Talk:Augmentative and alternative communication/Archive 3

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Referencing

Crazy Referencing Idea -- we agreed on a reference format

Crazy Referencing Idea

So as a suggestion for the references could we nest the chapter references under the book refernce or is that very not wikipedia style...?

(obviously I'd put the chapter pagenumbers in as well) :)

Example 1

  • Beukelman, David R.; Mirenda, Pat (15 June 2005). Augmentative & alternative communication: supporting children & adults with complex communication needs (3rd ed.). Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company. ISBN 9781557666840.
    • Ball, L. J. (2005). "Adults with Acquired Physical Disabilities". In Beukelman, D. R. & Mirenda, P (ed.). Augmentative & alternative communication: supporting children & adults with complex communication needs (3rd ed.). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
    • Mathy (2000). "Augmentative Communication for Individuals with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis". In Beukelman, D.; Yorkston, K.; Reichle, J. (ed.). Augmentative and Alternative Communication Disorders for Adults with Acquired Neurologic Disorders. Baltimore: P.H. Brookes Pub. ISBN 978-1557664730. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
    • Garrett, K. L. (2005). "Adults with Severe Aphasia". In Beukelman, D. R. & Mirenda, P. (ed.). Augmentative & Alternative Communication (3rd ed.). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)

Example 2

Would this be crazy? I'm aware it might be a fair amount of work - and I'm happy to spend a day on it, but the references might look nicer and be easier to find, what do we think? PS - apologies in advance for taking time from the article work for my potentially hare-brained schemes...Failedwizard (talk) 16:48, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I really don't know much about referencing, nor really care much beyond the need to cite the sources fully. But before doing something that seems new I would check out what all the manual of style pages say, to ensure that a bunch of work doesn't get done for nothing. To be honest my personal preference would be to do something like in the Tourette syndrome article: have most of the references used completely and directly in the "notes" section, so that one only has to click once to get to directly to the article, chapter etc. Only references that are used many times (and/or with multiple page numbers) etc are listed in a much shorter reference section. But Quadell has done such an incredible job on this method that I am not even really suggesting this. Poule (talk) 17:20, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

FW, your suggestion makes logical sense (except that you can't find sources alphabetically that way). I'm just not sure that it's standard. I've asked help from someone more experienced with tricky ref situations. – Quadell (talk) 21:09, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
:) This cheered me up no end that ideas are taken seriously (regardless of what happens to the article), It's great to be working with open-minded and dedicated people. Failedwizard (talk) 22:16, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

One of the main values of having the References separate from the notes is that in that section one can easily find all references alphabetically. Doing this would defeat the purpose. What has been done in this article works well, and is exactly what I've done in previous FAs - for example, Temple Israel (Memphis, Tennessee), where the LaPointe reference is a chapter in the Bauman book, so both are provided. The whole idea of the References section is to make it as easy as possible for the readers to find information on the sources. Jayjg (talk) 08:13, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Jayjg! :) Failedwizard (talk) 09:20, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Blissymbols as language

The section about Blissymbols has been altered to say that Bliss is a "full ideographic language." This is not is the reference given, which describes Bliss as a "picture-based symbol set with linguistic characteristics", which quite a different thing. We need a citation for the "language" claim to remain. However, I would urge caution. The description of Bliss as a language is disputed. It is true that Bliss proponents claim it is a language; (it is probably worth pointing out that Evertype has revealed himself to be the editor of the Bliss reference guide.[1]). However, other scholars don't agree. Huer would be one; Martine Smith here in this article specifically examines the characteristics of language (arbitrary, truly segmentable (into arbitrary sub-units), and producible) and determined that Bliss does not meet the criteria); and since I think other editors here have Beukelman and Mirenda, take a look at pp 338-9, where the notion that Bliss is a language (and thus facilitates language development) is clearly attributed to Bliss proponents. This short chapter] on the subject also makes a fascinating read. Suffice to say that I don't think the reliable sources support the notion that Blissymbols is a language as baldly stated currently.--Poule (talk) 13:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I think we should state it in such a way as to not indicate either way whether Bliss is a true language or not. Can we do this, and still make other necessary points? Would it work to remove "others, such as Blissymbols, are full ideographic languages." and leave the rest of it as is? – Quadell (talk) 14:27, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I agree with this. Certainly deleting it would be one way of solving the problem but I think it would be a pity as Bliss is much more language-like in many ways. That is something that all the experts agree on, whether they conclude it is a language or not, and it is a shame not to have that included at least. I think part of Evertype's disagreement is that Bliss was described as a picture-based system, and he is totally right there (despite Huer!!). I am going to tweak the original version and see if that can get consensus.--Poule (talk) 14:48, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I wholeheartedly disagree that it should be deleted just so that you can make this a featured article. I am in fact shocked by the suggestion. Bliss has nouns, personal pronouns, adjectives, and verbs with tenses and moods. In what way is it "controversial" that this constitutes language? Do any of you know any Bliss users? I know a Norwegian Bliss user who has written a novella in Bliss. It has been published side-by-side with a Norwegian translation. If you cannot read Norwegian, but you can read Bliss, you can translate it into English. Or French. From the Bliss. What is it you want? -- Evertype·✆ 14:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
This isn't about what you or I believe, Evertype. This is about what can be sources to reliable sources. I see that you have strong opinions on the topic, and that's fine, but many AAC experts disagree with you. (Others agree with you.) We simply cannot state that Bliss is a full language, no matter how certain you are that it is, so long as there is meaningful disagreement on the issue. And Poule's citations above show that there is. – Quadell (talk) 15:07, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I think I've got a middle way, with reference, give me five minutes for a quick edit...Failedwizard (talk) 15:01, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Never mind, hit an edit conflict, but quick like Pooles recent edit Failedwizard (talk) 15:08, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Ahem 'Quite like, Poole's', I must learn to type.Failedwizard (talk) 15:11, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) :::And what does it matter that I have been working on Bliss vocabulary development and have edited the Fundamental Rules of Blissymbolics? That just makes me an expert, dear fellow-editors. Wikipedia does wish to attract experts, does it not? I find Poule's assertion that Martine Smith (whom I know) has "shown" Bliss not to be linguistic to be doubtful, particularly as it is not possible to access that paper. Bliss is not by any means just a "picture-based symbol set". I don't know a single person who works with Bliss who thinks it is anything but language -- because it is language. -- Evertype·✆ 15:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I can see Smith's paper. I can e-mail it to you if you like. I think we should work on a wording that all sides can agree on. – Quadell (talk) 15:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Poule has suggested "Graphic symbol sets are available which do not require the ability to read. These include less iconic systems such as Blissymbols which have linguistic characteristics and the more translucent Picture Communication Symbols (PCS) which do not."

What are the strengths and weaknesses of this wording? – Quadell (talk) 15:12, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

"Translucent is certainly meaningless. And Bliss is not a "symbol set". No one who uses Bliss calls it that. I regularly attend vocabulary development conferences for Bliss. Everybody who works with Bliss knows what it is. As a linguist and specialist in writing systems, I can say that it is obvious, and demonstrable, that Bliss is a language. It is simply false to try to call it "a symbol set". I have reverted the sentence and added a link to the Fundamental Rules of Blissymbolics document, which describes in detail the linguistic characteristics of Bliss. Reading Bliss is reading. It's just not reading the Latin alphabet. -- Evertype·✆ 15:19, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Can we take the (In my experience accurate) approach of saying that AAC repourposes icons orginally from the Blisssymbols approach? I know of no VOCA that uses Blisssymbols as anything other than a picture library... but I run out of knowledge fast on the non-electronic side... Failedwizard (talk) 15:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

This whole thing is getting out of hand. I'\m being accused by Quadel of violating the reversion rule when I have simply restored accurate text while adding the reference requested. I will not support a version of this article which claims that Bliss is not language, when it is obvious to anyone who knows anything about either Bliss or language that it is. -- Evertype·✆ 15:25, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, you are reverting against several editors and claiming that your version is "accurate" even though the only reference you have used to support it is a self-published Bliss publication, and your own personal experience and knowledge. Neither is a strong source in WP terms; peer-reviewed journal articles and scholarly books which do indeed call Bliss a graphic symbol set, less translucent etc. --Poule (talk) 15:32, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Quadel, I have seen no evidence at all that Bliss is not language. Where is the refutation of its use of tense and mood? Of word order? Of definite articles? Of adjectival markers? Of prepositions? Of regular word order and punctuation? In other words, where is the "meaningful disagreement"? I see none. -- Evertype·✆ 15:30, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Please calm down, Evertype. For the record, I would also not support any version that claims Bliss is not a language. And I would not support any version that claims it categorically is a language, since there (obviously) is meaningful debate on this point. Please read Huer and/or Smith for the opinions of some experts that disagree with you. I don't wish to convince you that Bliss might not be a language, but I want this article to adhere to NPOV. The wording you have most recently suggested is this:
Picture-based symbol sets are available which do not require the ability to read. Most picture systems, such as the Picture Communication System (PCS), do not support linguistic precision very well, although this is one of the strengths of Blissymbols, which is an ideographic language, not a "picture system".
I see a few problems with this. First, the wording "one of the strengths of Blissymbols" feels like an advert. Second, this version still states that Blissymbols is an ideographic language, and this claim is not sourced. I also know that this claim is contested. How can we word this in a way that is acceptable to experts on both sides of the debate? – Quadell (talk) 15:33, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
As (genuinely) fun as the languge or not debate will be, how do you feel about my suggestion, which made no mention of the language or not language status of Bliss? xx Failedwizard (talk) 15:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I may not understand the suggestion fully. How would you word it? (I don't see any point in debating whether Bliss is a language or not, since I don't think the article should say one way or the other, and I don't suspect anyone's views will change in any case.) – Quadell (talk) 15:41, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Sorry - was trying to type quickly because keep getting edit conflicted - would be inclined to say (at the very simple end) "AAC devices use symbols from many difference sources, including proprietary systems produced by manufactures, personal photos, and by importing symbols from systems like PECS and Blissymbols." Failedwizard (talk) 15:46, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Sounds great, but it'll need a source. – Quadell (talk) 15:47, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Yes, and also this dispute isn't about how AAC devices use symbol systems, but the general topic of symbols and their nature, low tech and high tech.--Poule (talk) 15:49, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I can source... it's just a case of working out which book on my desk I got it form (big pile - finding references is *fun*) :) I like Poule's text at the moment though so it might be a fallback position... personally think (as you might get from the suggestion) that the issue is outside the scope of the article, but I'd be really interested to find out more in general Failedwizard (talk) 15:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict x3) I completely concur with Quaddell that this article shouldn't say either way whether it is or it isn't a language. It is disputed and in any case the info doesn't advance the article. I'll also note that Evertype's edit that PCS "do not support lingustic precision very well" is not in Huer, though I agree it is true. But that's the problem here, editors are suggesting things that they think are true, when WP's policies require us to start by looking for the highest quality reliable sources and simply reporting what they say. --Poule (talk) 15:47, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Very true. I believe that the latest "Poule" version states only information that can be found in reliable sources, and does not promote any one point of view over another. – Quadell (talk) 15:54, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) For people's information and edification, I note that even our Blissymbolics article contains information that scholars dispute its language status. The section is currently unsourced, but I am just off to add this reference [2] which is a further example of academic disputing the issue. --Poule (talk) 16:06, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

