American Sign Language

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American Sign Language (ASL, also Amslan obs., Ameslan obs.) is the dominant sign language in the United States, English-speaking Canada, and parts of Mexico. Although the United Kingdom and the United States share English as a spoken language, British Sign Language (BSL) is a different language from ASL, and not mutually intelligible.

ASL is also used (sometimes alongside indigenous sign languages) in the Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Chad, Gabon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Mauritania, Kenya, Madagascar, and Zimbabwe. As with other sign languages, its grammar and syntax are distinct from the spoken language(s) in its area of influence. There has been no reliable survey of the number of people who use ASL as their primary language; estimates range from 200,000 to 2 million [1].

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History of ASL

In the United States, as in most of the world, hearing families with deaf children often employ ad-hoc home sign for simple communications. Today, though, many ASL classes are offered in secondary and postsecondary schools. ASL is a language distinct from spoken English—replete with its own syntax and grammar and supporting its own culture. The origin of modern ASL is ultimately tied to the confluence of many events and circumstances, including historical attempts at deaf education; possibly the sign used by the indigenous nations of North America; the unique situation present on a small island in Massachusetts; the attempts of a father to enlist a local minister to help educate his deaf daughter; and in no small part the ingenuity and genius of people (in this case deaf people) for language itself.

Standardized sign languages have been used in Italy since the 17th century and in France since the 18th century for the instruction of the deaf. Old French Sign Language was developed and used in Paris by the Abbé de l'Epée in his school for the deaf. These languages were always modeled after the natural sign languages already in use by the deaf cultures in their area of origin, often with additions to show aspects of the grammar of the local spoken languages.

American Plains Indians used Plains Indian Sign Language as an interlanguage for communication between people/tribes not sharing a common spoken language; its influence on ASL, if any, is unknown.

Off the coast of Massachusetts, on the island of Martha's Vineyard in the 18th century, the population had a much higher rate of deafness than the general population of the continental United States because of the founder effect and the island's isolation. Martha's Vineyard Sign Language was well known by almost all islanders since so many families had deaf members. It afforded almost everyone with the opportunity to have frequent contact with ASL while at an age most conducive to effortlessly learning a language.

Congregationalist minister and deaf educator Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet is credited with popularizing the signing technique in North America. At the behest of a father who was interested in educating his deaf daughter, Alice Cogswell, he was enlisted to investigate the methods of teaching the deaf. In the early 1800s he visited the Abbé de l'Epée's school in Paris and convinced one of the teachers, Laurent Clerc, to return with him to America. In 1817 they founded the American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb (now the American School for the Deaf), in Hartford, Connecticut, to teach sign language to American deaf students.

It was at this school that all these influences would intermingle, interact and what would become ASL was born. Many of the school's students were from Martha's Vineyard, and they mixed their "native" sign language with Clerc's OFSL. Other students probably brought their own highly localized sign language or "home sign" systems to the mix. Undoubtedly, spontaneous lexicon developed at the school as well. If there was any influence from sign language of indigenous people, it may have been here that it was absorbed into the language.

Interestingly, because of the early influence of the sign language of France upon the school, the vocabularies of the modern sign languages in North America and France are approximately 60% shared whereas the vocabularies of ASL and British Sign Language are almost completely dissimilar.

From its synthesis at this first public school for the deaf in North America, the language went on to grow. Many of the graduates of this school went on to found schools of their own in many other states thus spreading the methods of Gallaudet and Clerc and serving to expand and standardize the language; as with most languages though, there are regional variations.

After being strongly established in this country there was a bitter fight between those who supported oralism over manualism in the late 1800s. Many notable individuals of high standing contributed to this row, such as Alexander Graham Bell. The oralists won many battles and for a long time the use of sign was suppressed, socially and pedagogically. Many considered sign to not even be a language at all. This situation was changed by William Stokoe a professor of English hired at Gallaudet University in 1955. He immediately became fascinated by ASL and began serious study of it. Eventually, through publication in linguistics journals of articles containing detailed linguistic analysis of ASL, he was able to convince the scientific mainstream that ASL was indeed a natural language on a par with any other.

The language continues to grow and change like any living language. Currently, as with spoken English, ASL constantly adds new signs in an attempt to keep up with constantly changing technology.

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Linguistics

ASL is a natural language as proved to the satisfaction of the linguistic community by William Stokoe. It is a manual language meaning that the information is expressed not with combinations of sounds but with combinations of handshapes, movements of the hands, arms and body, and facial expressions. It is used natively and predominantly by the Deaf and hard-of-hearing of the United States and Canada.

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Iconicity

Although it often seems as though the signs are meaningful of themselves, in fact they can be as arbitrary as words in spoken language. For example, hearing children often make the mistake of using "you" to refer to themselves, since others refer to them as "you." Children who acquire the sign YOU (pointing at one's interlocutor) make similar mistakes – they will point at others to mean themselves, indicating that even something as seemingly explicit as pointing is an arbitrary sign in ASL, like words in a spoken language.

