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Chapter Five: Recognition of ASL as a Language - Coggle Diagram
Chapter Five:
Recognition of ASL as a Language
Chelsee Patterson
2/17/2021
Gestures
Anthropologist Gordon Hewes "
4 millions years ago...australopithecines, communicated using hands
"
Michael Corballis, (psychology professor) "
gestural communication is more effective than vocal
"
Gestures are silent
Gelures provide info in spacial manner, pointing, describing
3 Gorillas: Washoe, Tatu, Koko
Koko 1,000+ word vocal
Progression came from necessity to communicate
Visual Gesture
ASL grammar = signer's eyes, face, head, body posture, hands / arms
Capable of expressing 3D ideas
Demonstrate change in size
Describes height, weight, interior & exterior space
Describes people and objects in action
Engraved in History
Documentation exists of signs used in Martha's Vineyard prior to 1817
Signs are developed according to the boundaries of the human visual system
Changes inn ASL and MVSL 1H to 2H
Dropping parts of a sign
MVSL and ASL took divergent paths
60% of the signs in America in early 1800s originated w/ French signs from Clerc to Hartford
Oldest signs Deaf people have unconsciously refused to give up = INSTITUTE
Language / Sign Language
Post Civil War making education motives to establish English as majority language to unify influence on diverse cultures present in US
Saving the Union by homogenizing diverse elements among American citizens
Indian tribal languages suppressed
AGB considered sign language a foreign language not to be taught in schools
Findings
Sign Language = phonology, morphology and syntax characteristics
Handshape = tab / tabula
Location = dez / designator
Movement = sig / signation
19 hand shapes, 12 locations, 24 movements
New terms: chereme, tab, dez, sig, American Sign Language
Stokoe's work provided firm base on which later investigations of ASL were made.
Needing a person like [Stokoe] to recognize the language
Stokoe "Father of American Sign Language Linguistics"
7 basic sentence types:
Declarative, Questions, Conditionals, Negation/Assertion, Commands, Topicalization, Relative Clauses
3 Question types:
Yes/No, WH-words, Rhetorical
Non-manual signs create different meanings
Learning
Deaf children entered school not knowing they had names
Dorm counselors had little or no sign skills
Sign language was not formally taught in classrooms
Required to memorize definitions of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
Correct usage of English grammar
Barry Five-Slate, Fitzgerald Key, Wing's Symbols
Sentence diagramming
Books & Birth
Dr. William Stokoe, Dr. Carl Cronenberg, Dr. Dorothy Casterline
Sign Language Structure: An Outline of the Visual Communication Systems of the American Deaf
1960's structural linguistics became commonplace
Comparing languages of the world
Gallaudet community/Deaf community initially not supportive of project / sign language research
Helen E. Waite, authored book on Helen Keller an Anne Sullivan (letter)
Granddaughter of AGB (letter)
Salk Institute
Ursula Bellugi & husband Edward Klima
Research language acquisitions among
Deaf children / Deaf parents
Suggested additional features to ASL
Focused on ASL's morphological processes
The Signs of Language
- Kilma & Bellugi
ASL
Language embodies thoughts and experiences of its users - Baker & Cokely
Resource books and "Green Books"
Listeners use eyes instead of ears
Carefully structured to fit the needs / capabilities of eyes
Gestural, Visual
Specific movements, shapes, of body / posture
Movements / gestures serve as words & inotation of language
NOT: aural/oral, written, universal, all iconic,
equaling grammar structure of spoken English
Palm orientation = 4th parameter; non-manual signs = 5th parameter
CHURCH / DUTY = handshake
STAY / SAME = location
LECTURE / WILL = orientation
ZERO / PERCENT = movement
Phonology, morphology & syntax
Non-verb pairs, compounds, contractions, classifiers & inflectional processes
Spoken English = inflections, written English = punctuation, non-manual signs determine sentence types