The Fundamental Rules was not self-published. That was published by BCI in Canada. I was simply the editor of the document. The core of the issue here is Poule and Quadel's unsupported assertions that "it is disputed" whether Bliss is a language. Of course it was a lanugage when Charles Bliss invented it. And it has all the features of a language (nouns, verbs, tense, mood, etc). And all of the people who use Bliss (whether therapists or users) know that it is language. And Martine Smith certainly knows it is, and in fact it is she who introduced me to the BCI people in 1997 or so. So all I see here is unsupported assertions by two editors that Bliss isn't language and if you place that against Charles Bliss' book, and the text of the Fundamental Rules of Blissymbolics (which I assume neither of them have bothered to read) then I say that the weight of the argument it that it is language. Saying that there is a dispute and not backing up that claim by anything is not encyclopaedic. It's your POV. I did what was asked: I provided a grammatical description of Bliss, and you're now trying to dismiss that as samizdat just because I worked on it. Well I worked on it for four years with the BCI committee. And that makes me an EXPERT on Bliss. No article on AAC that does not describe Bliss accurately can possible be considered to be a good article much less a featured one and believe me this had better be sorted out satisfactorily or it will be a long time indeed that you don't get the FA status that you appear to want more than accuracy about Bliss. Unbelievable bad faith from the pair of you. And I'm trying to assume good faith, But unsupported assertions don't cut it. -- Evertype·✆ 16:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Evertype, BCI-published material about Blissymbolics is self-published material. It doesn't make it bad, but it doesn't make it authorative either, especially as multiple sources, including this one have pointed out the BCI and Bliss proponents have strongly argued claims that Bliss is a language. BCI etc have taken a well-documented position, but just because BCI says it doesn't make it so. And in fact as has been pointed out several times, multiple academics have disputed it, as is clear in reliable sources. Your personal knowledge and experience doesn't give you any special status here; what you need to find are high quality independent sources that the consensus of academic opinion is that Bliss is a language. I've looked and it simply isn't there.
I agree this needs to be sorted out before FA, but personally I don't think we would or should pass NPOV criteria if we used the BCI claim and reference. In fact, the topic is exceptionally tangential to this article. The discussion is much more relevant to the Blissymbolics article, and there the two views would also have to be presented per NPOV, as it is currently, though in a somewhat disjointed fashion. --Poule (talk) 16:24, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Arbitrary Break: Bliss as language

Trying to address points. Please let me do this with bullets before starting in on responses.

  • "One of the strengths of Bliss" is not an advert. But AAC can be meaningful and useful or it can not. A Bliss user can express worry about the bad dream he had about the fate of his dog who died the previous week. I doubt something like PCS can do that. PCS is not linguistically rich. Accordingly, useful as it is for users with certain abilities, it is not either robust or useful for users with unimpaired minds but uncooperative bodies. Bliss is useful for such users, and the fact that it is linguistic in nature is one of its strengths, and makes it better for some users than PCS. This should be in the article.
    • This article isn't primarily about Bliss. Naming Bliss' strengths is outside the scope of this article. – Quadell (talk) 16:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
      • We are talking about one sentence in the article. And another about PCS. There is no reason that the differences between these cannot be expressed in the article. And that means describing Bliss accurately. -- Evertype·✆ 17:11, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
    • Whoa.... some of the PCS users I know with "unimpaired minds but uncooperative bodies", would beg to disagree. But this is a perfect example of why personal experience and knowledge is not a factor here. Please see WP:OR--Poule (talk) 17:02, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
      • What is said on a Talk page is not the same as what is said in an article. We all know there are continua of users. -- Evertype·✆ 17:11, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
  • The article on Bliss does not cite any scholars saying that Bliss is not a language. It cites three general linguists talking about whether there is such a thing as an ideographic language at all. There is no evidence that any of the three of them was saying anything about Bliss at all. In fact aI am sure they were not. DeFrancis was certainly talking about Chinese. (Bliss happens to be the exception that proves the rule; those three are right about Chinese and Egyptian not being ideographic.
    • The article doesn't claim Bliss is not a language. – Quadell (talk) 16:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
    • Indeed, and incidentally appears you didn't check the link I gave above, since Bliss is discussed specifically. [3]--Poule (talk) 17:02, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
      • There was no link to that article from the Blissymbolics page. I usually don't try to check Googlebooks because it is usually blocked in Ireland. Anyway his one-sentence criticism is about glyph design, and is certainly no refutation of the grammatical description in the BCI Fundamental Rules document. -- Evertype·✆ 17:15, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
        • But it is linked; check the reference section. And it is worth reading all the pages cited, 14-16 and 26. --Poule (talk) 17:31, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
          • I do not see a link to the Unger article at Blissymbolics#References. -- Evertype·✆ 17:42, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
            • Definitely there - thought it's part of the recent update - Poule mentioned earlier that they were adding the relevent reference to the article :) maybe refresh in case something has got caught in the cache? Failedwizard (talk) 17:47, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
              • OK, it was not there ten minutes ago! I have read it. He criticizes Bliss's claims to universality. And he's right. Syntax and articles and the like in Bliss are strongly influenced by English and German, which Bliss knew. But it not being an expression of some abstract universal grammar does not mean that it is not a language with grammar. In fact he mentions explicitly the grammatical indicators, and certainly does not try to make a claim that Bliss isn't a language. He makes the claim that it's not a particularly compelling universal language but that's the same argument one can levy at Volapük or Esperanto. Both of which are languages. Now the argument against Bliss being ideographic from the BCI point of view is that there is no phonetic component to the writing system itself. And there isn't. So Bliss is different from Chinese, whose logographs normally do have a phonetic component. -- Evertype·✆ 18:00, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
  • BCI has been using Bliss as an AAC strategy with users for FORTY YEARS. I'm sorry, but that you cannot dismiss that organization's publication of a comprehensive grammatical description of the language simply because it did was not published in a peer-reviewed academic journal. It is as legitimate a publication as any publication, and there is no rule on the WIkipedia that only peer-reviewed academic journal citations "count" as reliable sources. As you are an intelligent editor, I ask you to read the Fundamental Rules. Is it a grammatical description of a language? A linguist will tell you that it is.
    • Please read WP:RS. – Quadell (talk) 16:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
      • I've been editing the Wikipedia for seven years. Telling me "Read WP:RS" is a nice passive-aggressive way of not answering my point. It is a attempt to quash discussion and to make you look like you know better about the WIkipedia than I do. That's not good faith in any way whatsoever. A publication by an organization with long-standing experience can certainly be authoritative. In this case, it certainly is. The BCI Fundamental Rules describes the graphic and grammatical features of the language. In fact no peer-review is required for evaluation of such a description. There are tense and mood markers for verbs in Bliss. This cannot be disputed. I published a grammar of Breton. It was not peer-reviewed. It is nevertheless a grammar of Breton. I dispute your apparent argument that the BCI Fundamental Rules is unreliable simply because it has been published by BCI. For you to show that it is unreliable, you must show that its content is unreliable. -- Evertype·✆ 17:22, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
        • A BCI publication is authorative for its opinion. It is not authorative for a bald statement that Blissymbolics is a language. --Poule (talk) 17:28, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
          • This is just wrong, Poule. The BCI publication describes the grammar of Bliss. David Crow also pointed out that the BCI document described the grammar of Bliss. What on earth do you think a grammar is, if not the description of a language? Please, don't retort with another one-liner to slap down this discussion. Explain it to me. Because what you have said makes no sense. You're arguing by authority, not dealing with content. And you need to justify your view that the publications of an incorporated organization are unreliable. Are the documents published by the Red Cross unreliable? Are the user manuals published by companies that manufacture goods unreliable because they are self-published? I'm a publisher, you know. Are the grammars of Breton and Cornish which I publish, because I publish them? Are peer-reviewed journals the only reliable sources? -- Evertype·✆ 17:39, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
            • There is a good deal more to a language than a written grammar, as you no doubt know, and as Crow points out. It isn't my job to deal with content; it's my job to find reliable sources to write this article. That BCI claims that Bliss is a language isn't isn't in dispute. In fact multiple sources agree that BCI makes the claim, and then go onto dispute it in one way or another.[4][5][6], and there are others. I tell you what though, let's ask for opinions at the reliable sources noticeboard WP:RSN. --Poule (talk) 18:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
              • I think that only a superficial reading of those sources "shows" in any way that Bliss's status as a language is really disputed. Most of the arguments are criticisms of implementation, not discussion of the ontology of the system. I will try to summarize the three of these below. -- Evertype·✆ 18:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
  • I must ask you to name the academics who have stated that Bliss is not a language and to give their arguments. Otherwise this is just an assertion on your part that the linguistic status of Bliss is "disputed" -- Evertype·✆ 16:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
    • If you actually read the paragraph at the top of the "Blissymbols as language" section, I think it will answer your questions. – Quadell (talk) 16:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
    • (edit conflict) Sources have been given repeatedly. In fact, the ball is in your court. If you want this article to claim that Bliss is a language, it is your first job to provide high quality indepedent references to support the notion that this is the accepted academic consensus on the matter. --Poule (talk) 16:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
    • I should say that my interpretation of the Martine Smith article [7] supports the assertion that 'Blisssymbols are not linguistic signs' - what I don't know for sure is if that is an argument against blissymbols being a language, thought it certainly isn't in favour of it. Failedwizard (talk) 16:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
      • I can't read the Martine Smith article. I already said this. -- Evertype·✆ 17:32, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
        • Sorry, I didn't put that clearly - *because* you can't read the article, I thought you might be interested in what it said :) Failedwizard (talk) 17:36, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
          • I'm not going to take Martine out of context. -- Evertype·✆ 18:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
  • I don't think Bliss is tangental to AAC. In fact, PCS and similar systems owe, historically, their existence to the previous existence of Bliss. (In fact their non-linguistic elements are extremely useful for some users, and those types of users had trouble with Bliss.) -- Evertype·✆ 16:46, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
    • This is why Bliss is mentioned so prominently in the History section, and other sections as well. But we can't give discussion of Bliss too much undue weight. – Quadell (talk) 16:49, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
    • Indeed. Bliss isn't tangential, but the language status of Bliss, given that it is disputed, is.--Poule (talk) 16:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
      • I have been able to review two of the three articles. Whatever Martine Smith may have said, I am certain (because I have met her and she introduced me to the Bliss community) that she does not hold the view that Bliss is not a language (and so does a prominent AAC worker in Oxfordshire whom I spoke with a little while ago). But I cannot see her article. I read the Crow article, too, and in it I did not find a discussion of the grammatical features of Bliss. There was same criticisim of what Crow sees as apparent "inflexibility" in the process BCI uses in vocabulary development, but no argument that Bliss was not in fact a language. And as I have said, the sentences in Unger certainly do not amount to a reputation of the description of Bliss as a language. So my questions have not answered. So I do not agtree with either Poule or Quadell -- I see no reliable evidence that there is serious scholarly dispute about the linguistic nature of Bliss. And in order for such dispute to exist, it would have to show that the description of Bliss in the Fundamental Rules was flawed -- by showing, perhaps, that the tense and mood markers used for verbs are, somehow, not tense and mood markers. -- Evertype·✆ 17:32, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
        • So far as reliable sources on Wikipedia are concerned, it doesn't matter that you've personally met Martine Smith, and it doesn't matter whether you are "certain" of what her views are. It matters what can be verified about what she actually said. I'm sorry you can't read the article, but I've offered to e-mail it to you, and I'm not sure what else I can do to help you. – Quadell (talk) 18:21, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
          • I thought that when you said that you could e-mail it to me it meant that you were going to e-mail it to me. I suppose you wanted me to ask you to e-mail it to me. Please e-mail it to me. -- Evertype·✆ 18:28, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Device implementions

