs.In any case, the development and

use of a written system for signed languages would present a meanstoward a transformation of Deaf edu-cational pedagogy allowing educatorsto, as educator Cecilia Flood said in aninterview,

capitalize on language abilities, notlanguage problems. To provide amedium that potentially may enhancelinguistic and cultural identity andself-empower Deaf and hard of hear-ing students. To record the experien-tial stories of Deaf and hard of hearing. . . learners that will significantly in-form perspectives on the academicliteracy learning experiences of Deafand hard of hearing students, in theirown words. (Han, 1999, p. 2)

Flood, a teacher of the Deaf who usesa written signed language called Sign-Writing (discussed in the following sec-tion), added that

using a yet-to-be tapped resource,SignWriting, deaf and hard of hearingstudents will not only become bettersigners, but also better readers andwriters, plus they will attain member-ship in the growing club of bilingualreaders and writers in the USA. (Han,1999, p. 2)

History of Writing andWriting Signed LanguagesDiamond (1994) observes that thereare three basic strategies used by thewriting systems of the world that differin the size of the speech unit signifiedby a written symbol: a single basicsound (phoneme), a whole syllable,and a whole word. Phonemic systemsare typically conventionalized as alpha-bets, such as found in Hebrew, Cyrillic,and the English (Latinate) alphabet.

Within these systems, certain soundssuch as /k/, /s/, and /i/ are typically rep-resented by certain written symbols,which we refer to as letters. In con-trast, in other systems, such as Chineseand Egyptian hieroglyphics, a specificsymbol will holistically represent a spe-cific word in its entirety. For example,the Chinese character 大 can mean“large,” “oldest,” or, depending on thepronunciation, “doctor.” Such systemsare referred to as logographic systems.A third, less common approach is torepresent words syllabically; that is,syllables such as ba, be, bo, and bu areeach given a character, and writtenwords are formed through the com-bination of syllables. Thus, a wordlike family might be represented asfa-mi-ly (Diamond, 1994); examplesare the Cherokee writing system devel-oped by Sequoyah and the Japanesekana. It is important to note, as Dia-mond does, that although writing sys-tems typically utilize one of these threemain strategies, no writing system usesthese strategies exclusively. Rather, el-ements of other strategies are oftenseen in writing systems; for example,English uses logograms such as lettersand arbitrary symbols ($, %, &, etc.)that do not represent phonemes,while Japanese, which primarily useslogograms (derived from Chinese writ-ing) called kanji, also utilizes a syllabarycalled kana as an aid to comprehen-sion of certain words in kanji that areharder to read, and Chinese ideogramsoften contain an element that providesinformation about the phonology ofthe word.As stated earlier, to date there has

been no conventionally accepted writ-ten system for signed languages. Thisdoes not mean there is no need forone or that it cannot be done. Indeed,Fok, Van Hoek, Klima, and Bellugi(1991) not only provide evidence thatDeaf people have an instinctive desire


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to represent their own language inwriting, but also evidence of the meansby which it might be done. In a studyof young Deaf Chinese and Americanwriters, Fok et al. found instances inwhich these children attempted to cre-ate writing for words or concepts theydid not know in their respective lan-guages using principles from theirsigned languages. For example, oneDeaf child created a representation ofthe handshape or movement found inthe sign DUCK, and at another time at-tempted to illustrate the two-handedASL sign PIE through two drawings,one representing the nondominantbase hand of the sign and the othershowing what appears to be the move-ment path of the dominant hand. Inanother case, a Chinese child, given astimulus picture of a girl opening adoor, wrote the Chinese root for per-son next to the character for door;this was similar to how he might havesigned it, using classifiers and signs inChinese Sign Language. At anothertime, this child, writing about a rocketlaunching, wrote the character forairplane, but added a couple of extraupwards squiggles to the ideogram,likely to express the upward path andmotion of a rocket as it launches, ashe might have signed it. These ex -amples indicate that Deaf signers(those without any preconceptionsabout the nature of writing) do under-stand the elements of their language,and do have some desire to recordtheir thoughts using their primarylanguage.With the onset of the linguistic

study of modern signed language, sev-eral transcription systems have beendeveloped for the purpose of record-ing and analyzing signed languages,such as Stokoe Notation (Stokoe,1960/1993), the Hamburg NotationSystem (HamNoSys; Prillwitz, 1989),and the Liddell-Johnson Movement-

