Sagus and I have decided to learn a second language.. an unconventional sort in the form of ASL: American Sign Language.
As we taught the boys to speak we had to use some signs to promote speak (as a transitional sort of therapy) and it worked very well. I have always been fascinated by Sign Language.
My questions are this:
#1 Does anyone on AP sign?
#2 How important is specific sentence structure?
For example: If you say verbally:
Mom, may I please go outside and play?
Would you sign that whole set of words or would you sign:
Mom, play outside please?
Thanks, Sher **************************************************************** 11-03-02, 11:51 AM MkStfnz I don't sign myself, but I do know that in sign language training classes, they encourage signing while also expressing oneself through spoken language, if possible. (I think that a big part of this style is so that people who are speaking in sign language can be understood by those who have no signing experience.) Therefore, I would say that it would be just as important to use grammatically correct language with satisfactory sentence structure while signing, as it is important for spoken language.
Good luck!
11-03-02, 12:15 PM maiku This is a terrific question, Sherasi, and I wish I knew enough about ASL to answer it more competently. I've often wondered myself how the syntax of ASL worked, in detail. It is a common misapprehension that all it takes for people to use language is a set of words. Nothing could be further from the truth. No language can function without highly complex rules for stringing those words together in meaningful ways.
It is my understanding that the syntax of ASL is basically that of English, with perhaps some streamlining--maybe even considerable. Note that your own "simplified" version of the sentence "Mom, may I go outside and play, please" is still dependent on normal English word order to a great extent. There are any number of languages in the world in which the mere string of signs "Mom, play, outside, please" would fail to communicate anything. Not only that. You use a comma after the initial "mom" to indicate that it is a vocative. This comma is signalled in English by a rising intonation. There must be some way of representing this in ASL as well; if not, there would be no way for the interpreter to know that "mom" isn't the subject of the verb "play," and that she is being asked whether she'd like to play outside. Yet again, the original English sentence identifies itself as a question in two different ways: one is with a rising intonation at the end, indicated in writing by your question mark. But its question syntax is also represented by the usual syntactic device of subject-verb inversion. Since your simplified version omits the subject, this can't occur, and since the interpreter doesn't hear any question intonation, either, he or she would in fact have no way of knowing a question was intended.
These remarks may serve to make it clear that ASL must indeed possess a rich syntax. I just can't tell you in detail what kinds of adjustments to the syntax of the spoken language are made. smile
11-03-02, 07:37 PM Texan-In-Exile I've always wanted to learn ASL too - I find it fascinating and graceful. But for now, I must confess my ignorance.
However, I will relate this incident:
Many years ago, a deaf neighbor lived upstairs from us. One night, a friend of his came to our door with a note which read: "I want some bread, mind you."
It sounded blunt and demanding, but I assumed it was how he was taught to say "I'd like some bread, if you don't mind."
So I went and got him some bread!
11-03-02, 08:03 PM maiku What a really neat example, TIE!
Now if the note had read "Mind you, I want some bread," I'd have suspected that it really was a little over-assertive, as if the "mind you" here was meant to be taken as the Southern American English one, equivalent to "now listen up, hear?" Or "pay attention to me!", our even brusker Yankee version. At the end of the sentence, as you report, it sounds more like what I'd call a tag question, equivalent to "do you mind?" as you report. In any case, your response was the charitable one. Good for you.
11-03-02, 09:03 PM Byter
quote:In Sign Language, facial expression including the raising or lowering of the eyebrows while signing, and body language are integral parts of communicating. These actions help give meaning to what is being signed, much like vocal tones and inflections give meaning to spoken words.
This is from a website on ASL, maybe this will give some insight as to wheather a sentance is a statement or question.
11-04-02, 11:51 AM Sherasi I know a very little about ASL as indicated (since I have been using it in some degree to teach the boys actions (such as "play", "more", "eat", Drink", "Done" (as in "all done"), and other words.
There is an interogative way of signing to indicate question. Posture also participates in this process. As I think about what I've taught the boys and seen in with those signing, the signing is often very abbreviated in informal situations.
Think if it this way. In your own home you might be really intensely focussed on a project and become thirsty. Your wife/husband might be nearby and so you might say in a distracted tone, "drink, over there". Your wife/husband would most likely look around, see your glass of drink, see you are deeply involved with a critical part of this project an dunderstand you are requesting a drink because you are thirsty and cannot stop at that moment to get it.
The same thing happens in the homes of ASL. I just remembered a patient I admitted that used ASL with her deaf husband. The signs I noticed were extremely limited to almost "baby talk" quality but they point was gotten across.
I also contend that, as with VERBAL languages, the number of signs and ways to communicate change drastically between ASL users.
I believe that ASL must not have a lot of "filler language" around nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. I suspect that much of the language is actually very similar to many of the gestures we already use to PUNCTUATE our own speach, taken to a higher level.
If you are across the yard mowing and are really hit and thirsty, you might gesture "get me a drink" by raising your hand in a circular symbol and bring the "edge" of your pretend glass to your mouth to symbolize drinking.
That is the sign for "drink".
Of course, these are all hypotheses, and I am still in the early infant stages of learning to sign. If anyone knows the answers to these questions and presumptions, let me know?
11-04-02, 02:21 PM emkayess I have been interested in learning to sign, have even taken a short course, but I have trouble remembering the signs. The dictionary(sign version)gives you little clues, but the signs fall right out of my head. This is from a book: A Basic Course in ASL by Humphries, Padden, O'Rourke. "Negatives are accompanied by a negative marker: a headshake or eyebrows squeezed together." In ASL: "I remember girl not I". For "I don't remember the girl". ASL:"He not need money he". For "He doesn't need money". So there is definitely some rearanging going on with the sentence structure. Likewise tenses are communicated with time markers. You might want to start by checking your public library for books and videos. Good Luck.