Hi EverytypeEvertype - do you feel that a sentance like "AAC devices use symbols from many difference sources, including proprietary systems produced by manufactures, personal photos, and by importing symbols from systems like PECS and Blissymbols." would be roughtly accurate after a bit of workshoping? xx Failedwizard (talk) 16:19, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

There are things that can be said about the underlying structures of some of those devices and how they try to superset different systems, yes. -- Evertype·✆ 16:28, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Great! – Quadell (talk) 16:30, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
And one of the things that can be said is that a few compromises have been made "dumbing down" Bliss because of limitations of the other systems. And another thing that can be said is that Bliss has benefitted from some of the elements of the other systems which had slightly larger vocabulary elements in certain domains which encouraged further vocabulary development in Bliss. But this can't be discussed without the article addressing the linguistic features of Bliss. -- Evertype·✆ 16:34, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
We don't need to go into that much detail. This article is not primarily about Bliss. This material should go in the article on Bliss itself. – Quadell (talk) 16:44, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Okay, so we have something we can build on and expand for consensus :) (apologies for the name typo by the way) how do you feel about 'repurposed' rather than 'dumbed down'? Failedwizard (talk) 17:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

PLEASE STOP EDITING FOR TEN MINUTES. I am trying to respond and I have lost due to conflicts six times -- Evertype·✆

Apologies - assuming your edits have gone in now :) as a sepeate point - I personally have a concern about information about bliss appearing in this article, that is not already in the bliss article (appart from anything else, it makes referencing easier to come from the other direction) would you argree that one of the things coming out of this conversation is that we all need to be putting a bit more content on the Bliss article when we add bliss information to this article? Failedwizard (talk) 17:13, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks -- Evertype·✆ 18:30, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Disputers

  • Crow: Recognizes it as a "communication system" and then summarizes the description given in the BCI Fundamental rules. He mentions the graphic description (heights, linear positions). Then he says Umberto Eco calls Bliss a pasigraphy... and it is one. It doesn't represent the sounds of a spoken language. Nevertheless it has nouns, pronouns, verbs, tenses and moods, prepositions, and syntax. It is a pasigraphic language. Then he cites Frutiger as saying he didn't think it was "viable" as a language, which is not the same thing as saying it is not a language (it's just Frutiger saying he doesn't like it). Then he criticizes BCI's progress for vocabulary development. There is criticism of Bliss here, but no argument which shows that Bliss is not a language.
    • Strictly the Frutiger quote is 'Adrian Frutiger is clear that the claim to see it as a viable language is 'unrealistic'.', which for me is pretty solid. But it might be worth us finding the Frutiger reference. Failedwizard (talk) 18:36, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
      • I think his criticism was of the viability not of the linguisticness. An un-viable language is a language which will not succeed (for instance, to become a universal auxiliary language). But it's still a language. And as it happens it wasn't viable as a universal auxiliary. But it is viable in AAC. -- Evertype·✆ 18:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Unger criticizes Bliss's claims to universality. And he's right. Syntax and articles and the like in Bliss are strongly influenced by English and German, which Bliss knew. But it not being an expression of some abstract universal grammar does not mean that it is not a language with grammar. In fact he mentions explicitly the grammatical indicators, and certainly does not try to make a claim that Bliss isn't a language. He makes the claim that it's not a particularly compelling universal language but that's the same argument one can levy at Volapük or Esperanto. Both of which are languages. Now the argument against Bliss being ideographic from the BCI point of view is that there is no phonetic component to the writing system itself. And there isn't. So Bliss is different from Chinese, whose logographs normally do have a phonetic component. There is criticism of Bliss here, but no argument which shows that Bliss is not a language.
    • So far I do not see a serious dispute that Bliss is not a language. People may dispute its implementation or its usefulness, but no one is saying "its not language".
  • Smith I have not read. I will read it more closely tomorrow, but it looks as though Martine has applied Saussurian and Chomskyan criteria which would lead to Sign Language also failing to be classed as a language. Arbitrariness, for instance is easily described in spoken languages, because those develop over millennia. A constructed language like Bliss or a manual language like ASL will have non-arbitrary features in the lexis, either for mime or other iconic connectivity. Pace de Saussure and Chomsky, non-arbitrariness in the context of Bliss or ASL is actually not a defining feature; or certainly not a solid grounds for asserting that either is not a language. And I don't care if it was peer-reviewed or not; it's still naïvely applying that criterion where it doesn't fit. -- Evertype·✆ 19:29, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Shirley McNaughton C.M., Ph.D. is not a "disputer" but here is something she said:

"For my purposes, I have relied since 1990 on referencing the key attribute of language that Bjorn Lindblom (University of Stockholm) described in his keynote address at ISAAC in Stockholm in 1990. Lindblom (1990) noted that all languages have “duality” – “the combinatorial use of discrete units at two levels of structure”, “word” and “sentence”. Relying on this fundamental feature of language, I have most comfortably described Blissymbolics as a language, for over two decades. I have also thoroughly enjoyed for forty years exploiting the capabilities for language development that Blissymbolics affords." -- Evertype·✆ 18:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Suggested wording: straw poll

The current version states "Graphic symbol sets are available which do not require the ability to read. These include less iconic systems such as Blissymbols which have linguistic characteristics and the more translucent Picture Communication Symbols (PCS) which do not." This is sourced to Huer (2000), which seems to support everything in these two sentences. If you support this version, please say so. If not, please say what in the sentence you believe to be unsupported by the source. (And please keep your comments brief. This is a straw poll, not a soap box.)

  • Support the current wording. – Quadell (talk) 16:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Support More citations could be added; this is a statement that is widely held in scholarly sources. --Poule (talk) 16:54, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose thhe current wording. "Translucent" is meaningless, as I have said three times, and I can only guess that the author wants us to consider Bliss to be "opaque". Blissymbols isn't "an iconic system". In fact some of it is rather abstract. Bliss has vocabulary. Bliss characters are put together to make Bliss words. Saying it has "linguistic characteristics" is a dodge from saying it's a language. In fact Bliss has grammar. Not linguistic characteristics. Grammar. Plurals. Pronouns. Verbs with tense and mood. These are facts. They are verifiable. Look at page 17 of the BCI Fundamental rules, where the verb translated in English as 'to write' is conjugated. Then come back and try to argue that this is not language (not something with "linguistic characteristics"). Let's have some honesty here. -- Evertype·✆ 17:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
    • I have here a book written in Bliss with Norwegian glosses. If I didn't know Norwegian, I could just read the Bliss. Han har fortalt en historie til meg om kjærlighet. says one sentence. To put this in Bliss-characters (not yet encoded in Unicode) the text reads MALE-3 POSSESS-DOES MOUTH-PAST A(N) MOUTH-PREVIOUSTIME AT PERSON-1 TOWARD ROMANTICLOVE. It is completely parseable text: 'he has told a story to me about love'. So the first sentence in the proposed text does not work for Bliss: which do not require the ability to read -- what this is really about because reading Bliss is in fact, reading. Bliss is text, and one day when Bliss is encoded in Unicode engines like Google Translate will be able to translate into and out of Bliss. -- Evertype·✆ 18:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Support the current wording and going out for the evening Failedwizard (talk) 18:41, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Supports going to the pub for a few pints, anyway. It's been a hell of a week. -- Evertype·✆ 19:30, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Support Sorry to weigh in so late; I wanted to read the discussion before I voted. I support because I agree that this issue isn't about a debate over Bliss being a language; it's about POV and RS. I don't think that a case has been made that the sources Evertype are either. Christine (talk) 13:31, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Translucency -- the word is no longer in the article

Translucency

Evertype has objected to the use of the word "translucent". In Smith's peer-reviewed paper, I want to quote some relevant passages.

"Translucency is another important consideration in relation to graphic symbols. Translucency refers to the degree to which individuals perceive a relationship between a symbol and its referent, when the referent is known.... The attraction of many commonly used commercially available sets of pictures, such as Picture Communication Symbols (PCS), lies in their high iconicity or transparency, which some research suggests may yield benefits in terms of ease of learnability and recall. Blissymbols are among the least transparent of the widely used graphic symbols.... Although they are commonly perceived as non-iconic and nontransparent, and compare unfavourably with other picture systems in terms of transparency, Blissymbols cannot be regarded as arbitrary. In fact, Blissymbols were specifically designed to bypass what the creator perceived to be the ambiguity latent in arbitrary symbol-referent relationships."

