American Sign Language Essay

Examples/Details/Anecdotal Evidence: In American Sign Language words are more fluent and recognizable than words in Standard English Sign Language. Words are short responded and make more sense than Standard English Sign Language where every word has their own sign word for word.

In order to fully understand the creation of American Sign Language (ASL), it must be understood that it is a form of communication. That means every sign has a meaning that is culturally bound just like languages in oral communication. That also means that the language has a distinctive origin. In fact, ASL carries “several linguistic features that are similar to spoken languages” (Rosen, 2008) such as the presence of homonyms and its constant evolution (Shaw & Delaporte, 2011). The unique concept about ASL, though, is that it actually has very strong ties and connections with the French Sign Language, also known as LFS. This connection is explained by Delaporte & Shaw (2009) and Shaw & Delaporte (2011) as being due to how ASL was formalized in the U.S. by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet with the help of a deaf French professor named Laurent Clerc who used LSF. Because “LFS

Deaf-blind can also use a screen Braille communicator, a small portable device that enables them to communicate with sighted people. Alternate communication is print on palm, the person communicating with the deaf-blind person prints large block letters on the other persons hand. Each letter is written in the same location on the persons hand. This is a way for the deaf-blind to communicate with the public.

To fully understand why this is a popular debate, we must first explore Deaf culture. Dr. Beth Sonnenstrahl Benedict from the Hands and Voices organization states that “The American Deaf community values American Sign Language as the core of a culturally Deaf identity” (Benedict par 1). Language is a crucial aspect of a culture, and American Sign Language unifies the Deaf community. Although it is often dismissed as a language, ASL has its own unique sentence structure and vocabulary that make it different from English or any other foreign language. Many believe that allowing a deaf child to learn sign language is essential to them embracing their deafness as well as building

In learning about the deaf culture I have taken on a new understanding about the people it includes. Through readings and the lessons, I have learned that being deaf has both its hardships and its blessings. The beauty of the language alone makes one want to learn all that he or she can about it. In this paper I will discuss the beauty of the language and the misconceptions the hearing world has about deafness.

There are communication access real-time translation or CART this provides another form of communication. “This is when words are spoken, a CART provider, or translator, types them on the computer for a deaf or hearing-impaired person to read” (Dunlap, 2011). There are also assistive listening devices, which are technology aids, the deaf and hard of hearing in many ways. “Assistive listening devices or ALD’s help people hear better in cases of background noise or bad acoustics” (Dunlap, 2011).

By researching this topic, I intend to correct the extremely common misconception that ASL is just “English for Deaf people”, which I also believed before taking multiple classes on the subject.

As part of daily life, we communicate and connect ourselves with certain communities. School, jobs, families, sports, extracurricular activities, and many other communities are just a few we come into contact with. Although these may seem to appear the same, there are specific types of communities such as a discourse community. A discourse community is a group of people involved in and communicating about a particular topic, issue, or in a particular field (Webcourses, N.d, Website) that has a share a common set of goals and attempt to achieve these goals (Swales, 1990). According to researcher and educator, John Swales, there are six characteristics that define whether or not a community is considered a discourse community. Following the criteria Swales states is necessary to be a discourse community, I did an in depth research on the American Sign Language community. Through my study, I was able to meet all six characteristics.

For example, nonverbal indications can be used to backup, enrich, substitute, and even contradict what you are saying through your verbals. Nonverbal cues can place the verbal message in a framework that provides a support for how the message should be understood. When you are working with someone who has complete or partial deafness, enunciating your verbals and coupling them with hand or body gestures to convey a message can be beneficial, when done correctly. As an illustration, if you are trying to communicate to a person that you are about to wash their face, you could get down to their level, speak the words, and additionally use a hand with a cloth in it to hover to over your face in washing motions. This strategy could be applied to a countless number of situations to enhance communication between you and a

No one form of sign language is universal. For example, British Sign Language (BSL) differs notably from ASL. Different sign languages are used in different countries or regions.

The first time I was ever introduced to American Sign Language was when I was a four-year-old in Sunday school. I remember that our Sunday school class was learning the song away in the manger in sign language for our upcoming Christmas pageant, at the time didn’t quite understand the complexity of the language and just thought that it was so cool how some people could understand each other and they didn’t even talk. As I got older I began to understand that sign language wasn’t just something that was used during a church Christmas play, but it was an intricate language with a rich and unique culture. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I began to feel the desire to learn sign language once my older sister Bethanny started taking sign

ASL is rapidly expending in different area: education, medical and health services, community and charity. This occupation mainly provides interpreting and communication services within education institutions, hospitals or medical institutions, community, provincial or federal government, businesses, or in more diverse setting.

There are many uses of Sign Language in the classroom besides just speaking with it. ASL can be used to manage students’ behavior in the classroom and keep students actively engaged in lessons being taught. It also helps students on an academic level by helping them in literacy development of phonics, reading, and spelling. It aids students with speech and language development issues. Sign language promotes students’ communications and interactions with each other as well. According to Andrea Simpson, a pediatric audiologist and speech and language pathologist, declares, “Studies have shown that students who learn Sign Language for specific sight words learn to read at a faster rate.” Incorporating Sign Language in the classroom can have beneficial aspects to the students’ education and skills. When students are able to pair words with Sign Language, it creates a mental picture in their brain and they are able to recall the words better. They are also using muscle memory to remember the word better because the children are using more senses. Simpson declares, “Children learn faster when they can hear, see, and feel the words they are learning.” The more senses the students use, the more ways of remembering the material. Dale Gross, who has studied Sign Language and the benefits of learning it, declares, “Children who have learned American Sign Language at a young age average a higher IQ of 8-13 points.” Sign language is a way to keep the students excited to learn and engaged in the lesson being taught. Barbara Cooper, who writes for the Reading Teacher which is a peer reviewed journal and has researched this topic immensely and is well informed on the information she wrote about, discovers, “I have found that incorporating Sign Language in a diverse curriculum

Space-time Trajectories based approaches interpret the human activity as a set of space-time trajectories. A person is generally represented as a set of 2-dimensional (XY), 3-dimensional (XYZ), or 4-dimensional (XYZT) points corresponding to his or her joint positions along the space and time. Human body parts estimation methodologies, especially the stick figure modeling, are widely used to extract the joint positions of a person at each image frame. Changes in joint position of a human performing an action are recorded as space-time trajectories, constructing 3-D XYT or 4-D XYZT representations of the human activity. Figure 2.6 shows example trajectories. Figure 2.6-a shows 3-D XYZ trajectories, while figure 2.6-b shows 3-D XYT trajectories.

Sign language teaches deaf children to use the other senses such as sight to communicate with others. ASL centers on several techniques such as “hand shape, position, and movement, body movements, gestures, facial expressions, and other visual cues to form its words” instead of sounds and tones in the spoken language (“American Sign Language”).