11-04-02, 05:38 PM kittypal How very interesting, I too have always wanted to take a class in signing. I never really thought about how signing could be almost like writing, without being able to raise your voice or inflecting it would be hard to communicate exactly what you mean or how you feel. Just like on here some responses seem rude when they really aren't. Also is sign language the same for all around the world or is it different for every country?
11-04-02, 06:28 PM maiku Kity: As I've tried to make clear above (without uniform success, apparently), syntax is an indispensible part of all systems of human communication. While it is true that facial expression and "body language" always play a role in communication, it is always a subservient one. No system of gestures alone would ever be sufficient to convey the richness of human thought, unless these gestures were part of a system with a very detailed syntax.
It is a popular myth that American Indians from different tribes, speaking mutually unintelligible languages, could easily communicate with each other using a "universal" sign language. It isn't so. Unless their languages were fairly closely related, they wouldn't have been able to say anything much at all to each other worth repeating.
Nor is it true, as populary believed, that Chinese characters are "ideographs," and that if you know how to guess what ideas they represent you can easily read Chinese. Chinese characters are correctly considered "logographs," which is to say that they stand, not for ideas, but for specific Chinese words. But even if you knew all of these words, you still wouldn't be able to read Chinese if you didn't know any Chinese syntax.
Other cultures have their own versions of American Sign Language, of course. Even if there were a large set of "universal" signs, their use by foreign signers would not, in general, be intelligible to ASL speakers, because their syntax would still be entirely different.
11-04-02 05:35 PM kittypal Thanks for clearing that up maiku, sometimes I don't pay as much attention as I should! big grin
11-04-02, 09:41 PM referenth
quote:#2 How important is specific sentence structure?
I sign (though rarely these days). I minored in ASL in college.
ASL sentence structure vs. English sentence structure or something in between depends on the situation and participants. If you just want to augment speech for your boys, using a foreign grammar seems a step in the wrong direction. (The same is not true for deaf children. Contrary to what many parents think, ASL improves English ability because the children are finally getting grammar and other concepts into their brains, including highly abstract ones like "freedom.")
Do you want to sign with culturally Deaf people (note the convention of capital "D" for members of the Deaf community as opposed to audiologically deaf people)? Then I would encourage you to learn some ASL grammar. But you'll probably use something in between ASL grammar and English grammar. Almost all Deaf people have some level of bilingualness, so they may choose to sign in "Contact Sign"/"Pidgin Sign English" or they may use a form of Manually Coded English (MCE) with invented signs for "is" and "-ing."
quote: For example: If you say verbally:
Mom, may I please go outside and play?
Would you sign that whole set of words or would you sign:
Mom, play outside please?
In a pure type of ASL, you would say: "[raised brow and lean forward a bit for yes/no question] CAN ME GO-OUT, PLAY, PLEASE"
or "[raised brow and lean forward a bit for yes/no question] ME GO-OUT, PLAY, [abbreviated and repeated] CAN, PLEASE."
You might leave off the "ME" if it's understood. You wouldn't sign "MOM" because the person you're talking to is understood (after you've gotten her attention of course).
In Contact Signing varieties, you might say, with or without the facial and postural grammar: "CAN ME/I PLEASE GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY".
MCEs would probably be the same but with a QUESTION-MARK sign.
Another example:
ASL: ME [circular motion on sign to show durative aspect] WAIT Contact: I WAIT LONG LIME MCE: I WAIT-ED A VERY LONG TIME
The last one makes English visual, but it's far too cumbersome for extended conversation. There's also research (by Deaf linguist Sam Supalla and others) to show that it's too unnatural to process visually.
ASL also has facial adjectives/adverbs like "ordinary" (pucker) and "broken, bad, recklessly" (slight sticking out of tongue), classifiers for describing or narrating, and of course idiomatic expressions. Thus, you can't speak English and sign strong ASL without compromising one or the other.
11-05-02, 12:33 AM Sherasi That was a VERY informative answer, Referenth.. I appreciate the time you took in responding thoroughly.
My primary reason for learning this second language is that I have slightly hearing impaired myself and often cannot "hear" a person if I can't see their mouth (this is subconscious most of the time).
I also, as a nurse, may encounter a situation where knowing ASL would be beneficial for communication purposes. I recall that most of the institutions I've worked in developed a list of persons who were bilingual as a resource for just such an emergency.
Again, thanks so much. big grin
11-05-02, 02:14 PM kittypal Does anyone know what percentage of our population is deaf? When I worked in sales I only encountered a deaf person once. I would still like to learn how to sign, maybe I could work with the deaf.
11-06-02, 10:16 AM dr.mlm A thousand years ago I worked at a rehab center with Deaf-Blind adults and have done some interpreting in college classes. Basically, talking and signing is known as Total Communication and is not used in the Deaf community. Language defines a culture which is why deaf people have their own culture and blind people do not. However, while ASL seems streamlined -- it is more than just leaving words out; there is an actual grammatical structure to the language as someone else indicated above.
Many hearing people of parents who are deaf often learn ASL as their first language and go on to be interpreters/teachers in the field. They are truly using ASL and not what we call "Signed English" which is attempting to sign/fingerspell each word as spoken in English. This becomes too cumbersome and does not work in an interpreting situation.
So, to make a long story even longer...there are many different variations of ASL, which is the purest form of signing and closely related to the culture of deaf individuals...
Hope this helps.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,
Posts: 9125 | Location: PA, USA | Registered: 06-05-02
