ASL
ASL, or American Sign Language, is a visual-gestural language used by Deaf and hard of hearing individuals in the United States and parts of Canada. It has its own grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, and is a distinct language from English. ASL is a rich and complex language that allows for nuanced communication through handshapes, movements, and facial expressions.
7 Key excerpts on "ASL"
eBook - ePub- Richard A. Tennant, Marianne Gluszak Brown, Valerie Nelson-Metlay(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Gallaudet University Press(Publisher)
...Introduction American Sign Language (ASL) is a visual/gestural language. It is a natural language, meaning that it has developed naturally over time by its users, Deaf people. ASL has all of the features of any language; that is, it is a rule-governed system using symbols to represent meaning. In ASL, the symbols are specific hand movements and configurations that are modified by facial expressions to convey meaning. These gestures or symbols are called signs. Contrary to common belief, ASL is not derived from any spoken language, nor is it a visual code representing English. It is a unique and distinct language, one that does not depend on speech or sound. ASL has its own grammar, sentence construction, idiomatic usage, slang, style, and regional variations—the characteristics that define any language. American Sign Language is the shared language that unites Deaf people in what is known as the Deaf community. Deaf 'with a capital D is used to recognize the cultural and linguistic affiliation of Deaf people who are members of the Deaf community, whereas deaf with a lowercase d is used to refer to the audiological condition of not hearing or to describe people who do not use ASL nor become involved in organizations and events organized by signing Deaf people. The Deaf community is not bound by geographic borders; instead, people elect to become members by using ASL as their preferred mode of communication and by accepting the cultural identity of Deaf people. It is difficult to estimate how many people are in the Deaf community because census takers typically lump together all people who have a hearing loss. Many researchers believe that approximately 10 percent of the general population has some degree of hearing loss—about 34 million people as of 2010. The number of Deaf people, or members of the Deaf community, ranges between 500,000 and 1 million people. The most likely people to be native users of ASL are deaf children who have Deaf parents...
eBook - ePubLanguage and Linguistic Diversity in the US
An Introduction
- Susan Tamasi, Lamont Antieau(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...14 American Sign Language GUIDING QUESTIONS 1. Where and how did American Sign Language (ASL) begin? 2. What is the structure of American Sign Language? 3. Who uses American Sign Language? 4. What is the relationship between ASL and American Deaf culture? 5. What is the connection between ASL and English? OVERVIEW This chapter examines the creation and development of a sign language for America’s Deaf community. It discusses and details the structure of the language, including dialectal variation, and looks at the history of its use (or disuse) within the American educational system. It also presents social issues and controversies within the Deaf community, such as the debate over the use of cochlear implants. COMMON MYTHS There is one universal sign language used by all deaf people. ASL is not a language but simply a series of gestures. Sign language is simply fingerspelling. ASL is a signed version of English. ASL signs mimic the shape or action of the noun or verb. INTRODUCTION In Chapter 1, we defined language as “an open, arbitrary, conventional system of sounds used for communication within a linguistic community,” but this definition overlooks the fact that while most languages are spoken, some are articulated through nonverbal signs. Except for the mode of transmission—spoken languages utilize auditory processes, whereas sign languages comprise complex visual-spatial structures (National Association of the Deaf, 2008)—all other aspects of our definition of language apply to signing. All sign languages are individual, complex systems in their own right, with their own grammars, their own lexicons, and their own pragmatic rules. They change and vary, and they are generally not mutually intelligible with other sign (or spoken) languages. Crucially, they are not simply gestured versions of spoken languages. And significantly, like spoken languages, they are intimately related to the identities of the communities that use them...
eBook - ePubDon't Just "Sign..". Communicate!
A Student's Guide to ASL and the Deaf Community
- Michelle Jay(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Judea Media LLC(Publisher)
...Communicate!: A Student’s Guide to Mastering ASL Grammar, which I will be discussing later in this section. Myth #2: ASL is only capable of communicating concrete ideas It is falsely believed that American Sign Language is only capable of communicating simple, concrete ideas. However, ASL, like any other language, is capable of communicating abstract and complex ideas. In ASL, you can discuss topics from theology and literature to sports and shopping. ASL is capable of expressing poetry as well as humor and wit. There are no limits to what can be expressed through American Sign Language. Myth #3: ASL is a universal language ASL is not a universal language. Deaf people around the world sign different languages just as hearing people around the world speak different languages. There are even regional differences in the U.S.—signs can vary from state to state. Today, there are at least 200 different forms of sign language in existence worldwide. Myth #4: Hearing people invented ASL One myth about American Sign Language is that it was invented by hearing people. This is false. Sign language in America has existed as long as there have been deaf people in the U.S. Sign language is the natural language of deaf people, so they naturally create sign languages in order to communicate. The standardized American Sign Language came about when Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc founded the first school for the deaf in the United States. Deaf children from around the country came together for the first time, bringing along the signs they used at home. Gallaudet and Clerc used these signs as well as signs from French Sign Language to create a standard signed language to be used in the United States—American Sign Language. The language was passed from generation to generation primarily in residential schools*. The students spread the use of ASL throughout the U.S...
