American Sign Language The Easy Way - 2nd Edition

Visit the link below to download the full version of this book:

https://cheaptodownload.com/product/american-sign-language-the-easy-way-2nd-edit
ion-full-pdf-download

Click Download Now

 Copyright © 1998 Barron's Educational Series, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microfilm, xerography, or
any other means, or incorporated into any information retrieval system, electronic or mechanical, without the
written permission of the copyright owner.
All inquiries should be addressed to:
Barron's Educational Series, Inc.
250 Wireless Boulevard
Hauppauge, New York 11788
http://www.barronsedu.com
International Standard Book No. 0-7641-0299-0
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 98-2808
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stewart, David Alan, 1954
American Sign Language the easy way /
David A. Stewart.
p. cm. (Easy way series)
Includes index.
ISBN 0-7641-0299-0
1. American Sign Language. I. Title.
II. Series: Easy way.
HV2474.S67 1998
419dc21 98-2808
CIP
Printed in the United States of America
9876

< previous page page_ii next page >

< previous page page_iii next page >
Page iii

Contents

Note to the Student v

Introduction: American Sign Language 1
Chapter 1: The Basics 7
7
Facial Grammar
13
The First Ten Rules of ASL Grammar
31
Introduction to the Dialogues
Chapter 2: Getting Started 33
33
Lesson 1 Getting Started
42
Lesson 2 Learning ASL
49
Lesson 3 Courtesy Phrases
57
Lesson 4 Vocabulary Building: Descriptive Signs
73
Lesson 5 Taking up Classes
82
Lesson 6 Inquiring about Class Time
89
Lesson 7 Signs for Courses
97
Review of Lessons 17
Chapter 3: The Deaf Community 99
Chapter 4: One Million New Signs 105
 Chapter 5: Everyday ASL 113
113
Lesson 8 Common Conversational Signs
127
Lesson 9 Practice Signing
135
Lesson 10 Discussing Time
142
Lesson 11 Leisure Activity
Chapter 6: Directional Verbs and Communicating 151
151
Directional Verbs That Change the Meanings of Sentences in Space
180
Lesson 12 The Deaf Teacher
189
Lesson 13 The Interpreter
197
Lesson 14 Understanding Communication
206
Review of Lessons 814
Chapter 7: The Deaf Way 209
209
Technology and Other Adaptations: The Deaf Way
Chapter 8: It's All Relative 215

< previous page page_iii next page >

< previous page page_iv next page >
Page iv

215
Lesson 15 Opposites
227
Lesson 16 Relations and Places
236
Lesson 17 Relations, Cities, and Occupations
Chapter 9: Body- and Gaze-ShiftingPersonalizing the Message 249
Chapter 10: Talking about Time 255
255
Lesson 18 The Time Line
266
Lesson 19 Talking about Time
276
Lesson 20 Vocabulary Building: Time Adverbs
284
Review of Lessons 1520
Chapter 11: Classifiers and the World Games for the Deaf 285
285
Classifiers: The Paintbrush of ASL
307
Lesson 21 Introduction to Classifiers: Person
317
Lesson 22 Exploring with Classifiers
320
Lesson 23 Using Classifiers in a Dialogue
329
Lesson 24 Going to the World Games for the Deaf
339
Lesson 25 Socializing and the World Games for the Deaf
347
 Lesson 26 Signing and the World Games for the Deaf
354
Review of Lessons 2126
Chapter 12: Deaf Organizations 355
Chapter 13: The Deaf and Hearing World 361
361
Lesson 27 Sports and Leisure Activities: Part 1
371
Lesson 28 Sports and Leisure Activities: Part 2
385
Lesson 29 The Dentist and You
395
Lesson 30 The Tooth Comes Out
403
Lesson 31 A Visit to the Doctor
412
Lesson 32 What the Doctor Said
420
Lesson 33 Vocabulary Building: Health and Body Related
429
Review of Lessons 2733
Chapter 14: Poems and Humor 431
Chapter 15: Traveling with ASL 437
437
Lesson 34 Travel Plans
447
Lesson 35 Travel Schedules
459
Lesson 36 More Places to Visit
470
Review of Lessons 3436
Appendix 471
< previous page page_iv next page >
< previous page page_v next page >
Page v

