Preliminary research findings on the use of SignWriting (SW) as a tool to write down the Italian Sign Language (LIS) are reported here. Three narrative texts, from different writers but based on the same story (the Pear story of Chafe, filmed in 1980), are analyzed; one of them is a SW transcription of previously recorded, face-to-face signed production, while the other texts are spontaneous narrations directly expressed in written-LIS using SW. The authors describe and discuss the similitude and difference in the symbolic representations, due to the two modalities of communication. Finally, these representations offer the development of innovative tools for LIS analysis, and produce metalinguistic reflections, which were previously impossible without a "comprehensive" written notation.