Hold model (Liddell & Johnson, 1989).However, notation or transcription sys-tems are different from writing in thatthey are designed to encapsulate finephonemic differences within a lan-guage for the purpose of linguisticstudy; as a whole, they tend to be toocumbersome, if not arcane, for the average layperson to use on an every-day basis. Writing, on the other hand,tends not to attempt to encapsulateevery element of an utterance within alanguage (such as intonation, prosody,or variations in regional accents), but,rather, to encode just enough ele-ments for comprehension within astatic format through which languageswere not developed to be expressed(Graff, 1986). In this way, writing en-codes sufficient information for thetransmission of ideas between mem-bers of a linguistic community withoutbecoming too overwhelming for usersto learn and manipulate. Or, as Tzengand Hung (1988) state,

As we look back at these historicalchanges [in writing systems], we seethat the evolution of writing seems tohave taken a single direction at everyadvance, the number of symbols inthe script decreases, and as a directconsequence the abstractness of therelation between script and mean ingincreases and the link between graph -emes and phonemes becomes clearer.(p. 275)

Although there is no conventionallyaccepted written system for signed lan-guages, this is not to say that therehave been no attempts to create writ-ten signed language. One of the earliestknown attempts was by Roch- Ambroise Bebian, who, as godson toRoch-Ambroise Sicard (the second di-rector of the Royal National Institutefor the Deaf, in Paris), grew up withDeaf people and became an educatorof the Deaf himself (Cuxac, 1990; Fis-cher, 1995; Lane, 1984a, 1984b; T. Su-palla & Clark, 2015). Several examplesof Bebian’s writing system are pre-sented in Figure 1. In the 1970s, ValerieSutton modified the DanceWritingsystem used to develop dance chore-ography for use with signed language(Sutton, n.d.). The system that resulted,SignWriting, consists of drawn symbolsrepresenting handshapes, orientations,locations, and movements, and can bemodified to portray perspective andother nonstandard changes in a sign aswell. This writing system has been uti-lized in several different countries andin a few school programs in the UnitedStates (Nover, 2000; Senghas, 2015). Anexample of SignWriting is presented inFigure 2.Since the development of SignWrit-

ing, a few others have made attempts todesign a written signed language sys-tem. In the 2000s, Robert Arnold cre-ated Si5s (Arnold, 2010, 2013a, 2013b),which has gained some traction due to


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Figure 1

Examples of Bebian’s Mimographie

Notes. Livre, “book.” Cligner, “to bat the eye” (transitive). Clignoter, “to wink” (intransitive).


his strong promotional efforts. Be-cause of disagreements about howsigns should be written, a member ofArnold’s initial group, Adrean Clark,developed a variation on Si5s, whichshe calls “ASLwrite.” Examples of Si5sand ASLwrite are provided in Figure 3.What is interesting about all of these

systems is that they do not appear toconform to the three basic writing

styles identified by Diamond (1994):logographic, syllabic, or alphabetic.Rather, due to the visual-kinestheticnature of signed languages, their cre-ators have chosen to represent signs ina manner that might be best describedas “iconographic.” That is, these sys-tems employ pictorial (iconic) ways ofexpressing the elements of a sign, al-though it should be noted that most, if

not all, of these do appear to includesome phonological information withintheir “iconograms.”However, it may be possible to en-

code signed languages more tradition-ally (at least according to most Westerneducational mores), utilizing an alpha-betic approach. Samuel Supalla andhis colleagues working with Deaf chil-dren at a Tucson charter school pro-gram developed an alphabetic-likesystem for writing ASL signs based onASL “graphemes” representing hand-shapes, locations, and movements tobe used as a bridge toward English lit-eracy (S. Supalla et al., 2001). UnlikeStokoe’s earlier work, in which signswere also represented through a set of symbols, some of which were basedon English (Latinate) orthography, Su-palla’s symbols were based on the ap-pearance of the handshape itself, andwere unique to this system. Thus, in abreak with earlier (notation) systems,Supalla and associates achieved a de-coupling of ASL from English orthog-raphy, whether partial, as in StokoeNotation, or whole, as in glosses.However, Supalla did not appear toenvision his system being used as ameans of transmitting extended texts,but rather simply as something of a“starter” system toward acquiring Eng-lish. As a result, the signs are frozenat the lexical level, without much, ifany, extension toward the syntactic and discourse levels. Drawing uponSupalla’s work, I have developed a sim-ilarly unique set of symbols represent-ing handshape, orientation, location,movement, and nonmanual mor-phemes to be arranged horizontally ina manner similar to those of Englishand other orthographies, which I havenamed SignScript (Grushkin 2010a,2010b, 2010c, 2010d). Unlike Si5s,however, this system has not beenwidely disseminated at this time. Ex-amples of SignScript are provided inFigure 4.