This peer-reviewed source, which speaks positively of Blissymbols, refers to them as translucent. This is not an insult, but an accepted term. – Quadell (talk) 18:33, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Being entirely fair - I'm not convinced we should use the term in the article - it's quite jargony in this context... Failedwizard (talk) 18:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I understand. What's a better way to word it? – Quadell (talk) 18:40, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Personally I'd lose 'the more translucent' part. But didn't really want to touch the section right at this moment. (I actualy think that there is room for a paragraph talking about translucency (thought I think I often see transparency defined the same way) but that's a chat for another day... xx Failedwizard (talk) 18:44, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
How about "Graphic symbol sets are available which do not require the ability to read. These include systems such as Blissymbols which have linguistic characteristics and the more iconic Picture Communication Symbols (PCS) which do not." ? – Quadell (talk) 18:45, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I agree that while the term translucency is entirely appropriate (see also [8]) both B and M and Glennen also use the word "transparent" as an alternative term, which I think is more transparent. Haha. Let's try that. I was already in the process of trying to make an edit about this and to add some info about the linguistic characteristics. --Poule (talk) 18:47, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I'd still agree with Failedwizard; unless this section were expanded quite a lot, and those terms defined here, it's too much jargon for the space presently allotted. -- Evertype·✆ 19:16, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Quadell, you really don't need to keep playing the argument-by-authority by repeating "peer-reviewed". In any case, I would say that it appears that since she has to define the term she is either introducing it, or recognizing that it is rare enough to need explanation. That does not imply that the term is "accepted"; it may be novel or nonce. It's certainly nothing I've seen in other descriptions of writing systems, and that is why I had to guess that it stood in distinction to "opaque". (I did not suggest that Martine was insulting Bliss nor do I necessarily consider "opaque" to be an insult. Thus unless the whole range of terms (transparent, iconic, translucent, non-iconic, non-transparent, opaque) were mentioned in the article, I think it unhelpful to the general reader to have "translucent" in the brief sentence here. -- Evertype·✆ 18:42, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
The better thing to do is to re-write the whole thing, probably in two separate sentence, one describing PCS and one describing Bliss. -- Evertype·✆ 18:42, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
"Peer-reviewed" is the opposite of an appeal to authority. – Quadell (talk) 18:45, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Only if your thesis is that peer-reviewed is valid while published expert research is not. -- Evertype·✆ 18:49, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Again, please read WP:RS and WP:MEDRS. – Quadell (talk) 18:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Fond of that dead horse, eh? You've still not responded to what I said about BCI's grammatical description. A grammar is a grammar, and can be published without previous peer review. And people have been publishing grammars for centuries. Most have been published as monographs. I reject your suggestion that the BCI Fundamental Rules document is an unreliable source. It is a formal description of Bliss and an outline of the vocabulary development process BCI uses. In fact it was "peer reviewed", by expert practitioners of AAC over the four years that the document was written and refined. Have you read it yet? -- Evertype·✆ 19:11, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
As above, it's not yet clear to me that WP:MEDRS applies to *this part* of AAC, but Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources seams pretty definitive. Failedwizard (talk) 07:30, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
This is unbelievable. Charles Bliss self-published Semantography, which Shirley McNaughton used to transform the lives of people who had thitherto no means of communication with anyone. BCI is an international organization which promulgates and supports Bliss for AAC, and the BCI Fundamental Rules is a technical document which presents an outline of the grammar of Blissymbolics as well as of the decision-making process which BCI uses for vocabulary development. I cannot believe that you people are suggesting that this document should be dismissed by bleating "self-published". Have any of you looked at the content? Have you looked at its page 17, where the verb translated into English as 'to write' is conjugated? In what way is the content of this document unencyclopaedic, or otherwise suspect and worthy of rejection? Do you maintain that the description of the conjugation is incorrect? Do you maintain that there is no verb and no conjugation? Do you suggest that Unger or Smith or Crow or Frutiger or Eco have said that there is no conjugation? Because they haven't. Do you maintain that by hotlinking Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources you can dismiss anything regardless of content? Because Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. and BCI is acknowledged by everyone in the AAC field as the authoritative source for information about Bliss. All of the AAC devices which have Blissymbols in them get them by working with BCI. And BCI has no competitors in the AAC field as a source for information about Blissymbols. So BCI as an expert source and the content of that technical document are entitled to be considered legitimate for inclusion in the Wikipedia. I have seen not a shred of argument from any of you, or from the sources some of you cited, (1) to give cause for considering Bliss to be anything other than a language and (2) to give cause for rejection of the presentation of Blissymbols in the BCI Fundamental Rules document. -- Evertype·✆ 11:07, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Look, as I said above, BCI is a reliable source. But being a reliable source is never an all or nothing situation. The NYT may be generally a reliable source, but it isn't the best source for medical information or about itself, for example. In this case, there are lots of other more independent, more mainstream secondary sources with greater degrees of editoririal and peer review that have chosen to highlight that the view that Bliss is a language is the 'opinion' of BCI and that they find this view disputable or debatable (whether you agree with their criticism is irrelevant), and who have chosen to call Bliss other things than a language. Let's take some: B and M "a pseudolinguistic system" p334; Cockerill "Blissymbols have some features of a language" p. 169[9]; Huer "a partially picture-based symbol set with linguistic characteristics". To be fair, there are others that have used the word language to describe Bliss. In the article about Bliss, it will be important to get into the debate: to say that BCI and other considers Bliss a language but that others dispute its linguistic nature/language status for this and this reason. While you want this article to take a position that it is a language , but we simply can't, per our policy of NPOV. There is dispute, and BCI cannot be the final word on the subject as you want. And per Undue Weight we really don't want or need to go into the dispute here in this article. --Poule (talk) 12:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
If BCI is a realiable source why was the reference to the BCI publication deleted from the list of references? If BCI is a reliable source, why are you giving MORE WEIGHT to brief sentences here and there in a few other sources rather than to the full technical description of the grammatical system published by the BCI? Is it your thesis that B and M (whoever they are) cast doubt on the linguistic nature of Bliss by saying the words "pseudolinguistic system" and that these two words completely invalidate a formal published description of the grammar of Bliss? No wonder I am angry, when you give UNDUE WEIGHT to such flimsy argumentation. What does "pseudolinguistic" mean? Do you know? Do you know what a formal grammar is? Do you know anything about linguistics at all? I have been working with Bliss for fifteen years, and I do not want this encyclopaedia to misrepresent Bliss. The article as it stands DOES misrepresent Bliss. That is not acceptable. There is no consensus here: You are simply stonewalling and you are not making the article any better by doing so. Where your argument is most repugnant is where you say that BCI may be an authority, but cannot be the final authority. That may be, but you have edited the BCI view out entirely, so you have essentially denied the BCI view any presence at all. It is clear that this is not balanced. Moreover, I have asked you time and time again to use your intelligence and to examine the assertions of some people in print, given in terse sentences, against the full grammatical description given in the BCI FR document, which has been deleted from the references to this article. This is not balanced, and it is not good Wikipedia editing, and I am asking you to show some backbone and agree to edit the section in question so that it gives an accurate view of the field. Your saying over and over again that "it is disputed" while not showing any evidence to suggest that the grammatical description given by BCI are either false or wanting, does not make it believably disputed. And your refusal to allow the BCI view to be expressed simply shows your own POV that BCI is not an authority which can speak about Bliss, but in fact these other academics views take precedence. I'm not having it. This is WRONG. -- Evertype·✆ 15:11, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I think "abstract" encompasses the idea of translucency discussed above. Could we agree that Blissymbols are more abstract than PCS, so I'm thinking "Graphic symbol sets are available which can be read as imparting some direct meaning, rather than being filtered by verbal symbolism. These systems include the highly iconic, but narrow, Picture Communication Symbols (PCS), and the more abstract and robust Blissymbols."? I haven't incorporated this verbiage, but I think it is more straightforward, complete, and accurately depicts the strengths and weaknesses of Blissymbols and other iconic writing systems. VIWS talk 00:03, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your input Vanisaac. I think some of this could be helpful. But it needs sources, and frankly the notion of narrow/robust/direct meaning/verbal symbolism are not concepts I recognize from the reliable sources I know of. And indeed I know of research that actually contradicts the idea that PCS is highly iconic. I strongly recommend that if people want to make a proposal they find the sources first and then write the sentence. --Poule (talk) 00:23, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Iconicity is explicitly stated in the paragraph right at the top of this section, quoted by Quadell: "The attraction of many commonly used commercially available sets of pictures, such as Picture Communication Symbols (PCS), lies in their high iconicity " Like I said, this is an idea, but if you can somehow point to where you believe my summation deviates from the current status of "Graphic symbol sets are available which do not require the ability to read. These include systems such as Blissymbols which have linguistic characteristics and the more iconic Picture Communication Symbols (PCS) which do not.", I think we could move forward. I believe that "not requiring the ability to read" is misleading - you have to be able to see the pictures, and there is some level of abstraction because this isn't just a set of pictures of every object in the world, and at some point you do have to abstract from a specific picture into a general idea. I would say that the visual component + the resolution of abstraction to concept is precisely what reading is.
Seemingly contrary to your response, paraphrasing is not bad, and you do actually have to deviate from the verbiage of the sources, otherwise it is just plagiarism. My quote above is a paraphrase of the current content provided in the article and this talk page. Along those lines, my understanding is that one of the perceived drawbacks of PCS is that it is less grammatical and depends on the iconicity to such a great extent that it makes abstraction difficult. That would be the narrowness. On the other hand, Bliss is more abstract, and allows for easier abstraction - hence the robustness. Am I missing something by not having sources #34 and #35 right here in front of me? VIWS talk 00:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


Given that the word is not in the article any more, and hasn't been for getting on for a day - would anyone mind if I closed the conversation (I've never closed a conversation before - I'm quite looking forward to it) Failedwizard (talk) 11:50, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Please. – Quadell (talk) 12:12, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Never mind. :) Failedwizard (talk) 15:09, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Editorial POV against the Blissymbolics language

