Embedded Files
Week 3—Objectives
Week 3—Objectives
Continue fine-tuning your fingerspelling of your first and last names in ASL (voices off, producing the letters clearly and accurately, speed is now a factor)
Be able to clearly sign your phone number, ZIP code, and Age
Practice and review Y/N Questions and Facial Grammar
Practice and review colors in ASL
Read about American Sign Language and other modes of signing
Week 3 - Phone Numbers, ZIP Codes, and Ages in ASL
Week 3 - Phone Numbers, ZIP Codes, and Ages in ASL
Week 3 - Y/N-/WH-Questions and Eyebrows (ASL grammar)
Week 3 - Y/N-/WH-Questions and Eyebrows (ASL grammar)
Week 3 - Colors in ASL
Week 3 - Colors in ASL
History, Culture, Linguistics
History, Culture, Linguistics
Week 3 - ASL and other signing modes
Week 3 - ASL and other signing modes
Please read through the following websites/blogs/resources!
Wikipedia - Manually Coded English Systems [website]
S.E.E. Center - Sign Skills Evaluation for Educational Interpreters [website]
"Signing: Signed English" - Bornstein, 1988 [Book]
"Signing Exact English" (SEE2) - Gerilee Gustason, 1993. [Book]
"The Comprehensive Signed English Dictionary" - Bornstein, 1988 [Book]
QUESTION: If "American Sign Language" is the actual language of the American Deaf Community, why do I see things like "Signed English", "S.E.E. Sign", "Pidgin Signed English", or even "Baby Sign Language"?
ANSWER: Yes, ASL is the bona fide language of American Deaf signers, those who are proud of having a natural, native, and growing/changing language. These people use ASL as their primary language. This type of ASL flourishes:
in Residential Schools for the Deaf (of which, most states have at least 1; California had 3 at one time!),
in areas with large communities of signing Deaf people, and
at certain schools or businesses that employ many Deaf people.
Still, ASL is not native for most hearing people, especially Deaf people's hearing parents, siblings, other family members, and friends/co-workers. For them, learning a whole new language can be difficult and time-consuming. Instead, they might want a "quick fix" of some sort of easy-to-learn code or system. They may turn to "Manually Coded English" (MCEs) Systems (click on the links if you want more information):
S.E.E.1 - Seeing Essential English
S.E.E.2 - Signing Exact English
L.O.V.E. - Linguistics of Visual English (obsolete, but similar to S.E.E.1)
All of these MCEs were devised to "simplify" ASL and follow English word order. (If that were done to any other language—Spanglish or Franglish—those native users would be up in arms and completely unaccepting of such linguist mish-mash!) Although hearing people think they're able to communicate to Deaf people via these systems, because English is usually their 2nd language, signing in English word order is still inaccessible to many Deaf ASL users. It's NOT about you, the hearing person; it's about what the Deaf person understands and prefers!
English is a language. ASL is a language. The above Manually Coded English Systems are not language because they don't have native users, nor a cultural group that uses them as their daily means of communication.
Deaf Americans are the rightful holders and heirs of ASL. Usually in small communities across America (and now, social media platforms), Deaf may upload videos to discussion boards, Facebook groups, Snapchat groups, Instagram, etc., and begin to dissect and analyze their own language. They are deciding amongst themselves—voting by consensus—which signs work/are acceptable, which concepts can be borrowed from other signed languages, and which concepts or proper names need signs.
ASL is growing and changing everyday!
Pictures from "ASL Phrase Book", Lou Fant.
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