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Figure 2

Examples of SignWriting

Figure 3

Examples of Si5s and ASLwrite

Figure 4

Examples of SignScript


Orthography and BiliteracyIf the Deaf community were to de-velop and accept a system of writtensigned languages, what then, wouldbe the best approach—iconographicor alphabetic? More important, whatwould be the impacts on the learningof English if signed languages werewritten by means of a non-Roman writ-ing (or orthographic) system? Wouldany differences in orthographic struc-ture negatively affect the acquisition ofEnglish as a second (written) lan-guage? Perhaps the best way to answerthese questions is to examine whathappens when bilinguals learn to readand write in two different languages,especially when the languages are writ-ten in dissimilar orthographic formats.There are two main areas of concernand exploration: The first is whetherthe writing provides readily accessibleinformation to the phonology of thelanguage (“shallow orthography”) orthe relationship between the lan-guage’s phonology and the writtenword is more opaque (“deep orthogra-phy”). The second relates to the trans-fer of reading strategies learned in onelanguage to reading in a second language, especially when divergentorthographies may require the devel-opment of different reading strategies.Hung and Tzeng (1981) note that

every orthography transcribes sen-tences at the level of words, and thatthis transcription is achieved in a mor-phemic way. While this is certainlytrue, differences in the type of scriptdo affect the learning of the script, aswell as how readers may process differ-ent types of scripts, especially afterhaving learned a differing script type.For example, Geva and Siegel (2000)found that when a script is less com-plex (in that the relationship betweenphonology and graphemes is more di-rect, or “shallower”), children developword recognition skills with relativeease in comparison to when they are

working with more orthographicallycomplex scripts. However, Hung andTzeng also found that these effects aresomewhat limited: While human visualinformation processing is affected byorthographic variation, this occursonly at lower levels, which are data-driven (or “bottom-up”) processes. Athigher levels of reading (concept-driven, or “top-down,” processes),reading appears to be immune to or-thographic variation.Reading English involves using an

alphabetic orthographic system. An ad-vantage of alphabetic orthographies isthat, as Tzeng and Hung (1988) ob-serve, these systems map onto thespoken (or signed) word at the level ofthe phoneme. Therefore, with alpha-betic writing systems,

in the ideal case, someone can readwords he has never before seen. It isobvious, however, that one can dothis only insofar as he is able to mapthe internal structure of the writtenword onto the segmental structure ofthe morphophonological representa-tion of the spoken word he holds inhis personal lexicon. (I. Lieberman, A.Lieberman, Mattingly, & Shankweiler,1980, p. 149)

Although there are advantages tothe alphabetic format of writing, not allalphabets are created equal. For ex-ample, Hebrew’s alphabet is more“squarish” compared to the Latin al-phabet; that is, the letters are moreblocklike, with more horizontal andvertical strokes and fewer curves anddiagonals than are present in the Latinalphabet. As a result, it may take read-ers of Hebrew slightly longer to recog-nize differences in letters comparedto those reading in English (Share &Levin, 1999). In addition, although al-phabetic orthographies do map ontothe phonemic level of language, read-ers have to be taught to make the con-

nection between the phonemes of alanguage and the graphemes that rep-resent these phonemes. This task canbe complicated in languages such asEnglish, which has a “deep orthogra-phy.” That is, one phoneme in Englishcan often be represented in multipleways. To illustrate, the sound /f/ can berepresented as “f ” (fish), “ff ” (quaff),“ph” (phony) or “gh” (cough); like-wise, the sound /n/ can be representedas “n” (need), “kn” (know, knife), “pn”(pneumonia), and “gn” (sign). As a re-sult, beginning readers can experiencedifficulty decoding English whentaught through an explicitly phonics-based approach, which is why Good-man (1993, 1994) advocates the use ofwhole language approaches instead.In comparison to alphabetic sys-

