ASL/Deaf Syllogisms

Aristotle Tutoring Alexa

American Sign Language

Premise A:

God's gift is everything noble and natural.

Premise B:

American Sign Language is God's gift.

Conclusion:

American Sign Language is everything noble and natural.


Humanity

Premise A:
All languages are human.

Premise B:
American Sign Language is a language.

Conclusion:
American Sign Language is human.

 

Language Change

Premise A:

All languages change over time.

Premise B:

American Sign Language is a language.

Conclusion:

American Sign Language changes over time.

Deafness

Premise A:

God' creation is absolute.

Premise B:

Deafness is God's creation.

Conclusion:

Deafness is absolute.

 

Deafhood

Premise A:

Words are our primary responsibility.

Premise B:

Deafhood is the word.

Conclusion:

Deafhood is our primary responsibility.

 

Audism

Premise A:
Prejudice is a form of racism.
 

Premise B:
Audism is a prejudice.

Conclusion:
Audism is a form of racism.

Lipreading

Premise A:

Personal skills are individualistic.

Premise B:
Lipreading is a personal skill.

Conclusion:
Lipreading is individualistic.

Deaf Culture

Premise A:

Languages define cultures, and vice versa.

Premise B:

ASL is a language.
 

Conclusion:

ASL defines Deaf Culture, and vice versa.

Professor Carl's Note

 

I need to attribute these above syllogisms

to Aristotle, the Greek philosopher,

for metaphysical reasoning.

 

My Thoughts: ASL Can Do What English Cannot

What you don't know isn't knowledge. One of the amazing facts about American Sign Language (ASL) has remained as unknown in the media as the tree that falls in the middle of the forest.

While talking about ASL abounds, a very few schools teach Deaf children the parts of signs: hand shapes, palm orientations, onset/coda locations, non-manual expressions, and modifier movements. Many well-educated Deaf adults whose language is ASL couldn't even discuss the H-deletion when two signs are used in sequence, and they couldn't even discuss five language components important to effective communication: ASL phonology, ASL semantics, ASL syntax, ASL discourse, and ASL pragmatics. This results in a shameful experience especially when we meet our counterparts who can hear and have studied our language and culture.

ASL/English bilingual education seems quite popular, as it is Spanish/English bilingual among Spanish speaking people. The difference is that Spanish is a spoken language so this type of "bilingualism" is just one of many loose and misleading expressions concealing a hidden agenda of language hegemony of English over Spanish. ASL, on the other hand, isn't a spoken language; it is a signed language.

ASL has a powerful capacity of language borrowing in which the English word order can be used while signing. English does not have this language borrowing power as it cannot be spoken in the ASL "word order." ASL can do what English cannot.

There are all the ingredients here for the tower of Babel or for the kind of bitter disputes over Signed English and initialized signs which have plagued Deaf education. Yet the institutions of higher education, namely Gallaudet University and National Technical Institution for the Deaf, have continued to distribute books on Signed English and initialized signs. These institutions are sending out wrong signals to our society.

ASL may be a language of great beauty and subtly.  However, if you keep bastardizing ASL by signing in the English word order, you cannot communicate honestly. Signing in the English word order constantly is like painting yourself into the corner for life. Apply ASL as much as you humanly know it!

:)

LEGO People Are People, Too!

DEB.....MIKE.....GREG.....BOB.....NANCY

 

 

How do you describe Deb, Mike, Greg, Bob and Nancy? (Descriptive Name Signs)

 

 

What are their name signs? (Arbitrary Name Signs)

 

 

Reference:

 

 

Suppala, Samuel. 1992. The Book of Name Signs: Naming in American Sign Language. San Diego, CA: DawnSignPress.

Sign Language in Renaissance Arts

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)painted this portrait,

Madonna of the Rocks,

in the honor of his deaf apprentices--

Ambrosio and Christoforo de Predis.

He was inspired by their sign language

and painted his initials, LDV. 

Find them!

 

 

 

In 1485, in his work,

Ghirlandaio included

four signs made by three men

(from right to left):

YOU,

WILL,

BE, and

GET.

 

 

 

Bulwer, 1649. 

Let's examine this picture

and discuss a sign

by the middle man,

and manuals 

by the man on the right,

if you can.





Introduction to American Sign Language

American Sign Language is known to us as the language and culture of the Deaf in the United States and most of Canada.  ASL belongs, along with Gebarentaal (Netherlands Sign Language), BSL (British Sign Language), JSL (Japanese Sign Language), MSL (Mexican Sign Language) and all other sign languages, to the so-called 'visual-gestural' group of languages.  ASL did not just come into being, but has had a long and interesting development.  It had its origin in the speech community on the 17th-19th century Martha's Vineyard Island outside the state of Massachussets where "everyone ... spoke sign language (Norma Ellen Groce)". 

In 1817, the first Deaf school was founded in Hartford, Connecticut by The Reverend Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and his French educator-colleague, Laurent Clerc, who was deaf.  Clerc introduced some aspects of LSF (Lingue Signes des Francias), especially the manual alphabet and initialized signs, to the American Deaf speech community.  A great variety of these dialects still emerges imperceptibly with ASL of today.

The standard ASL which we will be studying here can be said to be the product of political, social and cultural developments of only the last two centuries.  We should take note of the considerable difference that exists in ASL between signing in ASL and signing in the English word order.  Although the casual observer they seem to be the same whether it is signing in ASL or signing in the English word order, the students will soon discover that many signs require their own predicates for singularity and plurality, size and shape specifiers, arbitrary/descriptive signs, and the like.  A person signing just as it is written runs the risk of "speaking like a book," which can be extremely boring and confusing.

The great variety of parts of signs in ASL can by their very nature not be satisfactorily described on paper and even in ASL; the parts of signs being learned must be examined at as early a stage as possible.  Not only are ASL users to be found in all parts of the country, but an increasing variety of video tapes is available online.

The ASL 101 class is intended only as a guide to the articulation of the principal signs.  These parts must necessarily be inexact as well: even though many signs can best be identified through comparison with corresponding ASL handshapes and manual alphabet. 

 

 

 

References:

 

Battison, Robbin. 1978. Lexical Borrowing in American Sign Language. Silver Spring, MD: Linstok Press.

 

Groce, Norma Ellen. 1985. Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Martha's Vineyard. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.

 

Frank Allen Paul and Ben Bahan. ASL Handshape Game Cards. San Diego, CA: DawnSignPress. 

 

 





Identify This Handshape

Can you identify this handshape?