I object to the bad-faith removal of the BCI FR from the list of references and to the way in which the text of this article dismisses the linguistic nature of Blissymbols by calling it a "symbol set". Blissymbols is a writing system (with the ISO 15924 four-letter code Blis) and a language (with the ISO 639 three-letter code zbl). Such international standardization (by the ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee) is in itself enough to indicate "peer-review" for the idea that Bliss is a language. I have read the few sentences here and there in other documents criticizing Bliss and not one of them "proves" in any way that Bliss is "not a language" and so the refusal of editors here to use the term "a language" when describing Bliss is prejudicial against Bliss and shows an inappropriate POV on their parts. The text "with linguistic characteristics" is weaselly, and gives the reader a false idea about what Bliss is. I request that this section be rewritten appropriately, so as not to mislead readers of the encyclopaedia article on AAC. I say this as an editor who is acknowledged to be an expert in the world's writing systems as well as someone who has worked closely with BCI and Blissymbols since 1996. I don't want to see any more talking-down lectures telling me to read WP: this or that. I have read them, and the arguments put forward by two editors here who claim that Bliss' status as a language is "disputed" and I have found nothing concrete in any of it to show any solid controversy. To claim that a language is not a language when a grammar of the language exists is possibly falsifiable, but Unger and Smith and the rest have not done that, and neither have the two editors here who have tried to ensure that the text does not call Bliss a language. Those editors' POV does not trump the facts, and even their citations do not prove that there is serious dispute, as I have shown above. This article cannot be considered even a Good Article so long as it misrepresents Bliss. -- Evertype·✆ 11:22, 26 July 2011 (UTC)


The sources sited call it a symbol set. – Quadell (talk) 11:32, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
The BCI source cited did not call it a symbol set. It called it a language. But that citation was REMOVED by one of the two of you. Poule. -- Evertype·✆ 15:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Hi Evertype. At the moment it appears that the version currently in the article has the consensus of the editors here, and it seems like we are going around in circles making the same arguments without anybody being convinced. As you see this as an issue that affects NPOV and GA status then I suggest you try and involve other editors. You could start a request for comment or make a make a post at the noticeboard for NPOV WP:NPOVN. If you want GA status to be reviewed I believe that you can do that here WP:GAR, though I would advise doing one of the other steps first. I just don't see the point in continuing this discussion as we have been. --Poule (talk) 13:12, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
I am afraid I beg to differ. We don't have consensus, we have a dispute. We have two editors making claims that a few lines of text in a few articles "prove" that Bliss is in some way not a language, and we have one editor who is an expert on Bliss explaining how in fact those sources don't even suggest what the two editors are claiming. We have people saying that it's OK for BCI to be considered authoritative, and then we have the same editors deleting the reference to BCI's formal description of the grammar and then attacking me for trying to give "undue weight" to BCI's authoritative description of Bliss. I am frankly appalled at the lack of good faith shown, and the lack on your parts to even attempt to craft text which is balanced. "Bliss' status as a language is disputed" you say, and so therefore we must not be permitted to voice BCI's authoritiative claim that it is, or reference their external technical document which gives a formal description of the language's grammar. I notice that you have ALSO ignored the notice that I gave, that Blissymbols has been given a language code by the International Organization for Standardization which is no different from the language code given to French or the constructed language Volapük. So I see no honesty and no good faith in your part, Poule. I see you insisting that the article not describe Bliss as a language, and refusing to budge on that, usually by wikilawyering about it. Now you're trying to stonewall further by sending me off to RFC-land, because you're treating me (an expert on Bliss) as the troll trying to ruin your article. Collaboration means you have to take my views into account too, not dismiss them over and over again with spurious citations and by never answering the argument that I make. I would like to point out, Poule, that I have been editing the WIkipedia since April 2004, and I am on the Wikimedia Language Committee (another indication that I know something about language), and you have been here only since January 2009, and I have seen your RFC-tactic before. Would you like to collaborate on resolving this? Or are you just going to try to fob me off so you can keep owning the article? (Quadell has been here a wee bit longer than I and I suspect he's seen this too, but neither has he acknowledged that if BCI is an authority on Bliss then BCI's view deserves to be given in this article, and that does not constitute UNDUE WEIGHT, but quite the opposite.) -- Evertype·✆ 15:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
As a point of fact - you might find Poule has a been around for a little longer - the account was legitimately created for use in a university educational project - there are some details at the top of the page. Failedwizard (talk) 16:08, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Hi Evertype, in the interest of getting to the bottom of this, would you like to weight in on the 'Device implementions' top, I think we can argree on some parts.:) (also I promoted this bit to a section rather than subjection) Failedwizard (talk) 11:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
I do not think my weighing in on Device implementations is going to do much good while these two other editors are playing "I own the article". And I've asked the THREE of you to read the BCI FR and to reply with some sort of statement giving an indication that you did read it and that you understand that there is a verb conjugation on its page 17 and that a verb conjugation can only be given if the entity described is a language. None of the three of you has given any such indication. -- Evertype·✆ 15:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
I resent that accusation. It isn't true. – Quadell (talk) 11:51, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I've read it. But being able to conjugate a verb indicates it has syntax and morphology, not that it is a language, which is a much broader concept. But all this is original research. We need to follow the reliable sources, and apart from BCI, they simply do not describe Bliss as a language. This has nothing to do with POV (my personal one is actually very pro-Bliss, with which I have considerable experience over many years) but to do with WP's Verifiability policy. --Poule (talk) 12:58, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
let's talk more about what we can achieve than what we can't. The section we're talking about is partly about the wording on this page and partly about the set of all articles that involve Bliss. As it happens, I am aware that the source you cite states Blisssymbols is a language, now if you are willing to come and work out some next steps and approaches we can solve this to both our satisfactions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Failedwizard (talk • contribs) 15:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

My left foot quote

That's a great choice for a quote! Thanks, Poule. Is there a better place for it? I'm not sure where would be most appropriate. Also, why is there a line break after the name of the person? – Quadell (talk) 16:09, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

For me, the natural place would be with some text on AAC users in the public eye (though my list is Hawking, Ebert, and Brown, and then I quickly run out of names) , failing that - the literacy and development section looks good - I confess I had no idea that speech bubbles were an option for an article *blush* Failedwizard (talk) 17:10, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
Well, that's true... but I don't want the article to get too long. Among the sections that already exist, I suppose the current section is as good as any... – Quadell (talk) 22:08, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'm glad you like it. I have another one or two quotes to hand that I think might be good at giving the human face to AAC. I'll try them out at some point and you can see what you think. Maybe we should wait for placement till then, and also see what pictures Failedwizard's emails allow us to add. I really, really wish that we had more pictures of people actually using AAC. It is all very device and aid focussed currently.
I really don't know why there is a break in the box; please feel free to change whatever you want to make it look better. I also wished the quote was a bit shorter, but it is harder to know what else to cut, but if you have any ideas....
I was also thinking that we need some info about famous AAC users. Besides the ones you mention there are Christopher Nolan (author) and Jean-Dominique Bauby. I think it could make a good introduction with some information about incidence etc. --Poule (talk) 22:17, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
BTW, hopefully Googlebooks will let you read this hilarious paragraph from Nolan's book. A marvellous example of non-verbal communication working when you have both an expert sender and receiver. It starts halfway done the page.[10] --Poule (talk) 22:24, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
Re:photos - I've got a range of willing models (mainly for SGD ralated stuff or signs) - what activities do you think would be good to have pictured? (I'm rapidly loosing faith than anyone will answer my emails for the really nice historical stuff *sob* Failedwizard (talk) 22:42, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
Oh excellent. I'd say anything showing the user using a device, ideally communicating with somebody, and maybe even doing something functional like ordering a coffee or something. I'll also try and look up some photos I think I may have, but I am worried about consent issues. --Poule (talk) 23:16, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
I've had a look through various photos I have and none of them are much good; too dark, not clear etc etc. Sorry about that, and I hope you have more success, Failedwizard. --Poule (talk) 01:09, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Oh, you mean Christopher Nolan (author)! I was very confused there for a moment... :) – Quadell (talk) 01:19, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, for some reason I always get confused about which goes first!--Poule (talk) 01:10, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little concerned about the Rick Creech quote. It's moving and relevant, but the subject doesn't seem to be notable. It could be seen an a random quote that could have been by anyone. Should we keep it? – Quadell (talk) 14:32, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm generally Ambivilent on the inclusion of quotes, but happy with them - that said, I know little about notability - but there are a few moving quotes from a notable individual here... http://www.ted.com/talks/roger_ebert_remaking_my_voice.html Failedwizard (talk) 15:09, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
I strongly believe that this article needs to include the voice of users (and their photos too, if possible!), as the field emphasizes this. Originally, I had suggested a section on users' perspectives: there is a considerable literature of personal narratives on the subject, but none of my students signed up for it, unfortunately. I think the quote boxes nicely get around this lack. I'm not sure that the subject notability is important; what is important is to get the frontline user perspective. As it is Creech is actually quite well known in the AAC field; received awards, served on committees, been quoted in reliable sources, written a book- okay probably self-published, but which has been cited in journal articles, books etc. There are other great quotes out there; as well as Ebert, Hawking and Bauby would be good ones, but I'd support including some of the less "famous" guys too, if they have something interesting to say. --Poule (talk) 15:29, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I confess to being a little bit hamstrung here without knowing a little more as to how quoteboxes are generally used on wikipedia - could either of you give any pages examples for a poor newbie? Failedwizard (talk) 15:43, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

  • You can find a list of articles that use the template here [11]. It would be nice if one could limit the search to FAs and GAs, but there are quite a few of these on the list. --Poule (talk) 15:58, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Excellent! Thank you very much. Okay, from a brief look, the majority of quotes (in GA upward type articles) are from the subjects of the articles, or are people who seam to be in a limited number of people who could comment on the subject. Which is pretty interesting, so the article (as it exists now) looks within normal good practice, but I can see where Quadell is coming from - it might be closer to the kind of wikipedia ideal if we had someone who the public could instantly register with... Failedwizard (talk) 16:31, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
      • I don't have strong feelings about it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it comes up in a FAC review. If so, I guess we'll want to replace it with a quote from someone notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. – Quadell (talk) 17:17, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Read through

I've started my read through and tweaking. I'll bring any larger issues here.

