ASL and Grammar

Yesterday my boyfriend and I were trying to think of something to do, so we went to the library and looked for DVDs to check out. We ended up getting Sense & Sensibility (with Alan Rickman, yay!) and a sign language DVD which promised to teach you 300 words in an hour! We thought it might be fun to see if it was at all helpful or just odd and dated. At any rate, it's been about a year since I last took an ASL class and I could stand to brush up on my signing. I really don't have much use for it, because most people don't know it. Like I said in my last post, most of my hard of hearing friends lipread, and my hearing has never been so bad that I've needed to learn sign. I'm certain the show that we watched originally came out on VHS, because there were no DVD subtitle options, but you could turn on the tv's closed captioning. They also talked specifically about the law passed in 1993 that stated all televisions should have closed captioning options without having to pay extra for the special device. I was certainly reminded of why ASL is so difficult. Even something as simple as finger spelling is done at a rapid speed by people who know it well, and many signs are similar to one another and are easily confused. For example; "month" could easily be confused with "condom" based on whether you slide your right index finger down the front or the back of your left index finger. This was an actual example used in the movie. I also seem to recall a hilarious incident in one of my ASL classes in which a classmate made this very mistake. Watching the video was a bit of a refresher for me, but 300 words in one hour is a whole lot. One would probably have to watch the video over and over and practice continually to actually learn all 300 words. My boyfriend has decided to at least learn finger spelling. Since we're both novice signers, we wouldn't be spelling super fast, and it would be a way to simplify communication. For example; if someone had said the word "bat" but I had heard the word "mat" ('b', 'm' and 'p' are very similar, even if you're lipreading) he could repeat the word and make the sign for "b."



Signing can definitely help a hard of hearing person, but ASL is primarily associated with the deaf/Deaf community. It certainly isn't essential, and for someone who has not been deaf their entire life, ASL is just as difficult to learn as any other foreign language. I typically compare my knowledge of ASL to my knowledge of French. After taking 3 years of French in high school and one semester in college I only "utulise un petite phrase ici et la, mais mon grammair est terrible." Similarly, I only "use little phrases here and there" in ASL, but the grammar is actually quite different from plain English. This is how I was taught in my classes, by a deaf teacher, no less. "The blue bird flew south" (if I remember correctly) would be something like "south bird blue it fly(+ past tense) it." Although ASL is meant to represent spoken American English, the grammar structure is very different. It's understandable that some deaf or severely hard of hearing people have some grammatical issues when they write. This does not mean that they are unintelligent. I have read some brilliant ideas on forums for the hard of hearing. The meaning of the author is clear enough, but because he or she may not have the same sense of spoken English as a "hearing" person would, their grammar is sometimes way off from what you and I are used to. I see this as an opportunity for me to help those that have a more severe hearing loss than myself. Some day I might establish a career in editing in which I could help these people express themselves in a manner that the mainstream may understand and admire. I hope that some day I may obtain this goal to help others in a similar situation to be their own advocates. ASL is a helpful tool, but unfortunately the "hearing world" tends to hold a "black and white" view. There are hearing people and there are deaf people, and often deaf and hard of hearing people are seen as inferior to their hearing counterparts because they do not communicate in exactly the same way. Likewise, I seem to get a sense of aloofness from the deaf community, and I have heard the same from others who identify specifically with the "hard of hearing" community. Can't we all just learn to communicate with one another in whatever way we can and not ridicule those who do it a bit differently?