tems, there are logographic systems,such as Chinese ideograms or Japan-ese kanji (which were borrowed fromthe Chinese logographs). Whereas al-phabetic systems stress the phonemiclevel of language, reading in logo-graphic systems is primarily estab-lished at the lexical (vocabulary) orsemantic (meaning) level, since eachlogogram typically represents a singleword or concept (Tzeng, 1983; M. Wang, Perfetti, & Liu, 2003). Sincelogograms represent single words orconcepts, learning to read in Chineseinvolves making associations betweenthe vocabulary in one’s linguistic baseand the written characters represent-ing the lexical item or semantic con-cept. Ultimately, this necessitates thememorization of thousands of sepa-rate characters. Hung and Tzeng (1981)observed that initially, readers learninglogographic systems may have initialsuccess at this task as long as the char-acters to be learned are distinctly dif-ferent; however, with the introductionof additional characters, similarities topreviously learned characters will beginto appear. At this point, purely visualstrategies will become less effective,


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and the reader must develop othermemory strategies to maintain thereading process. Nevertheless, Tzengand Hung (1988) hypothesized thatsince Chinese logographs containmore symbols with similar sounds butdifferent meaning, and since there areoften minor differences between lo-gographs, processing of a logographicscript would involve more visual/spa-tial memory than is the case for pro-cessing alphabetic scripts. Indeed,Tzeng and M. Wang (1983) found thisto be the case: Processing logographsdoes involve more visual memory thanoccurs in the reading of alphabetic sys-tems. Although the sheer number oflogograms to be memorized appearsdaunting and perhaps cumbersome,Noda (1995) posits one advantage oflogographic scripts:

The phonetic representation systemsof Japanese call for a linear approachthat slows down the reading processand correspondingly delays under-standing of the content, whereas theglobality of the logogram means thatit can be immediately recognized andunderstood once it has been memo-rized. (p. 25)

Advantages and drawbacks of indi-vidual orthographic strategies becomeless clear when one discusses bilinguallearning and strategy transfer betweenlanguages and scripts. More specifi-cally for our purposes here, what arethe effects of nonalphabetic or non-Latinate scripts on learning of an alpha-betic, Latinate script such as that ofEnglish?Kenner, Kress, Al-Khatib, Kam, and

Tsai (2004) observed that young chil-dren, even without prior instruction,can develop understanding of howwriting systems operate and can differ-entiate among multiple orthographies.Further, Kenner et al. found that ortho-graphic knowledge and reading or

writing strategies may transfer be-tween languages, even in children whoare just beginning to learn to read andwrite. However, they caution that bilin-gual literacy development is not a stan-dard one-way path: For each child orperson, the process of literacy devel-opment can take individual pathwayswhile he or she is learning about script.In their experiment, Tzeng and

Hung (1988) found some evidence thatreading strategy interference does existfor Chinese-English bilingual readers.They attribute this to a transfer of log-ographic reading processes that were(ineffectively) applied to English (al-phabetic) reading. However, Lee, Wee,Tzeng, and Hung (1992) conductedStroop interference tests (in which sub-jects are asked to name a color whenthe word for it is presented in a differ-ent color) among bilingual subjectswhose languages were written in differ-ent orthographic systems. Althoughthey hypothesized that a greater differ-ence in orthographic structure wouldlead to a reduction of interference ef-fects during language switching, theyfound that orthographic structure by it-self was unrelated to the degree of theinterference effect.Interestingly, Tzeng and Hung

(1988) cite research from the Salk Insti-tute in which Chinese and AmericanDeaf readers were compared in theiruse of reading strategies. According tothe Salk investigators, Chinese Deafreaders tended to explore the spatiallayout of logographs, while AmericanDeaf readers focused on the lineararrangements of letter strings. WhenDeaf readers were studied in thecourse of research on acquisition of asigned language, Tzeng and Hungnoted that Deaf Chinese enjoyed aneasier transition from their sign lan-guage to the reading of logographsthan the Deaf Americans did in tran -sitioning from signing to reading an alphabetic script. This finding has sig-

nificant implications for the develop-ment of a written signed language sys-tem, and will be examined in greaterdetail later in the present article.Since English script is based on al-