  • I've removed this sentence for now: "Because electronic devices can breakdown or run out of batteries, many experts recommend that users also have access to a low-tech communication alternative." Is this sentence really encyclopedic or is more suitable for a client or therapist guide? Maybe it could be rephrased but I'm not sure how without looking at the source, and anyway I am not sure it is that relevant.
    • It's certainly in the sources, which I added. But I'm not sure its tone is right for the article. – Quadell (talk) 01:23, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
      • I think it's tone is a little odd, but the message that could come accross better is that electronic devices can end up spending months away being repaired, leaving the user with no communication, I think that's the encyclopedic message that needs to come accross, if anyone sees that sort of thing referenced it would be great to pop in... This was by FW
  • I noticed there is nothing about the digitized/synthesized voices. It's a pretty important aspect and deserving of a sentence or two so I will add a bit. Poule (talk) 23:21, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
    • That's true. There's the mention of voice banking, but that's about it. – Quadell (talk) 01:23, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm wondering about the User assessment and training section and whether it needs to be as long. I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe the problem is that the focus on the professionals rather than AAC and the user; in any case the importance of user and family as part of the team needs to be included. Also, the cultural aspects section also has overlap with assessment and training. --Poule (talk) 00:45, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
  • The Work and Quality of Life sections should probably be combined as they both mention both topics. Also it will be important to include Shelley Lunn's work[12] (and there was a second article too) which put a more positive spin on things. I'll try and get to it tomorrow. --Poule (talk) 00:45, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
    • The Long work would be great - I like the content in the section, but there is a suitable wrongness - I actually think that changing the title might be the best best - the section is more about supporting a user or scaffolding - maybe 'support sturctures?' Failedwizard (talk) 11:23, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
      • In the end I just moved things around a bit and added some stuff from Lunn and Light. At one point I changed the title to "social" but it could even probably go back to "quality of life" if you guys like that better. Poule (talk) 22:28, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
        • Sorry, that was seriously unclear of me - I meant the title of the 'User assessments and training' section. Hope you got the right meaning, clearly not got my self in gear this morning... Failedwizard (talk) 22:32, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
          • Ahhh! I thought it was a rather peculiar suggestion the outcomes section ;-) Makes more sense now. Tx for clarifying. --Poule (talk) 23:05, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
  • I've noticed that we need to fix up consistency in the notes and reference section e.g. p. vs pp.; whether we include the date, "and" and "&", full first names vs initials and there may be other things. If anybody has the time or the energy....Poule (talk) 22:28, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
    • I've been trying to as I go along. I'll do it one last time before we submit it for FA status, but I'd like to wait until after we're (mostly) done adding new sources. BTW, p. is when there is a single page, pp. is when there are multiple pages. – Quadell (talk) 12:27, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
      • Sound good. --Poule (talk) 18:31, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

I really like the reorganization into "Outcomes", etc. I heartily approve. – Quadell (talk) 15:08, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

  • I'm going to fiddle about with it a bit to make it really outcomes, so I hope you will approve even more then! Poule (talk) 18:31, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Had a go with this now.--Poule (talk) 21:04, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
  • As you will see, I've made an edit which has combined the Assessment/Implementation section with multicultural issues, because they understandably overlapped in topic quite a bit. I also don't think the "our way" and "their way" dichotomy was right in a global encyclopedia. I've also condensed it and removed some of the material which seemed a bit tangential and a bit undue... The student who wrote this section ended up getting interested in the topic and submitting several pages of material rather than a paragraph. I'm not yet totally satisfied with the flow etc yet, but personally I think it is better this way; others may disagree, of course.... Maybe others can improve it? --Poule (talk) 21:04, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Like it. I did a bit of a copyedit, and I'm not convinced that 'directive communication style' isn't a bit jargony for the article (I also think it's a pretty important point, so yay!), but yeah I like it. Failedwizard (talk) 13:47, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

This organization is very good now. Merging multicultural issues in with assessment and implementation was a smart move. The "Outcomes" supersection is also a distinct improvement. It might be time to update Talk:Augmentative and alternative communication/to do. – Quadell (talk) 14:30, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

There is quite a bit in the article about using sign language. Perhaps the section on specific populations that us AAC there could be a section for hearing impaired? KateJardiniere (talk) 15:51, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

It's a good point - I'd certainly struggle to justify having Aphasia section and not one for hearing impaired. Failedwizard (talk) 16:01, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
Not sure I agree, actually; I am more of Christine's view that we shouldn't go into sign language. Typically, reliable sources don't include people with hearing loss (only) as AAC users, if they are using sign language. While there are chapters in texts for aphasia, there aren't for hearing impairment, for example. Certainly historically there was some overlap, but the two fields have diverged, partly no doubt for political reasons. --Poule (talk) 16:17, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Source Potentially of use

So there is this source (warning word file)[13]

which is UK-based, and certainly not peer reviewed but that is govenment backed and is also very recent.

Containes Information like: "Figures compiled by AAC supplier members of BHTA eCAT (British Health Trade Association – electronic Communication and Assistive Technology) show that in 2009 they supplied just over 1,000 hi- tech aids to adults and children in England, with the total spend by schools/colleges, local authorities, the NHS, charities and individuals approximately £3.28m. "

and also "Extrapolation of existing data on identified need and expenditure suggests a prevalence of 0.05% of children and young people needing high technology AAC, representing an estimated 6,200 children and young people in England. "

And there are a few other nuggets in the text. Thought I'd drop it in here in case you guys felt it should be used. It is very UK-based, and non-peer reviewed so I can see the disadvantages - and in any case I'm likely to pop it into the SGD article anyway, but it would be great to get your thoughts... Failedwizard (talk) 20:45, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

  • Interesting; good find, FW! I've had a look and I particularly think the incidence of those needing high tech would be a valuable addition to some other incidence data I've been looking at. Who is the "Communication Champion"? Is there a website for this organization/person etc? --Poule (talk) 22:32, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
    • This is the champion: (http://www.thecommunicationtrust.org.uk/bcap/champion.aspx) the web-pressence is very hit-and-miss unfortunately... lot of press, not much reasource, but doing good, and needed, work :( Failedwizard (talk) 22:37, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
      • It would be great if a newspaper had quoted the incidence remark, but I can't find it on a quick look. But I still think it has possibilities. The link led me some some interesting UK more general speech and langauge stuff I didn't know about, so thanks for that too. --Poule (talk) 18:29, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Images

So to try and make sure we're moving forward with all parts of improving the article, I'd like to give the images conversation it's own section. (Most of this summarises points in Talk:Augmentative_and_alternative_communication#Getting_to_Featured_status), but there's a small bit of discussion at User_talk:Failedwizard#AAC_GA_nomination

There are several points: firstly it would be great to have a lead image. Quadell very kindly put up two draft pages, and I added another:

The tension between the two designs seams to be that the single image looks a lot better and gives a single image for reader investment, but a composite image gives a more inclusive overview of what AAC covers. Very intersted in peoples input here on a) single image/composite and b) exactly which single image or images would work best.

So the article is, in general, well illustrated; however, as Poole pointed out, some images have slipped from their original places, and one or two are difficult for the uninitiated to quite get a handle on. I think several of us are capable of supplying pictures so any requests can possibly be satisfied (I'm better at the electronic end, but generally available). Also bear in mind that there might be pictures on Speech_generating_device that might work here and vice versa. So we're very interested in any suggestions.

I think the sensible next action for the second point might be for the current images to be moved to the most logical place in the text, then we can see properly those sections that would suit additional images - I'm happy to have a go at this, though I might give Poole first dips because they've probably got a clearer idea of the best location.

Sound fun?

Failedwizard (talk) 21:37, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

So I went ahead and boldly moved some pictures around so that they were closure to relevent text, and found that I then had nowhere sensible to put the eye-gaze image, so I've popped it as a lead image. Obviously my preference is for a composite image at the top, but certainly as a test run I prefer having an image than not-an-image :) as always, go ahead and revert wherever you like ;) Failedwizard (talk) 09:55, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, FW! So far as I'm concerned, the image placement is fine as it stands currently. (It could, of course, use more pics, especially low-tech or non-US-centric.) – Quadell (talk) 14:41, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
No problem, I might need a bit of explenation as to avoiding US-centric with the pictures - most of the images are from Poole orginally, so I imagine they might be from canada, and the only widely recognisable individual is British - there might be a problem with all the technology being made by US companies - but the US is pretty dominant in the industry... but I certainly take the point that US/Canada/UK is hardly a *diverse* group of nations considered from outside. I've got a contact in Japan who might be willing to pull out some pictures for us so I'll go ping them an email. Failedwizard (talk) 17:09, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
My issue wasn't that the pictures are US centric but that some of the text is, particularly the history section which mentions lots of US related stuff but nothing else. As I mentioned I am going to work on that shortly. But I do think that a more world-wide focus for the images would be good. For example, here are some articles/websties with pictures of Indian boards/users [14][15][16], and I know that ISAAC has some books on AAC which include some photos of people in developing countries using AAC, mostly low tech of course. Maybe we can try and get some releases to allow us to use these. Some photos of Japanese AAC users etc would be lovely too, so good luck with that FW. Has anybody done a search of flickr to see if there are any pictures with the right creative commons license? --Poule (talk) 19:35, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I didn't know that one could search for creative commons licensed content on flickr - that's a really interesting thing to know. I just gave it half an hour now but could find anything particularly new and certainly nothing that feels particularly international - I'd welcome other people having a go obviously - very much just getting my feet wet with this. Failedwizard (talk) 21:54, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Even if a Flickr image isn't released under a free license, Flickr users are often willing to change the license to allow Wikipedia to use the image, if you e-mail and ask them. I've had some good luck with that in the past. – Quadell (talk) 12:26, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Ah, then Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more Failedwizard (talk) 13:18, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
To follow up - I've emailed a few people who have some very useful pictures (particularly historical AAC). Will keep you up to date. Failedwizard (talk) 07:37, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, FW! – Quadell (talk) 12:47, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

At this point, I feel like additional images and image placement might be helpful but is not necessary for FA submission. Can we remove this from the to-do list (while still welcoming improvements that happen to come along)? – Quadell (talk) 14:32, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Missed this - apologies - of course! at the moment I'm just waiting on replies to lots of things that were sent out so it's not extra work :) Failedwizard (talk) 16:00, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

(After a long span of time has passed...) I've deleted my drafts, as I feel the current version is better than either of them. – Quadell (talk) 17:28, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Proud of this, but would like a sanity check - the company that made the Patient Operated Selector Mechanism is still in existance, they very kindly sent me some photos and agreed to release them to the public domain. Image below, If someone with more photo uploading experience can check that I've not screwed something up - I'll put it in (the only worry I have is that I didn't see an option maked 'Company has released file into public domain') Failedwizard (talk) 14:08, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

