Sign Language Portrayal in Writing

Inkspill · Jul 11, 2008

I'm in a sticky situation right now. My main MC for my novel right now is deaf, but she uses American Sign Language as well as lip reading, and can speak. She was not born deaf, this occurred from an incident about three years' prior to the story.

As of today, I've been putting incidents of signing (sometimes long chunks of text) in italics, not in direct "signing quotes," but in the speaking translation. For instance, if my MC signed, nice meet, the translation would be, Nice to meet you. What I've been doing is putting the translation in italics like so: "Nice to meet you," he signed. However, there are instances where my MC and other characters sign for awhile (a page or two?), and I'm worried when an agent skims the MS, this abnormally large amount of italics might alarm them. I've considered bolding them, as Shady_Lane does (and I believe it works well in her situation), but I'm not so sure bold in large amounts without interruption will work in my case. My other option is to put signing in parentheses, ie: (Nice to meet you,) he signed. Diane Duane used this method to portray a supernova speaking, in So You Want To Be a Wizard, but I believe it could work from differentiating signing from normal speech.

I would appreciate all opinions and which option you would find least glaring if you were reading a book. Thank you!

--Inkspill

IceCreamEmpress · Jul 11, 2008

I like the parentheses, actually.

But the comma should go outside the parentheses (other punctuation goes inside):

"Hello, I'm Joan," she said. She tried to speak slowly so that Bill could read her lips.
(Nice to meet you), he signed.
"I'm your new caseworker."
(No way! Bob retired?) he signed.

Or don't use a comma:

(Nice to meet you) he signed.

But don't put the comma inside the parentheses. That just looks wrong for some reason. Oh, I know--it's because the comma is the author's punctuation, and the other punctuation marks are the speakers' punctuation.

Reilly616 · Jul 11, 2008

I would prefer the italics to the brackets.

Shady Lane · Jul 11, 2008

Even though you already mentioned me...

I don't use commas with my bolding.

Snake he tells me, pointing to the toys at the corner of the store--particularly to a purple snake that could wrap around his neck and strangle him in his sleep.

Snake no I sign back, and choose a bag of chocolate turtles.

And I do the ASL in ASL-grammar, not English grammar. yep.

Inkspill · Jul 11, 2008

IceCreamEmpress said:
Oh, I know--it's because the comma is the author's punctuation, and the other punctuation marks are the speakers' punctuation.

Thanks, that whole post was really helpful. I'm leaning towards the parentheses, myself, just because I find the italics are giving me a headache right now.
Reilly: Thanks for your feedback.
Shady: I posted this *before* I saw your answer on RM, but thanks for the additional examples!

Williebee · Jul 11, 2008

What a cool thread! It opened my eyes.

Having to express sign language in a story just hadn't occurred to me yet. OK, the next Hollow story is getting a deaf character.

Thanks!

maestrowork · Jul 11, 2008

I had a character who signs in my novel. Not for an extensive amount of time, but enough. I used normal formatting for dialogue, actually. Once I indicated they were signing, the readers know.

(yeah, read my book!)

Kalyke · Jul 11, 2008

I think that you should treat their signing as ordinary talk, and be grammatically correct about it. A lot of sign has to do with body language as well as what the actual hand signal means. It would be similar if you said your characters were speaking Russian. Although the Russian Language has no articles and some other things that the English Language does, you would transpose it as English. The only modern story I can think of right off is Stephan King's "The Stand." Nick Andros, a main character, is deaf-mute, and he uses sign language. You should look it up and see how King did it.

JoNightshade · Jul 11, 2008

I had to deal with this issue in a previous draft... now gone. Sigh. Anyway, my problem was that a couple of characters alternated between speech and signing, and it was important to know when they were just signing (because the goal was silence). I used these kinds of brackets: []. Like thus:

"Hey, what's going on?" Joe crouched down beside Pete.
[Shut up!] Pete signed. [I don't want them to know I'm here.]
"Oh," Joe whispered. [Sorry. Have they said anything important?]

After the first indication that brackets=signing, I no longer use the tag "signed." I just assume the reader will know.

Amynta · Jul 11, 2008

The Hear No Evil (aka the Sara Howell Mysteries) series, by Kate Chester, features a deaf protagonist and at the beginning of each book there is a note to the reader:

Sara Howell is profoundly, postlingually deaf (meaning she lost her hearing after she learned to speak). She is fluent in American Sign Language (ASL) and English. She can read lips.

When a character speaks, quotation marks are used: "What out for that bus!" When a character signs, italics are used to indicate ASL: Watch out for that bus! Quotation marks and italics indicate the character is signing and speaking simultaneously: "Watch out for that bus!"

Unless the sign is described (for example: Sara circled her heart. I'm sorry...), the italicised words are translations of ASL into English, not literal descriptions of the grammatical structure of American Sign Language.

Inkspill · Jul 11, 2008

Thank you for all the perspectives and examples. They're tremendously helpful.

--Inkspill

dpaterso · Jul 11, 2008

Good answers all.

If I hadn't read the above I would have suggested italics (which should be underlines in your document), e.g. Joe signed, I'm hungry! Let's go eat!

-Derek

Seif · Jul 12, 2008

Use Her Name said:
I think that you should treat their signing as ordinary talk, and be grammatically correct about it. A lot of sign has to do with body language as well as what the actual hand signal means. It would be similar if you said your characters were speaking Russian. Although the Russian Language has no articles and some other things that the English Language does, you would transpose it as English. The only modern story I can think of right off is Stephan King's "The Stand." Nick Andros, a main character, is deaf-mute, and he uses sign language. You should look it up and see how King did it.