phabetic principles, and alphabeticwriting is strongly associated with thephonemic structure of a language, itcomes as no surprise that educators inEnglish-speaking countries, amongothers, typically stress the need to de-velop phonemic awareness in readersof English. Indeed, Holm and Dodd(1996) state that the development ofphonemic awareness requires alpha-betic literacy, not just literacy in gen-eral. This assertion is corroborated byboth Hanley, Tzeng, and Huang (1999)and Cheung, Chen, Lai, Wong, andHills (2001), who indicate that thephonological awareness of Chinesereaders is bolstered by the learning ofan alphabetic system. These findingsare attributable to the fact that logo-graphic systems, which map ontomeaning rather than sound, do notprovide readers of these systems withexperience in consciously identifyingthe phonological segments of aword—a skill (among others) neededfor fluent reading of alphabetic scripts(Holm & Dodd, 1996). This means, ac-cording to Holm and Dodd, that thosefrom nonalphabetic written-languagebackgrounds may have difficulties withnew or unfamiliar words encounteredin English. However, Holm and Doddcaution that this need for phonologicalawareness is not absolute, since Eng-lish spelling can be acquired withoutphonological awareness, by means of a“global” strategy, as whole languageadvocates such as Goodman (1993,1994) have insisted. Further, there areindications that even when childrenlearn to read highly contrasting writingsystems, there is still some phonolog-ical transfer between languages (M.Wang, Perfetti & Liu, 2003). Interest-ingly enough, potential conflicts be-


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tween reading strategy and learning ofa second written system does not ap-pear to be bidirectional: M. Wang et al.(2003) found that readers of alpha-betic writing systems were able tograsp the orthographic structure of alogographic system such as Chinesefairly quickly, applying their percep-tual skills and the mediation of theirfirst language toward the acquisition ofChinese writing.In a study with implications for writ-

ten signed language and English bilit-eracy, M. Wang, Park, and Lee (2006)investigated the development of bilit-eracy in children whose first languagewas written in a non-Roman alphabeticsystem (Korean) who were learning toread English as a second language. Thestudy presents an interesting case be-cause written Korean (“Hangul”) hasan alphabetic component in which thegraphemes correspond to phonemes,as in English; however, Hangul is laidout in a nonlinear format, like Chi-nese. This nonlinear aspect is some-what comparable to the nonlinearaspects of some written signed lan-guages, such as Si5s and SignWriting. Ithas been established that phonologicalskills in one language tend to be highlycorrelated with phonological skills in asecond language, and these skills typ-ically contribute to word-reading skillsin a second language (Cummins, 2006;Mayer & Trezek, 2014). Additionally, itis known that weak expressive lan-guage proficiency in the second lan-guage tends to limit the ability to relyon phonological processing for somelearners of second languages (Allen,Letteri, Choi, & Dang, 2014; Grushkin,1998; McQuarrie & Parrila, 2014). Formany Deaf people, English functionsas a second, rather than first, language(Grushkin, 1998; Wilbur, 2000), and, inaddition, is less accessible for Deafpeople in comparison to signed lan-guages, since Deaf people do not typ-ically have complete exposure to

English in any form except throughwriting. What M. Wang et al. (2006)found was that orthographic skills inEnglish and Korean were not signifi-cantly correlated; that is, orthographicskills in Korean did not predict Englishword reading more than possession ofEnglish phonological and orthographicskills. The authors suggested that thiswas potentially due to the difference invisual form and orthographic trans-parency of the two languages. In otherwords, since English utilizes a linearlayout and has a “deep” orthography,whereas Korean has a nonlinear layoutand a “shallow” orthography, skills de-veloped in Korean did not transfer wellto reading in English. In another inter-esting note, the authors cited recentneuroimaging work on Chinese-Eng-lish bilingual adults that indicated thatthese adults experience more activa-tion in the brain areas responsible forcoordinating and integrating visual-spatial analyses of logographic Chinesecharacters in comparison to what wasseen when they were reading English.Similar results for visual-spatial brainactivation have been found in Deafsubjects during signed language dis-course (Emmorey et al., 2005; Mac-Sweeney et al., 2002).