However, Edward Klima and Ursula Bellugi have modified the common theory that signs can be self-explanatory by grouping signs into three categories:

  • Transparent: Non-signers can usually correctly guess the meaning
  • Translucent: Meaning makes sense to non-signers once it is explained
  • Opaque: Meaning cannot be guessed by non-signers

Klima and Bellugi used American Sign Language in formulating that classification. The theory that signs are self-explanatory can be conclusively disproved by the fact that non-signers cannot understand fluent, continuous sign language. The majority of signs are opaque.

Generally, signs that are "Transparent" are signs of objects or words that became popular after the basics of ASL were established. There are, of course, exceptions to this.

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Grammar

The grammar of ASL uses spatial locations, motion, and context to indicate syntax. For example:

  • If a signer signs a noun and then points to a certain spot, he or she can refer back to that noun by pointing again to the same spot. This is also known as 'setting up' something. For instance, you can point to a spot over your right shoulder talking about your Grandmother in Albany, NY. When you talk about her again, instead of signing 'grandmother' you can just point back to the same spot, over your shoulder.
  • To intensify the meaning a verb or adjective (e.g., to say "very calm" instead of "calm"), the signer modulates the way it is expressed, first holding his or her hands rigid and then making the rest of the sign more quickly than usual. Another way to accomplish the same thing would be to slow down the given sign, emphasizing its importance or degree.
  • Raised eyebrows can indicate a yes-or-no question, while lowered eyebrows indicate a "wh-question" or one that requests more information such as those that would use the question words: who, what, when, where, or why.
  • Like some spoken languages, ASL does not use the linking verb "to be" (linguistically refered to as a 'copula'). If one is signing "We are going to the store tomorrow", some possible ASL sentences, literally translated, would be;
    • We go tomorrow store.
    • Tomorrow store, we go.
    • Store, we go tomorrow.
  • Particular ASL signers might not use the word "because", and instead may break down the sentence into a question and then response. For instance, "I love to eat pasta because I am Italian" would be translated into "I love eat pasta, why? I Italian." Over time the word "because" has been signed more often, but both modes can be used.
  • Some signs can be carried from place to place for contextual reasons. The sign for "pain" - two pointed index fingers aimed at each other moved towards then away from each other, can be signed over one's leg to show that there is pain in the leg.
  • Facial expression is also key in ASL. If one is to sign "angry", a facial expression of anger should be put on. Without expressions like this, the effect would either be similar to listening to someone who was speaking in extremely monotone spoken English or it would be taken as an indication of sarcasm or some other departure from the usual meaning indicated by the sign.
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Writing systems

ASL is often glossed with English words written in all capital letters. This is however a method used simply to teach the structure of the language. ASL is a visual language not a written language. There is no one-to-one correspondence between words in ASL and English, and much of the inflectional modulation of ASL signs is lost.

There are two true writing systems in use for ASL: a phonemic Stokoe notation, which has a separate symbol or diacritic mark for every phonemic hand shape, motion, and position (though it leaves something to be desired in the representation of facial expression), and a more popular iconic system called SignWriting, which represents each sign with a rather abstract illustration of its salient features. SignWriting is commonly used for student newsletters and similar purposes.

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"Baby Sign"

(For complete article see Baby Sign)

In recent years, it has been shown that ASL has had a positive impact on the intellect of hearing children who are exposed to it. When infants are taught the language early, parents are able to respond accordingly to the infant at a developmental stage when verbal speech, which requires extremely fine control of many interacting parts, is not yet able to be formed. The ability of the child to actively communicate and interact earlier than would otherwise be possible may accelerate the language development and general cognitive development of the child.

However, children too young to speak often also lack the hand coordination required for ASL, so systems of "Baby Sign", which rely on simpler hand shapes and movements, are often used instead.

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Primate usage

ASL has allegedly been taught to both species of chimpanzee, the bonobo and common chimpanzee, as well as gorillas. Several of the animals have been said to have mastered more than one hundred signs, though not all agree with the ability of the primates to sign. For example, when the Washoe research team asked the handlers of the chimp to write signs down whenever they witnessed them being produced by Washoe, the hearing people on the team turned in long lists of signs while the only deaf native speaker of ASL on the team turned in blank lists. She explained that what she saw were not signs at all, but simply gestures. Further fomenting the controversy, the researchers in the studies of Koko and Washoe refused to share their raw data with the scientific community. The theory that non-human primates have learned ASL, or that they are even capable of learning ASL or any other natural language, is not currently accepted by linguists. Despite this, however, research on the ability of some primates to learn symbol systems continues and receives occasional publicity in the media.

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See also

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External links

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References

  • Groce, Nora Ellen (1988) Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Martha's Vineyard, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 067427041X
  • Klima, Edward, and Bellugi, Ursula (1979) The Signs of Language, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674807952
  • Lane, Harlan L. (1984). When the mind hears: A history of the deaf. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-3945-0878-5.
  • Sacks, Oliver W. (1989). Seeing voices: A journey into the land of the deaf. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-5200-6083-0.
  • Stokoe, William C. (1976) Dictionary of American Sign Language on Linguistic Principles, Linstok Press. ISBN 0932130011
  • Stokoe, William C. (1960). Sign language structure: An outline of the visual communication systems of the American deaf. Studies in linguistics: Occasional papers (No. 8). Buffalo: Dept. of Anthropology and Linguistics, University of Buffalo.
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