Note to the Student

American Sign Language the Easy Way is designed to make you a better signer. Here are some suggestions for
using this book:
• Think visually. American Sign Language (ASL) is understood by seeing it because all information in ASL is
visual. How you make a sign is important, but just as important are the facial expressions and body movements
you use when signing. Read about the facial grammar of ASL in Chapter 1 to help you make the transfer from a
communication based on sounds to one that's entirely based on "seeing."
• Learn the ten basic ASL grammar rules. Examples of how these rules are used in a dialogue are given in the 36
lessons that follow. Most of the rules are frequently repeated to help you gain greater familiarity with them.
• Study the chapters that focus on a particular aspect of ASL such as directional verbs (Chapter 6), classifiers
(Chapter 11), and eye-gazing and body-shifting (Chapter 9). These chapters will give you a better understanding of
the spatial qualities of ASL.
• Master signing the dialogues. Each lesson has a dialogue, and they become progressively more difficult
throughout the book. Practice signing each dialogue until you are comfortable with the signing. You can do this
best with a partner or a fluent ASL signer, but if you are alone, practice signing in front of a mirror or videotape
yourself. This practice will help you develop fluency in your signing. The dialogues are broken up in the sections
called "Practice Activities." Practicing the shorter pieces of the dialogues will help you gain greater fluency when
practicing the entire dialogue.
• Learn to analyze ASL language structures and signs. Each dialogue is analyzed in a section called "What's in the
signs (notes about the grammar)." Read this section carefully so that you get a feel for how ASL is structured.
Some signs are discussed separately in a section called "What's in a sign (notes about the vocabulary)." Read this
section to learn about the reasons some signs are produced in a certain way.
• Follow all suggestions for further practice that require you to develop your own dialogues and practice signing
them.
• Create ASL sentences and write the English translations of these sentences. Translation is important for learning
the differences between ASL and English grammar because in ASL you do not sign each word you say in English
and the ASL grammar is different from English grammar.

< previous page page_v next page >

< previous page page_vi next page >
Page vi
• Learn the different meanings of some ASL signs. A listing of these signs and their alternative meanings is
presented in most chapters.
• Learn about Deaf culture. Five chapters introduce you to different aspects of Deaf culture.
Mastering ASL will require more than just mastering the dialogues and ASL rules presented in this book.
Communicating with Deaf people will help you learn more about ASL and help you expand your vocabulary of
signs.

< previous page page_vi next page >

< previous page page_1 next page >
Page 1

Introduction
American Sign Language
American Sign Language has had a durable history. Its origin can be traced to the emergence of a large
community of deaf people centered around the first public school for deaf children in France, founded about
1761; the language that arose in this community is still being used in France today. In 1817, a Deaf teacher
from this school helped establish the first public school for deaf children in the United States. Although his
language was incorporated into the early curriculum, the children's own gestural systems mingled with the
official signed language, resulting in a new form that was no longer identifiable as French Sign Language. Some
signs and structures in ASL today still reflect their French Sign Language origins, although the two languages
are distinct.
CAROL PADDEN AND TOM HUMPHRIES
Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture

Hold That Sign . . .

The founding of the first school for the Deaf in America in 1817 is a landmark in the history of American Sign
Language, or ASL as it is most often called. Located in Hartford, Connecticut, and now known as the American
School for the Deaf, the school brought together two main sources in the development of ASL signs and grammar.
The first was the school's first two teachers. One was Laurent Clerc, the Deaf man from France described by
Padden and Humphries. He and the French Sign Language he knew were brought to the United States by an
American, Thomas Gallaudet, who learned to sign from Clerc.
The other source of ASL was the Deaf pupils in attendance at the school. They came at a time when schooling was
not mandatory and most of the population lived in farming communities. So how did they sign or did they sign
prior to attending the school? For some of these children, the school marked the first time they were in the
company of other Deaf people, so what signs they had were mainly homemade. But other Deaf children, and

< previous page page_1 next page >

< previous page page_2 next page >
Page 2
especially those with Deaf parents, introduced to the school signs indigenous to Americasigns that were used in the
Deaf community. For about the next forty years, this pattern was repeated in other states where schools for the
Deaf were springing up, many of them employing Deaf teachers who had graduated from other schools for the
Deaf. The work of these early pioneers of education had a lasting influence on the shape of ASL as we know it
today. In this chapter, you are introduced to various aspects of ASL.

What Is American Sign Language?

American Sign Language is the language of the American Deaf community. This is a simple yet practical
definition. If someone asked you what Italian is, you would likely respond that it is the way most people in Italy
speak. This approach might appear unusual given the trend in most ASL textbooks to define ASL by clarifying
misconceptions about it. But why learn about misconceptions? Learn ASL with a clean conscience and a clear
goal: ASL is how most Deaf Americans sign, and it is how you will sign as you venture through this book.