ConclusionIn conclusion, the questions must beasked: Does the development of writ-ing for signed languages hold any truebenefits for Deaf people, as individualsand as a community? If so, what type oforthographic format should writtensigned language take, especially whenASL-English biliteracy is a goal?It is a long-standing truism that age

of acquisition is one of the best predic-tors of ASL fluency among the adultDeaf population: The earlier one is ex-posed to ASL, the greater one’s ex-pressive command of the language(Boudreault & Mayberry, 2006; May-berry, 1993; Newport, 1991; Newport

& T. Supalla, 1990). Yet even thoughexposure to ASL is a necessity, simpleexposure is not sufficient for mastery.As Singleton, S. Supalla, Litchfield, andSchley (1998) caution, informal expo-sure to ASL outside the classroomdoes not guarantee that a Deaf childwill attain a high level of ASL fluency. Asis the case with English, Deaf childrenmust be formally taught the structureand rules of the language they use.Some teachers of the Deaf have ex-

perimented with a variety of ways toprovide this formal exposure to ASL.Some, like Snoddon (2010), haveturned to video technology in conjunc-tion with a storytelling/writing ap-proach in which student narratives aresigned in ASL and then transcribed intoEnglish texts which are then revised ac-cording to feedback from the teacher.While effective in promoting English lit-eracy, this approach maintains an Eng-lish-centrism in that not only is Englishthe primary focus for improvement, butASL is not accorded an equal status be-cause it is unwritten. In a similar ap-proach, Mozzer-Mather (1990) usedglosses to improve and expand writtenEnglish narratives. In addition to theproblems with glosses discussed ear-lier, the use of glosses, as in Snod-don’s work, also maintains Englishprimacy by representing ASL words inEnglish-seeming format. While the ba-sic technique does foster cognitivecomparisons of the structural similari-ties and differences between the twolanguages, it is almost certainly the casethat written ASL would be more effec-tive at capturing elements that are noteasily represented through glosses, andwould achieve a true separation be-tween the two languages in the mindsof students. Moreover, this would go along way toward removing the cogni-tive disconnect Deaf writers feel in try-ing to put their lives and thoughts inwriting in English, as Harmon (2007)and Lindgren (2012) have observed.


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S. Supalla et al. (2001) offer the in-teresting observation that movementin ASL is comparable to the role ofvowels in spoken languages. While it ispossible that this statement may provetrue, it does seem clear that the abilityto truly write a signed language offersmultiple potentials for developingother insights into the nature of signedlanguages that might otherwise remain“invisible” to the casual observer. De-velopment of a written system forsigned languages also offers alternativeways in which speakers of these lan-guages can examine and stretch theboundaries of their languages. For ex-ample, spoken languages have visualpoems and forms of linguistic playsuch as acrostics and rebuses that areonly made possible by being writtendown. It is reasonable to speculate thatthe development of written signed lan-guage would enable new avenues forexploring the potentialities of signedlanguages.The development of written signed

language also allows Deaf speakers ofsigned languages to communicate withone another in their native/natural lan-guage. As one example, social mediasuch as Facebook allow users to switchfonts so that they can express them-selves in their preferred language. Thedevelopment of a written signed lan-guage font, especially if the font werealphabetic, would allow Deaf interac-tants to converse with one another,and more important, allow discussionsabout ASL to be made in ASL withoutconfusions about the sign referents orthe signer’s intent.The most “popular” strategy for

writing signed languages is the “icono-graphic” approach, which utilizes a setof icons representing the parametersof any given sign such as location,movement, and handshape. Like thelogographic strategy, iconographic ap-proaches are highly visual in nature,which appeals to Deaf people due to

their visual orientation to the world.Noda (1995) notes one advantage ofthe logographic strategy:

The phonetic representation systemsof Japanese call for a linear approachthat slows down the reading processand correspondingly delays under-standing of the content, whereas theglobality of the logogram means thatit can be immediately recognized andunderstood once it has been memo-rized. (p. 25)

Evaluation of the several icono-graphic scripts currently in existencereveals that these systems also presentinformation in a global manner, andtherefore hold the potential for morerapid decoding of the sign comparedto other possible approaches, such asalphabetic ones. Tzeng and Hung(1988) and Tzeng and M. Wang (1983)found the processing of logographicscripts to require more visual memorythan the processing of alphabeticscripts. If iconographic scripts func-tioned similarly, they would be wellsuited to Deaf individuals, for whom vi-sual memory tends to be a strength. In-deed, the Salk Institute research citedby Tzeng and Hung in which Deaf Chi-nese evidenced an easier transitionfrom signed language to reading lo-gographs than Deaf Americans makingthe same transition to alphabetic scriptsuggests that Deaf signers might expe-rience an easier transition from sign toiconograph.The visual nature of iconographic

scripts does allow for some variation inlayout, however. While Si5s is arrangedin a more familiar (for readers of Eng-lish) left-to-right pattern, its charactersare not placed linearly, as is done inEnglish. Another system, SignWriting,appears to be written in a vertical lay-out. This is slightly problematic, sinceHung and Tzeng (1981) point out thatstudies in perceptual development in-

dicate that writing horizontally, whichallows for horizontal scanning, resultsin faster processing than vertical layouts and scanning. Iconographicscripts, like logographs, may also cre-ate problems when readers of thesesystems attempt to make the transfertoward reading the alphabetic systemof English. As Tzeng and Hung (1988)state,

