As I mentioned briefly in my last post, I moved this weekend which was a huge task and took some time away from my learning journey. Because of that project, I didn't have much of a chance to practice my ASL or look more into resources for my learning journey. So this week I decided to take a slight detour in my learning - instead of learning how to use ASL, I wanted to learn more about ASL. Throughout my learning journey I have had some questions about ASL and how it was developed, how it differs regionally and throughout the world, and many other questions. I felt that this was a great way to continue my learning and still have a meaningful experience with my learning journey, instead of just doing it to do it.
History of Sign Language
Academy Hearing Centres discusses that the first step towards "formal" sign language was when Charles Michel De L'Epee - a French Priest - created a free public school for the deaf in Paris after he painstakingly created a dictionary full of words which had hand gestures attached to them.
In the 1800s, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet developed American Sign Language, which was inspired by his neighbours' deaf daughter. Along with Laurent Clerc, Gallaudet developed the first American school for the deaf and created a sign language unique to the USA.
Sign Names
Something that I have consistently seen throughout my learning journey is the idea about "sign names". Some people have to spell their names letter by letter, and others have one sign that represents their name, but I never understood how and why that is.
Deaf Umbrella (which is actually based in London, so they use BSL) discusses that beginners to sign language always sign their own names letter by letter. This goes for people in the deaf community and people outside of it. The main aspect of sign names is that they always must be assigned by someone who is in the deaf community. Sign names are not always representative of your actual name, but usually are representative of some aspect of your personality or unique/defining traits about you. There are many different cases for how you would get a sign name.
If you are born into a deaf family (but not necessarily deaf yourself) - your parents (or the deaf person in your family) will assign you your name.
If you are deaf yourself - you will give yourself a sign name.
If you are a hearing person with no deaf family members - someone who is deaf can give you a sign name.
Sign names are an honor to receive and may take a long time to choose - in any scenario. Because they are based mainly on personality and defining traits, you likely won't get a sign name from the first deaf person you meet.
The 5 Parameters of Signs
When I first began learning ASL, I thought hand gestures were the only component of signing, but I soon realized that there is a lot more that goes into sign language. I have learned that there are actually 5 parameters included in sign language, and each sign has to meet all 5 parameters. If one parameter is off, it could mean something different than what you are trying to say.
Handshape - this is the actual configuration of your hand when doing a sign. This is important for when two signs are in the same location. For example, the videos below show two words (Arizona - top, and Restaurant - bottom) which have the same location of sign, but different hand shapes.
Palm Orientation - this is the direction that the palm faces when doing a sign. Like hand shape, the palm facing a different way than it's supposed to can change the sign completely.
Location - this is the space on/near the body where the hand shape is produced. An example of this is the difference between the sign for "mother" and the sign for "father".
Movement - this refers the the location changing throughout the sign. For example, one sign may move from right to left and another may move from left to right.
Non-Manual Markers/Signals - these are signals that we do that do not include the use of the hands. For example head nods, facial expressions, and shoulder shrugs all fall into this category.
This was actually such an interesting task to include into my learning journey. Even though it is not learning hand signals, I do feel like including this research into my ASL learning was very beneficial to me. Understanding why things are the way they are and the small aspects that affect learning ASL will be helpful for my future learnings!
For my readers: is there any questions that you have been wondering about ASL?
Comentarios