Signing as a Choice of Communication

I have taught ASL to over two thousand students, and my strongest impression of this language can be summed up
in a simple observation: once a student has tasted the excitement of communicating with her hands she never loses
her appetite for learning more about signing. I have not met a sign language teacher who has observed otherwise.
Not all students learn to sign well nor do they all continue in their study of signing. But once their curiosity is
piqued, they continue to have an interest in signing. I was asked by a student if I signed in my dreams. Whether a
Deaf person signs in his dreams is a moot question, so I flipped it around and told her to tell me how she dreams
after she becomes a fluent signer. Such is the nature of learning about sign language.
For many of you, ASL is a new language that forces you to confront your prejudices about communicating with
your hands. You might wonder about what you can talk about in signs. Would you wonder about this if you were
learning to speak Spanish? Probably not. But ASL is not just a different language, it is a different medium for
talking, and this fact may make you hesitant and perhaps even suspicious about what you can and cannot say in
ASL. You are in good company because Deaf people wonder how it is possible to talk in speech about such things
as the destructive force of twisters and the tender moments of a child playing alone. To Deaf people the picture of
communication painted by vowels and consonants, pitch and loudness pales in comparison to the vibrant images
that jump off the fingers and hands, face, and body of a person signing.
Being able to communicate with your hands should not be a surprise because you have been doing it for years
albeit to a far lesser extent than Deaf people. From the earliest days of human communications, people have relied
on symbols created by the hands to com-

< previous page page_2 next page >

< previous page page_3 next page >
Page 3
municate with the other groups of people they encountered as they followed a herd of animals or moved across the
continent in search of food and shelter. Native Americans used signs for intertribal communications because
mastering many spoken dialects is difficult. Hunters in the African savannah still use signs to help them hunt
better. It is hard to imagine a hunter yelling, "Sneak up on the wildebeest on your left!" A neon sign could hardly
be more invasive. Yet, it is easy to imagine hunters and others using natural gestures and created signs to
communicate.
For Deaf people, signing is necessary for communication. How did Deaf people living three thousand years ago in
Athens communicate with one another? In sign language, the same way they communicate today. Then why, until
recently, did so many nondeaf people know so little about signing? There are at least three reasons for this. First,
Deaf people make up just a small fraction of the population in any area. Therefore many nondeaf people never
encounter a Deaf person in their walk through life. Second, speech is the dominant form of communication in
society and gets the most attention. Third, Deaf people tend to socialize with one another and with those nondeaf
people who know how to sign.
Given these reasons for why nondeaf people know so little about signing, it is reasonable to assume that if you
know someone who communicates with the hands, you know someone who is Deaf. Or is it? Consider how much
gestural and nonverbal communication you encounter in your everyday conversations. A stare ("Don't do it"), an
affectionate smile ("I am comfortable around you"), pushing the hand quickly to the side ("Get rid of it"), brushing
the index finger back and forth across the chin ("I'm thinking about it''), and placing the hand on the forehead ("I
don't believe this happened") convey information. They are not random acts unrelated to a conversation taking
place. In fact, we use nonverbal communication so naturally that we don't talk about these gestures other than to
say, "Don't talk with your hands." But we do talk with our hands, and for Deaf people it is the most natural way of
talking.
Awareness of ASL has been growing since William C. Stokoe published his research on the linguistics of ASL
forty years ago. ASL courses in high schools and colleges are booming. The television and movie industry has
discovered the value of including Deaf actors and actresses in films. Even if the part is small as in River Wild and
Mr. Holland's Opus, the effect is that ASL is steadily working its way into households across the nation. Sign
language interpreters are also indirectly promoting exposure to ASL whether they are interpreting in schools, in a
doctor's office, or for the President on the campaign trail. Their visibility translates to ASL visibility. Just how
effective is this movement toward greater awareness of ASL? Answer this question yourself by thinking about
your first encounter with signing and the reason why you are reading this book.

The Beginning of Signs

At some point you will wonder where in the world signs came from. Compared with the study of other languages,
the study of sign language is relatively new, with ASL being the most widely studied sign language in the world.
But even ASL has had only forty years under the microscope of psycholinguists and sociolinguists who are
seeking to determine its