Because logographs represent units ofmeaning rather than units of sound, ithas been suggested that logographicorthographies allow more rapid accessof meaning than phonetic orthogra-phies . . . although phonetic orthogra-phies may allow more rapid access ofnames. Thus, reading Chinese may in-volve different cognitive processesthan reading English. (pp. 277–278)

Indeed, Hanley et al. (1999) found thatstudents from Hong Kong were lesslikely to utilize the alphabetic informa-tion provided in English, preferring toengage the visual strategies learnedfrom reading Chinese logographs. Itfollows, then, that like Chinese read-ers, Deaf readers of iconographic writ-ing systems might develop visualstrategies for reading these systemsthat would not be readily transferableto reading English.Since English is an alphabetic sys-

tem that naturally stresses a phonemicrelationship between language andwriting, it might make more sense,then, to employ an alphabetic ap-proach to writing signed languages inorder to facilitate greater transfer ofreading skills in the first language(signed) toward the second language(English). Educators of the Deaf havelong emphasized what they view as anecessity for Deaf readers to developawareness of the phonological under-pinnings of the majority written lan-guage; indeed, almost every issue ofthe American Annals of the Deaf and


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other Deaf education journals containsat least one article addressing this con-cern and its pedagogically associatedstrategies such as Cued Speech and Vi-sual Phonics (e.g., Allen et al., 2009;Mayer & Trezek, 2014; Paul, Y. Wang,Trezek, & Luckner, 2009; Syverud,Guardino, & Selznick, 2009; Y. Wang,Trezek, Luckner, & Paul, 2008), despitethe counterintuitive nature of promot-ing sound-based phonology in thereading process for Deaf readers(Grushkin, 1998; McQuarrie & Parrila,2014). As Schwarzer (2001) notes, stu-dents can read and write in a secondlanguage, even at the beginning oftheir oral development in that lan-guage; speaking is not necessarily aprerequisite for literacy development,especially in a second language. Wilbur(2000), like Holm and Dodd (1996),corroborates Schwarzer’s observation,asserting that “the absence of an alpha-betic writing system, and hence the ab-sence of awareness of individualphonemes, is no detriment to literacy(for Deaf readers), as reflected by theChinese situation” (p. 88).Yet if phonological awareness is im-

portant in reading English, might itnot make more sense for Deaf readersto develop phonological awareness oftheir first language (ASL), so that what-ever skills were developed from read-ing in this language would be moreeasily transferred toward the readingof English? Although iconographic sys-tems do contain some elements ofsigned language phonology, just asChinese logographs do, it stands toreason that an alphabetic systemwould make these phonological ele-ments more explicit. Indeed, Hanley et al. (1999) suggest that phonologicalawareness in Chinese readers is bol-stered by learning an alphabetic sys-tem such as the Chinese pinyinsystem. Thus, since English is alpha-betic and based on phonological prin-ciples, it appears logical that if signed

language writing were based on signedlanguage phonological principles,there would be positive transfer ef-fects toward reading skills in both lan-guages, although, of course, due tothe different orthographies andphonologies, such transfer would notbe entirely direct. This notion is cor-roborated by a finding by Akamatsu(1999) that the written-language cod-ing mechanisms of bilinguals for read-ing in a second language are positivelyinfluenced by the orthographic charac-teristics of their first language. Anotherpoint of consideration in favor of em-ploying the alphabetic principle forsigned language writing is the claim byGoswami (1999) that code acquisitionoccurs more rapidly in highly transpar-ent orthographies (where phoneme/grapheme correspondences are con-sistent) than in less transparent or-thographies. When one considers thaticonographic writing systems do notmake the phoneme/grapheme rela-tionship as explicit as an alphabeticsystem, it seems that the developmentand use of an alphabetic system wouldbe of more utility for Deaf readers(with English and other alphabetic or-thographies), especially when onetakes into account the need for devel-opment of signed language/spokenlanguage bilingual abilities.Diamond (1994) observes that writ-