I thought of this example as well. Nick Andros finds himself in a police station after having been left battered and bloodied on a road. The way in which he communicates is by gesticulating (nods his head, shaking his head, shrugging shoulders, clenching fists) and by writing things down on a piece of paper.

The problem with sign language is that almost every character in the book will have to be adept at it if not then communication will break down. Try to vary it out a little on how your MC communicates. As for how it is written, I don't think it really matters. Italics and underlining,bold, parentheses is too distracting and should only be used to accentuate essential plot elements etc. You may disagree and if it works for you and fits the story without disrupting the flow then go for it.

All the best,

Shady Lane · Jul 12, 2008

Seif said:
I thought of this example as well. Nick Andros finds himself in a police station after having been left battered and bloodied on a road. The way in which he communicates is by gesticulating (nods his head, shaking his head, shrugging shoulders, clenching fists) and by writing things down on a piece of paper.

The problem with sign language is that almost every character in the book will have to be adept at it if not then communication will break down. Try to vary it out a little on how your MC communicates. As for how it is written, I don't think it really matters. Italics and underlining,bold, parentheses is too distracting and should only be used to accentuate essential plot elements etc. You may disagree and if it works for you and fits the story without disrupting the flow then go for it.

All the best,

Not disagreeing, just explaining why I chose to keep the ASL in ASL-grammar instead of English. My POV character signs, but not fluently. He knows about enough to tell his little deaf brother to go to bed and then shut up any protests. So he definitely doesn't think in sign language. For him, the signs don't come in well formed sentences--he just knows that now bed go gideon is what will make sense to his brother.

Inkspill · Jul 12, 2008

Thanks, everyone. All the characters but one (and he only signs once, one word) are fluent in ASL. The MC is postlingually deaf (thanks, Disdainfully Soul, for the term), while one character was born deaf and the other is not deaf. So, that's why *I'm* keeping it in English grammar. I'm off to order all the books of given examples from the library now.
I've written a little today, using the parentheses: (Nice to meet you), he signed. I find it works fairly well for my purposes, because I really need to firmly distinguish between signing and speaking, especially because the MCs sign in order to not be understood by their captors, in a similar situation to the one JoNightshade provided.

Thanks, all ^.^

--Inkspill

Layla Nahar · Jul 13, 2008

maestrowork said:
I had a character who signs in my novel. Not for an extensive amount of time, but enough. I used normal formatting for dialogue, actually. Once I indicated they were signing, the readers know.

this is the approach I would use

Lyra Jean · Jul 13, 2008

S.M Sterling's Emberverse trilogy: Dies the Fire, The Protector's War, and A Meeting at Corvallis has a secondary character who was born deaf. Her and her amanchara sp? (best friend or maybe more like soul sibling-wiccan term) form a group and everyone who wants to be part of the group has to learn Elvish and sign language.

When the friend first learns sign language the secondary character kind of makes fun of her and says "You learned sign language from a book didn't you?"

In the series an event happens where electricity and guns don't work. America and the rest of the world turns into a european medieval society setting. But it starts at the beginning when it first happens and you get to see how the societies form. It has also has a Tolkienesque flavor that is very distinct at times.

Shweta · Jul 13, 2008

In The Raging Quiet, a deaf character and a hearing character create a sign language (that would be a homesign) together. It's italicized, when they sign, and the author eases between using the sign syntax for new things and English syntax for old.

Using ASL syntax would be pretty awesome if you could, but you'd run into trouble with classifiers and general spatial language. Shady, I take it you have parent-small child signing? That would probably work much better than conversations between adults transliterated into English, I suspect...

Shady Lane · Jul 13, 2008

Shweta said:
In The Raging Quiet, a deaf character and a hearing character create a sign language (that would be a homesign) together. It's italicized, when they sign, and the author eases between using the sign syntax for new things and English syntax for old.

Using ASL syntax would be pretty awesome if you could, but you'd run into trouble with classifiers and general spatial language. Shady, I take it you have parent-small child signing? That would probably work much better than conversations between adults transliterated into English, I suspect...

It's older brother/younger brother, but functionally the same, yes. The Deaf child is under 8 for the entire book, and a big deal is made about how poor his signing is.

Kaytie · Jul 16, 2008

In TC Boyle's novel, TALK TALK, (2006) his main character is a deaf woman who reads lips and can speak as well as sign. It might be worth taking a look at a few of the chapters in Dana's POV, to see how he handled the issue. I thought it was an excellent book. It explores the different aspects of how our society deals with identity--and the theft of that identity.

Inkspill · Jul 16, 2008

Thank you, all. I get to max out my library card now with all these books. Again. =D The reading suggestions have been very helpful. I just have to get my summer reading out of the way now, and then I can delve into all of these. Hurrah.

--Inkspill

DecSigns12 · Jul 19, 2008

I just came across this thread browsing and caught my eye your story is about a deaf person. May I ask, are you deaf? I am a Sign Language Interpreter

Inkspill · Jul 19, 2008

Nope, I am not Deaf. I learned ASL as a child as part of a school program, but I never became fluent in it. I've picked it up again, and I'm trying to teach myself.

Shweta · Jul 19, 2008

The curriculum used by Vista College, contained in the Signing Naturally books and videos, is a really good one.

Oh, and if you're a linguistics geek, Scott Liddell's Grammar, Gesture, and Meaning in American Sign Language goes into differences between spoken and signed languages in cool ways.

DecSigns12 · Jul 19, 2008

Inkspill said:
Nope, I am not Deaf. I learned ASL as a child as part of a school program, but I never became fluent in it. I've picked it up again, and I'm trying to teach myself.

Great you have picked it up again, I am not deaf most of my friends are deaf and HOH (Hard-of-Hearing). I have been signing for 13 years working professionally as an Interpreter for 9 years.

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