< previous page page_3 next page >

< previous page page_4 next page >
Page 4
roots, map out its grammar and vocabulary, and survey its linguistic versatility in all phases of communication.
Although we have learned much, we still have much more to learn.
It was mentioned earlier that even though ASL did not begin with the schooling of Deaf children, schools for the
Deaf have helped spread its use. Moreover, because Deaf communities tend to form around schools for the Deaf,
there is a close association among ASL, schools for the Deaf, and the Deaf community.
As with any language, we like to know about its roots. We also want to know why we use a particular word and
where this word comes from. Sign language is no exception, and like gazing at the stars, we are curious about
whether any of the signs used almost 200 years ago are still used today. Some of them are. The signs HELP,
OTHER, and SEARCH-FOR are similar to signs in French Sign Language. The ASL noun-adjective grammar
structure creates phrases such as SHIRT BLUE and BIRD YELLOW, the same sort of structure used in French
Sign Language. Sign language used in other countries may also have influenced the development of ASL, but we
are just learning about the nature of this influence.
We can say that ASL is a versatile language, which is something we say about English. Many words were
introduced to English by speakers from other languages: the word skunk comes from the Native Americans, patio
comes from Spaniards, corral comes from people in southern Africa, and okay comes from slaves brought from
West Africa. Okay? Surprisingly, ASL is flexible enough to borrow from English. The sign OK is made by
fingerspelling O-K. Signs for countries are typically taken from the native sign language used in that country. Thus,
the sign AUSTRALIA used in ASL is the same as the sign used in Australian Sign Language.
Deaf people create new signs as necessary to accommodate changing lifestyles and the influence of technology.
Signs of recent origin are CREDIT-CARD, COMPUTER, DISK, and NETWORK. Creating new signs is a part of
ASL's evolution. It is also a part of Deaf culture. It is unthinkable that you will wake up one day speaking words
that you have invented. Likewise you should not think that learning ASL is an invitation to make up signs. The
signs you need for communicating are there already. Your task is to learn them.
It should also be clear that if you wish to communicate with Deaf people from other countries, then you must learn
their sign language because ASL is common only in the United States and in all provinces of Canada other than
Quebec where Language des Signes Québécoise is the dominant sign language. Thus, British Sign Language is as
Greek to Deaf Americans as Mexican Sign Language is to Deaf Brazilians.

The Physical Dimensions of ASL

ASL is a visual-gestural language. It is visual because we see it and gestural because the signs are formed by the
hands. Signing alone, however, is not an accurate picture of ASL. How signs are formed in space is important to
understanding what they mean. The critical space is called the signing space and extends from the waist to just
above the head and to just beyond the sides of the body. This is also the space in which the hands can move
comfortably. As you will learn in this book, the signing space has a role in ASL grammar.

< previous page page_4 next page >

< previous page page_5 next page >
Page 5
One further dimension of ASL is the movement of the head and facial expressions, which help shape the meaning
of ASL sentences. In fact, facial grammar is examined in its own chapter. All the foregoing dimensions have given
ASL its unique grammar.
How are signs formed? Handshape, orientation, location, and movement describe a sign. The handshape is the
shape of the hands when the sign is formed. The handshape may remain the same throughout the sign, or it can
change. If two hands are used to make a sign, both hands can have the same handshape or be different. The
orientation is the position of the hand(s) relative to the body. For example, the palms can be facing the body or
away from the body, facing the ground or facing upward. The location is the place in the signing space where a
sign is formed. Signs can be stationary such as THINK and LOVE, or they can move from one location in the
signing space to another, like the signs LONG and EXCITE. The movement of a sign is the direction in which the
hand moves relative to the body. There is a variety of movements that range from a simple sliding movement (e.g.,
NICE) to a complex circular movement (e.g., TRAVEL-AROUND).
Some signs are iconic in that their meanings can be guessed from the sign alone. A majority of signs are not
iconic, and their meaning must be learned. There is usually a reason, however, for why a sign has taken the shape
it has. In the sign LEARN, the movement of the hand represents taking knowledge from a book and inserting it in
the brain.
Thus, signs are used to create in space images that convey our thoughts to other people; this is the makeup of ASL.
The dynamics of moving the hands in space determines how signs are formed and the shape of ASL grammar.
Two or more concepts can be simultaneously expressed in ASL. This feat cannot be accomplished in a spoken
language because speech is temporal in that one word rolls off the tongue at a time. Because of the spatial and
gestural qualities of ASL, there can be no convenient written form of ASL. What we can do is write English
glosses of ASL signs. An English gloss is the best approximation of the meaning of a sign. It gives us a way of
laying out ASL so that it can be studied and discussed, but it is not a written form of ASL. In this book, English
glosses are written in uppercase lettering.

The Cultural Dimension of ASL

Learning ASL is not simply about learning another language. It is also about access. Even though we can learn
something about any culture from reading about it, we acquire a deeper understanding when we can experience the
culture or hear firsthand accounts from the people who are a part of the culture. ASL gives us access to Deaf
culture.
ASL is one of the defining characteristics of the Deaf community. People in the Deaf community are seldom
defined by their ethnicity as they are in other communities such as the Hispanic community and the Irish
community. Although some ethnic groups such as Deaf African-Americans do form their own communities, the
Deaf community as it is normally described crosses all ethnic populations. They are bounded instead by their
language, ASL. To learn more about Deaf culture and to tap into the resources of the Deaf community, you need a
solid grasp of ASL. The cultural dimension of ASL is discussed in depth in Chapter 3 called "The Deaf
Community."

< previous page page_5 next page >