This one's a little complicated; I'll discuss on your talkpage. – Quadell (talk) 14:49, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
Following Quadell's help (thank you!) the image has now been OTRS'd. Will pop it in now, feel free to move it around though... going to redouble my efforts on a few of the other early ones Failedwizard (talk) 16:26, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
It's great! Thanks! Do we want to have both the fingerspelling book image and this? I would be fine with taking the fingerspelling book image out. What do you think? – Quadell (talk) 17:31, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
Ohhh... I quite like both - there's a nice effect for the pair - first evidence of unaided AAC and first evidence of hi-tech AAC, but I will cede to more experienced editors... Certainly I can see lots of different ways of doing it... the historical signing book is one of only two images we have that involve unaided AAC... :s Failedwizard (talk) 18:13, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Blissymbols in AAC

A variety of systems are used in Augmentative and Alternative Communiciation. One of these is Blissymbols, a constructed language which has specified grammatical particles and mechanisms for indicating plurality, tense and mood, and so on. The dispute: My recommendation is that the text state that Bliss is a language, and two editors User:Poule and User:Quadell seem determined to prevent this happening. They began by giving argument that documentation by Blissymbolics Communication International should not be considered because it isn't peer-reviewed, though later they agreed that BCI is in fact the authority on Bliss in AAC. The "peer-reviewed" arguments which they claim show that the claim to being "a language" is "disputed" were rather weak and most of them didn't actually say such a thing, though they may have criticized Bliss for other shortcomings. The BCI's authoritative document is a formal description of Bliss grammar and of the process BCI uses for vocabulary development. None of the "disputing" criticisms endeavour to show that Bliss has no tense or mood, or plurals, or adjectives. Accordingly, I think that the article should reflect the expertise of the organization responsible for Blissymbolics, and not consider secondary criticisms to be more important. That gives undue weight to them. -- Evertype·✆ 20:46, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Evertype and to anybody who will answer here. My opinion is that article should not state either that Bliss is a language or that it is not a language. This view appears to be shared by three other editors here (see the straw poll above) and is based on WP:V and WP:NPOV.

In summary, the claim that Blissymbols is a language, though promoted by BCI and others, is not supported much of the academic literature. The BCI article, as an self-published document, is a weaker source when compared to peer-reviewed journal articles and texts. Per NPOV we cannot give more weight to this minority position and state that it is a language; but there is no need (or desire) state that it is not, either. The article's current version describes some of Bliss' important features in the same way as they are noted by the bulk of reliable secondary sources; the language/not language issue debate is important but it simply doesn't belong in this article. Blissymbols is the place for it. --Poule (talk) 23:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

  • Don't use term 'language' - Concur with Poule. My research on Google shows that the most common description is "Bliss symbols", and so that should be used in this article. Particularly when there is some dispute or controversy involved, it is best to stick with the most common description. Use of the word "language" would have WP's voice lending support to one side of a controversy. I endorse Poule's suggestion of simply not stating either that it is a language, or that it is not a language. Readers can always click on the Bliss symbols blue link and read more about it there. --Noleander (talk) 00:19, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
    Comment This is tautological. It is also mistaken, because you have put a space between "Bliss" and "symbols" The name of the script and of the language is Blissymbols. This term is not privative and does not imply that it is not a language. Blissymbols is a script, and has and ISO 15924 script code Blis. Blissymbols is a language and has an ISO 639 language code zbl. Note that Georgian is no different: ISO 15924 Geor, ISO 639 geo. There are many similar examples. The failure of WP to use the terminology of the authoritative organization responsible for the use of Blissymbolics in AAC would be giving undue weight to a side of the controversy on the basis of superficial analyses. Please see below, where I respond to each of the citations Poule has given, and show how they do not actually address the linguistic nature of Blissymbols as used in AAC. The text as Poule proposes it misinforms the reader, because the "academic dispute" Poule claims is actually not substantial. -- Evertype·✆ 08:07, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Analysis and refutation of Poule's citations
    • Evertype has offered a publication of the Blissymbolics Communication International (of which he was the editor) to support the claim that Bliss is "an ideographic language" and he objects to this version.
      • I object to the removal of that technical description of Bliss because it comes from the one organization which everyone in the AAC world considers to be authoritative in matters concerning Blissymbolics. All AAC devices which contain Blissymbols get them from BCI. BCI is therefore a reliable source of information about Blissymbolics. Poule basically accuses me of being the editor of the BCI document, as though documents did not have editors, or as though it were inappropriate for a Wikipedian to be the editor of a document. Rather, he should accept that I am an expert in Blissymbolics, and instead of doing everything he can to try to show how there is "controversy" about Bliss being a language or not, he should accept that BCI's documents have a place in an article about Bliss in AAC. -- Evertype·✆ 10:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
    • However reliable sources point out the view that Bliss is a language is the opinion of BCI and Bliss proponents, and is controversial. e.g.:
      • I will show below how not one of the "reliable sources" addresses the question "Does Bliss have grammar?". I also object to his apparent suggestion that BCI is not a "reliable source" and as stated above I object to his having removed the reference to the Fundamental Rules from this article. -- Evertype·✆ 10:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
    • Perhaps it is this claim to language that has been responsible for the mixed reaction to Blissymbolics. Umberto Eco describes the system as 'pasigraphy' and Adrian Frutiger is clear that the claim to see it as a viable language is "unrealistic" Left to right: the cultural shift from words to pictures, David Crow, AVA Publishing, 2006
      • Crow recognizes it as a "communication system" and then summarizes the description given of Blissymbols in the BCI Fundamental Fules. He mentions the graphic description (heights, linear positions). -- Evertype·✆
      • Crow cites Umberto Eco calling Bliss a pasigraphy... and he is right. Bliss is a pasigraphy. It doesn't represent the sounds of a "spoken' language. Nevertheless it has nouns, pronouns, verbs, tenses and moods, prepositions, and syntax. It is a pasigraphic language. Eco did not prove or even suggest that Bliss is not a language. -- Evertype·✆
      • Crow he cites Frutiger as saying he didn't think it was "viable" as a language, which is not the same thing as saying it is not a language: It is just Frutiger saying he doesn't particularly like it. Frutiger, moreover, is saying that Charles Bliss's hopes for it being a Universal Auxiliary language are unrealistic. Frutiger was right about this. But Frutier does not say "It isn't a language". -- Evertype·✆
      • Crow he criticizes BCI's progress for vocabulary development. There is criticism here, but no argument which shows that Bliss is not a language. -- Evertype·✆
    • But for BCI the single underlying reason is that Bliss-characters are genuinely ideographics: "Blissymbolics is a language currently composed of over 2000 symbols" Promoters of Blissymbolics, from Bliss himself onward have not shied away from claimed that theirs is ... a full coherent system independent yet expressively coextensive with a natural language. But Bliss-characters are obviously artificial, their history is well-known and to say they are based on a universal language of symbols is about as appropriate as saying that ..... Ideogram: Chinese characters and the myth of disembodied meaning, J. Marshall Unger, University of Hawaii Press, 2004 p. 16 and p. 26
      • Unger has not said that Blissymbols do not represent nouns, pronouns, verbs with tense and mood, adjectives, plurals, etc. His criticism is about what he considers to be artificial about Bliss. Well, any constructed language like Volapük or Esperanto may be considered to be artificial. This does not mean that the constructed language is not a language. In terms of being ideographic, Bliss is considered to be the exception which proves the rule, because unlike Chinese (where characters usually have a phonetic component) Bliss-characters have no phonetic component at all. Nevertheless it is possible to translate from Norwegian to Bliss to English and back to Norwegian and get a better result than GoogleTranslate will, because Bliss is language and can, in fact, be properly translated. Finally, Unger's task is to talk about Chinese, and he is most likely simply debunking the belief that Chinese ideographs are ideographic rather than logographic. Which is fine, but his criticism of Bliss lacks depth and does not touch on Bliss's grammar. Surely, if a communicative system has grammar, it can be understood as a language, even if it differs from spoken language.
    • There have been any number of proposals for visual alphabets, some quite recent. We might cite Bliss’s Semantography, Eckhaardt’s Safo, Janson’s Picto and Ota’s Locos. Yet, as Noth has observed, these are all cases of pasigraphy ... rather than true languages. The search for the perfect language, Umberto Eco, 1995 p. 175]
      • Eco makes the assumption that pasigraphy is not language, in a superficial list of criticisms of other systems I have not seen. But when he says "true language" he is clearly referring to spoken language. And he's not even doing it off his own bat: he's referring to whatever Noth has said. The title of the essay The search for the perfect language may suggest that it is a critique of aspirational Universal Languages. That's surely what Charles Bliss's Semantography was—but that differs from what Bliss in AAC is. Bliss in AAC has nouns, verbs with tense and mood, adjectives, etc. Eco is not discussing this, and indeed is only mentioning Semantography superficially. -- Evertype·✆
    • In addition, independent academics have not described Bliss overtly as a language, though I did find one who did.
      • But this isn't sufficient for you to accept along with the BCI technical description? -- Evertype·✆
    • Instead they have called it a "pseudolinguistic system" (Beukelman and Mirenda, 2007)p. 334,
      • And what is that supposed to mean? Is the term defined? Is the frame of reference explicit? Do they examine the conjugation of Bliss-verbs and demonstrate how it is somehow not a conjugation? To compare this two-word out-of-context phrase to the formal grammatical description of Bliss given in the BCI's Fundamental Rules is really inappropriate. Languages have grammar. Bliss has grammar. Bliss has been classified as a language by ISO, the same way that American Sign Language and French and Volapük have been. Beukelman and Mirenda's little phraselet here does not go anywhere near explaining how Bliss "isn't" a language. -- Evertype·✆
    • said that "Blissymbols have some features of a language", (Cockerill, 2001) [22];
    • is "a partially picture-based symbol set with linguistic characteristics" [23] (Huer 2000);
      • I do not have access to this text and cannot evaluate it, but unless Huer shows that Bliss does not have nouns, verbs with tense and mood, articles, prepositions, and syntax, this phrase is not an argument to show that Huer believes that Bliss is not language. -- Evertype·✆
    • "a generative symbol system with specific rules regarding the placement and combination of symbols" Glennen and Lacoste [24];
      • [Charles Bliss's goal was to devise a simple picture language that could be used to cross language barriers."]. Describing Bliss as "a generative symbol system" does not imply that it is not a language; noting that it has "specific rules regarding the placement and combination of symbols" should lead you to examine the BCI Fundamental Rules document where these specific rules are laid out in a technical description. Saying that some Blissymbols are pictographs, others ideographs, and others arbitrary or abstract suggests that Bliss shares these features with other writing systems, such as Chinese, Bamum, Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Cuneiform (which are writing systems that express language. The only difference is that Bliss is a writing system for a language with no phonology. All languages are generative and all languages have rules.
    • and "a logographic symbol system" [25] Paivio, 2007.
    • Another scholar, Martine Smith noted "The relation between the linguistic sign and meaning is arbitrary, unique and consistent; linguistic signs are segmentable, with sub-units that are also arbitrary; and linguistic signs are producible". Having studied Bliss, she concluded "graphic symbols (such as Bliss) cannot be equivalent to spoken linguistic signs (i.e., words) – they differ fundamentally in their structure and organization." Smith, 2006 [26].
      • This is nicely out of context. Her whole discussion begins by comparing Bliss to a criteria de Saussure on the one hand and Chomsky on the other. According to a particular reading of the de Saussure criterion ("linguistic signs (or symbols) are arbitrary"), Sign Languages would also not be considered "true languages". Martine is right to say that Bliss doesn't meet the Saussurian criterion of arbitrariness—but how can it, since it is a constructed language designed without a phonology and with the intent of being iconic? Failing that criterion of Saussure's does not "prove" that Bliss isn't a language however. It only proves that Bliss is different in that particular from spoken languages. Sign Languages are also "iconic" in terms of many (though certainly not all) of the signs being essentially based on mime of concrete objects and motions. You omitted the comparison with Chomsky's criterion, however. Chomsky sais that linguistic signs have to be segmentable, with meaningless segments that can be combined to create new meanings. What does Martine say? "Blissymbols have the potential for segmentation, and they exist within a structured, rule-governed system". She points out that the "meaningless segments" in Bliss happen to be meaningful, but again, that is a feature of its being a constructed language, not a natural language. But constructed languages are languages. However, Bliss does have an element of arbitrariness; the definite and indefinite articles, for instance, are not pictures of anything. -- Evertype·✆
  • Here are some additional sources which treat Blissymbols as a language:
    • "Blissymbolics was in some ways a throwback to the seventeenth-century philosophical languages" Arika Okrent In the land of invented languages Speigel & Grau 2009 ISBN 978-0-385-52788-0 p. 164; "Blissymbolics was not the only pictorial symbol language to emerge after World War II. There was Karl Janson's Picto (1957) and John Williams's Pikto (1959) and Andreas Eckhardt's Safo (1962)." (p. 177) Okrent refers to Blissymbols as a language passim.
    • Elizabeth S. Helfman Blissymbolics: Speaking without Speech New York: Elsevier ISBN 0-525-66678-8. 1980 "Our written language is still an expression of sounds, whereas, as we have seen, Blissymbols are purely visual". Clearly this is an explanation of two kinds of written language, one associated with sounds, the other not.
    • Eugene T McDonald Teaching and Using Blissymbolics Toronto: Blissymbolics Communication Institute, 1980 ISBN 0-9690516-8-9 "[Charles] Bliss was trying to fulfill humanity's long-time wish for a universal language"; "An important characteristic of Blissymbols is that they are meaning referenced rather than sound-referenced."
    • Blissymbolics Communiciation International. 2004. The fundamental rules of Blissymbolics: creating new Blissymbolics characters and vocabulary
  • Verifiability Please look at The fundamental rules of Blissymbolics: creating new Blissymbolics characters and vocabulary where the grammatical features of Bliss are described. Page 17 for instance presents the conjugation of a verb translatable into English as 'to write'. The page provides the text and the translation. Is this not verifiable? McDonald 1980 has an entire chapter called "Bliss Syntax" (p. 60 ff) and explicit descriptions of the verb-tense indicators (p. 34). Is this not verifiable? If not, in what way is it not? -- Evertype·✆ 10:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
I'm only going to respond very briefly and then not again. In sum, having nouns, verbs, adjectives, tense and mood, as has been repeated many times, does not make a language; it makes a grammar and syntax. Others see the issue of language more broadly and disagree about whether it is a language or not. We need to follow WP:V, and how others describe Bliss. For the claim to be included here we need the main independent sources to make the claim as unambiguously as Evertype would have it, and none of Evertype's references, several of which are more that 30 years old in any case, do this. --Poule (talk) 12:01, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
What entities have grammar and syntax, Poule? Languages do. What I object to is that you deleted the technical description of Blissymbols from the acknowledged authority on Blissymbolics in AAC, namely the BCI's Fundamental Rules document. In doing so, you have skewed the description of Bliss against the acknowledged authority's own formal description. You have given undue weight to arguments, claiming that they say that Bliss is not a language, when, as I have shown above, it is not the case that most of them do. Since every AAC implementation (devices etc) that make use of Bliss get their characters from BCI, it cannot be considered balanced for this article to reject the use of their document, or to suggest, as you evidently are, that they are not "independent". -- Evertype·✆ 18:25, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
I reject your claim that a 30-year-old citation should be rejected because of its age. And the Okrent citation is from 2009. This should give you an indication that people have been describing Bliss as a language for 30 years. Your citations do not scupper this. -- Evertype·✆ 18:25, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Quadell's attempt at a concise summary