eBook - ePub- Dani Byrd, Toben H. Mintz(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...In 1979, they published a comprehensive analysis of the structural, historical, and social properties of ASL in a volume called The Signs of Language that was the culmination of years of research. Most of the discoveries about ASL presented in this chapter come from that source or from later work that their initial discoveries inspired. What do we mean when we say sign languages are natural languages? We discuss some key aspects of the grammatical structure of American Sign Language (ASL) later, but now we will outline some of the more general ways in which ASL and other sign languages (there are many) are identical to spoken languages. Grammatical functions Rather than being pantomimes, sign languages have syntax (sentence structure) and morphology, just like spoken languages, and the kinds of grammatical functions that exist in spoken language are found in sign language (e.g., verbal and nominative morphology, the grammatical marking of subject and object, person and number agreement), and the kinds of meanings that are conveyed by grammatical morphemes are the same (e.g., number, tense, negation). In short, the grammars of all long-standing sign languages appear to be composed of the same underlying components and organizational principles as the grammars of spoken languages. Acquisition Like children learning a spoken language, deaf children who are exposed to a sign language early in their life will acquire it automatically and without explicit instruction. In fact, hearing children who are acquiring a spoken language will acquire a sign language as well, given sufficient exposure (e.g., if one or both of their parents sign and do not communicate with spoken language). The acquisition of established sign languages by children follows the same patterns as spoken language, including babbling with the hands (manual babbling) before the first year of life...
eBook - ePubDeaf Heritage
A Narrative History of Deaf America
- Jack R. Gannon(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Gallaudet University Press(Publisher)
...A natural language is developed by its users, and it evolves over a period of time. He estimates that American Sign Language is the natural language of some 200,000 to 400,000 deaf Americans and deaf Canadians. The discovery of American Sign Language as a true language has led to the identification of deaf culture as a rich, untapped field of study. Observed Carol Padden, a deaf linguistics student: “The culture of deaf people has not yet been studied in much depth. One reason is that, until recently, it was rare to describe deaf people as having a culture.…” American Sign Language began to increase in popularity. Colleges, universities, high schools, private and public organizations, and agencies began offering courses in ASL. Deaf people suddenly found themselves in demand as teachers of their language. This interest and acceptance of sign language caught many deaf old timers by surprise. It has influenced the attitudes of deaf persons towards themselves, their language, their culture and made them take a closer look at their rights as American citizens. In 1980 friends and colleagues of William C. Stokoe got together and secretly prepared a collection of essays in his honor. The book, Sign Language and the Deaf Community: Essays in Honor of William C. Stokoe, was published by the National Association of the Deaf and presented to a surprised Stokoe at the NAD Centennial Convention. Royalties from the sale of the book will go into the William C. Stokoe Scholarship Fund to encourage continued research in the area of sign language. Meanwhile, Bill Stokoe has found mastering sign language himself a tough subject. He is, as a colleague tactfully put it, “not a fluent signer.” He continues to work on his sign language. Sign Language Books There appeared at the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf meeting in Salem, Oregon, in the summer of 1961, a commercial artist from Winneconne, Wisconsin, named David Watson...
eBook - ePub- Michael Rodda, Carl Grove(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
...Each approach focuses on a different aspect of language behavior; as yet no comprehensive model of natural language has been presented. Studies of ASL conducted at the Salk Institute indicate that ASL possesses many of the vital attributes of language: (a) hierarchical organization; (b) use of a limited range of distinctive features to enhance redundancy; (c) a tendency to arbitrariness; (d) complex morphology; (e) systematic rules of derivation and compounding of signs; (f) means of communicating nonpresent and abstract concepts; and (g) rule-governed acquisition in children. However, it differs from spoken language in exploiting the opportunities visual media offer for simultaneous presentation of lexical and syntactical layers of manual movements. Further Reading The best recent summary of research into the psychology of language is E.H. Matthei and Thomas Roeper’s (1983) excellent Understanding and Producing Speech. A readable introduction to the general field of linguistics is David Crystal’s (1971) Linguistics. Simeon Potter’s (1950) entertaining survey of the evolution of English, Our Language, provides an insight into the findings of philology, and The Study of Language in England, 1780-1860 by Hans Aarsleff (1983) is a fascinating “intellectual journey” up to the time of William Jones. An awesome example of a traditional grammar, originally published in 1898, is J.C. Nesfield’s (1930) Manual of English Grammar and Composition. Noam Chomsky’s (1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax summarizes the theory of generative grammar but is not easy reading. The major source of information on ASL is Edward Klima and Ursula Bellugi’s (1979) The Signs of Language ; excellent summaries of the Salk researchers’ findings are to be found in the papers by Bellugi and Klima (1979) and Bellugi (1980). Also of current interest as a general overview is Jerome Schein’s (1984) Speaking the Language of Signs...
eBook - ePub- Genie Gertz, Patrick Boudreault(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
...Linguistics: Syntax Linguistics: Syntax Carol Neidle Carol Neidle Neidle, Carol 650 656 Linguistics: Syntax Linguists study the fundamental principles underlying human language: both universals and modality-specific differences in packaging and conveying information. This overview considers several types of syntactic constructions, focusing on ways in which signed languages exploit means of expression unique to this modality. Attention here is limited primarily to American Sign Language (ASL), although a rapidly expanding literature investigates other signed languages. Cross-linguistic/cross-modal comparisons hold promise for revealing the deep commonalities and full range of variation across human languages. Use of signed languages by the deaf was observed as far back as the ancient Greeks. However, recognition by linguists that these are full-fledged languages comparable in structure to spoken languages—although with important modality-specific properties—dates back only to the 1960s. Pioneering work by William Stokoe marked the beginning of the study of ASL from the perspective of modern linguistic theory. The framework of generative syntax seeks formal descriptions of sentence structure to establish the properties all languages share and the effects of modality on their manifestation. Although research in other frameworks is beyond the scope of this chapter, it is noteworthy that the authors of some of the most influential early works demonstrating comparable grammatical properties in signed and spoken languages, such as Scott Liddell and William Stokoe, eventually moved away from formal approaches. The goal of sign language syntax should not be to impose models developed for spoken languages on signed languages...