ing systems, consciously designed bytrained linguists, are continually com-ing into existence. While this can be agood thing, Hagege (1988) warns that

the introduction of writing into theheart of an oral society does requirecertain precautions. Writing has beena progressive rather than a sponta-neous development, and importantcultural differences separate societiesthat are literate from those that arenot. The latter have over many yearsdeveloped on the basis of oral lan-guage their own modes of expres-

sion, their own systems of exchangeand balance. To avoid the risks of adangerous intervention of writinginto an oral milieu, these societiesmust design for themselves the pathsthrough which they hope eventuallyto accede to the rewards of literacy.(p. 81)

The Deaf cultural community haslong functioned as an “oral” culture,even as English is used in the commu-nity for interaction among its mem-bers and with others outside thecommunity. In order to gain accept-ance, a writing system must be seen tomeet the needs of the community in avariety of ways. Selection of the wrongformat would be detrimental to thisgoal. As Diamond (1994) asks, “Dosub-ideal writing systems really makeit harder for adults to read, or for chil-dren to learn to read? Many observa-tions make clear that the answer isyes” (p. 113). It has been demon-strated that reading skills developed inone orthography may not be neededin a different orthography, especially ifthe two orthographies have differentscript-utterance mapping rules. Thus,as Tzeng (1983) asserts, “instructionalprograms for bilingual children whosefirst language has a nonalphabetic or-thography should be carefully de-signed to facilitate positive transferand minimize negative interferencedue to the orthographic factor” (p.92). If an iconographic system be-comes the standard, Tzeng’s warningwill need to be attended to. Of course,this issue would be drastically miti-gated if an alphabetic strategy for writ-ten signed languages were chosen bythe community.In sum, a written signed language

system should (ideally) meet the fol-lowing conditions:

1. The written script should bearranged horizontally.


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2. The script should be alphabetic,for maximal congruence withEnglish-learning strategies.

3. The script should not attempt tocontain every possible variationin handshape, movement, andlocation.

4. The script should have aphoneme/grapheme relation-ship that is as clear as possible.

5. Bilingual instructional strategiesshould be developed to maximizethe ability of a written signed sys-tem to induce linguistic transfertoward English literacy.

Because of my arguments for an al-phabetic approach to writing signedlanguages, the reader may at this pointhave obtained an impression thaticonographic approaches are ineffec-tive in comparison to alphabetic ap-proaches. This is far from the case.Although I have some additional “quib-bles” (which are beyond the scope ofthe present article) about elements ofthe iconographic approaches createdto date, there is no doubt that as writ-ing systems, these approaches dowork. It is in the area of biliteracy andskills transfer toward alphabetic lan-guages such as English that the icono-graphic approach is being questioned.While the present article does advo-cate an alphabetic approach, it may be the case that the community will prefer to adopt an iconographic ap-proach such as Si5s or ASLwrite. Ifthis does come to pass, Deaf readerscan still acquire the biliteracy skillsbetween their signed language andwritten majority language. However,educators will need to take extra stepsin guiding the transition toward learn-ing the written system of the majority,as Tzeng (1983) points out. It is be-lieved, however, that no matter whatform of written signed language theDeaf community does adopt, Itard’sconclusions about the benefits of

signed language could be restated inthis way:

With this accomplishment (writingsigned languages), the Deaf commu-nity could embark just as rapidly onthe vast career that this discovery(sign language) opened to its mem-bers’ intelligence.

Note on Terminology1. It has become a matter of conven-tion in the fields of Deaf cultural stud-ies and Deaf education to use a d/Deafdesignation to delineate culturallyDeaf from medically deaf. However,this designation is increasingly comingto be considered divisive and impre-cise, and to be based on a citation(Woodward, 1975/1982) that does notin fact use such a distinction. In sup-port of asserting an ethnicity perspec-tive of Deaf people (see also CanadianCultural Society of the Deaf, n.d.; Lane,2005), an uppercase D is stylisticallyapplied throughout the present articleto refer to all persons with hearingability below “normal” hearing levels,regardless of cultural affiliation or cho-sen mode of communication. The onlytimes “deaf ” and “hard of hearing” willbe used will be in direct quotations ofauthors who have chosen to employthese terms.—The Author

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writing signed languages: what for? what form?

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