If you are here to learn about this Request for Comment, welcome. Blissymbolics is an important tool in AAC, and is spoken of positively in both the History section and the Symbols section of this article. User:Evertype has stated here that he is the editor of the Bliss reference guide, and his contributions to this article exclusively deal with how Bliss is portrayed. Specifically, he is adamant that this article should describe Bliss as a "full ideographic language." Many peer-reviewed reliable sources refer to the linguistic or language-like features of Blissymbolics, or state that it has some features of a language. Evertype has pointed out a few sources that refer to it as a full language, particularly a source which comes from Blissymbolics Communication International and is not peer-reviewed. A few reliable sources[27][28][29] either say that Bliss does not meet the criteria for a full language, or give doubts as to whether it meets all criteria for a full language.

In a straw poll, above, there was shown to be consensus (unanimous except for Evertype) that the AAC article should not describe Blissymbolics as either a language or as not a language, in accordance with our NPOV policy. The article's current wording reflects this consensus. The current version of the article states: "Graphic symbol sets are available which do not require the ability to read. These include less transparent systems such as Blissymbols which include linguistic characteristics such as grammatical indicators, and more iconic Picture Communication Symbols (PCS) which do not." This is sourced to two reliable sources (an AAC textbook and a recent peer-reviewed journal article) which back up everything in those sentences. This wording is unacceptable to Evertype, and he has spoken at great length here as to why he feels Bliss is a full language, stating that it is "obvious". He has accused other editors of bad faith, of attacking him, of wikilawyering, of playing "I own the article", of censoring him "as samizdat", of removing the content "just because I worked on it", and he has stated that we should simply "accept that I am an expert in Blissymbolics".

Any controversy about the exact nature of Bliss's linguistic properties may belong in other articles, but is outside the scope of the Augmentative and alternative communication article, and this is agreed by everyone who has commented here except for Evertype himself. – Quadell (talk) 15:52, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I was the editor of BCI's Fundamental Rules document. I began working on that document with BCI in 1999, and it was published in 2004. I was the editor of that document, which was published then and has been in circulation now for nearly 7 years. I do not understand why you refuse to accept that document as "independent" since the entire AAC community considers BCI and no other organization to be the authority on Bliss. An international organization that regulates Blissymbols vocabulary certainly has the right to publish a formal description of the language, and yet the only thing you have to say about it is that their being an international organization somehow makes whatever they publish suspect. This is neither encyclopaedic nor Wikipedian. I did not say that I "insisted" that the phrase full ideographic language be used. That was in my initial edit, and I have several times suggested that the sentence about PCS and Bliss be split and re-cast so that both can be better described. Poule's attempts to prove that there is published consensus that Bliss is not a language have been examined at length above, and in most of the cases it is clear that that is not what those sources say. I have become angry with the way that my detailed comments on the sources Poule has cited have been basically ignored by both of you. Twice now I have pointed out that Bliss has been identified as a language and as a script by the International Organization for Standardization. and you've made no mention of that. This is despite the fact that the ISO committees responsible are independent authorities who have linguistic expertise and make use of that in judging what are languages and what are not.
I do object to Bliss being relegated the same status as "a graphic symbol set" because Bliss is more than that. It is a language with grammar and syntax and vocabulary. Poetry have been written in Bliss. Books have been published in Bliss. One can translate Bliss into other languages. One can translate from other languages into Bliss. And one can back-translate and get the same text as the original precisely because Bliss is a language. I was willing to look at the citations Poule said indicated that there was "dispute" about whether Bliss was a language, and if you trouble yourself to read the analysis I have made above you should be able to agree that the bulk of them do not flat-out state "Bliss is not a language". I came here as an editor to try to add value to this article by correcting mistaken notions about Bliss, and I have had no cooperation from the other editors here. As to whether I am or am not an expert on Blissymbolics, I have been working with BCI as a linguistic advisor and terminologist for 15 years. I daresay I know more about Bliss than you or Poule do. But the two of you have attempted to reject out of hand the BCI's technical document with a spurious claim about "self-publication" being unacceptable, when the Wikipedia's own guideline is Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Manufacturers of AAC devices and a number of citations given above all acknowledge BCI to be such an expert. Why, therefore, will you not permit BCI's description of Bliss to appear in this article?
If Bliss is not described as a language, then Bliss is being misrepresented. It is not the same kind of thing as PCS. It is a very different thing entirely. While PCS lacks many features common to languages, the only one Bliss lacks is phonology, and in that it is no different from Sign language. As a linguist (with some positive reputation for my expertise; you may see the article about me if you wish to verify that) I cannot fathom how any of the evidence presented above shows any serious doubt on the linguistic nature of Bliss. Its inventor knew he was creating a Universal Language, its features show it to be quite similar to other constructed languages. Poule's comment above that nouns and verbs and tenses do not make a language, but only some sort of entity with grammar and syntax is quite untenable. -- Evertype·✆ 18:25, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
Reading the discussion above, it appears that supporters of Blissymbolics assert it is a language, but that most academic sources do not describe it that way. We cannot really use Blissymbols' own self-description in this matter, given the lack of support in independent sources, and WP:NPOV would demand that the article avoid the term "language" in describing Blissymbolics. Jayjg (talk) 04:30, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone object to me closing this RFC? – Quadell (talk) 14:05, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

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