20031108
American Sign Language as a Foreign Language
Sometimes, I feel that as I grow in support of viewing American Sign Language (ASL) as a true language for communication and discussion on any topics conceivable in the human world, I am using the same arguments I have heard again and again.
Yes, ASL is a language. ASL is based on visual modality, just as spoken languages of Spanish, French, Navajo and others are based on audial modality. Each handshape has a specific use to produce specific meaning, each sound uttered through the use of the tongue, lip, teeth, throat, and lung has a specific combination to produce words that we can understand.
Time and time again, I hear this argument. Time and time again, I hear the reseach cited and the Navajo and Russian languages held in comparison. Time and time again, I hear ASL praised as being the most developed and the most expressive sign language of all the sign languages of the world.
Time and time again, I hear how different Signed Exact English (SEE) is so different in structure from ASL. I hear that SEE is simply using ASL with some additional non-ASL signs signed in English word order, e.g. Subject-Verb-Indirect_Object "I love him." ASL says it instead in this format, "Him I love."
Again and again and again, this argument I hear so often and so much the same that I feel I should be rebelling, that I should say ASL is not a language, but a feeble composition of signs.
So here is the list of arguments I have to say that ASL is not a language:
1. It is limited to people who can see it. Unlike spoken language, which can be shouted to get the maximum attention, signed language exaggerated will not get the attention of those who are not eyeballing your way.
2. Your eyes must work well to see ASL. When something's caught in your eyes, communication is lost. Where there's fog, there's no one talking.
3. Your hands must be unencumbered to sign. If you are using your hands for something else, you cannot sign, which can be dangerous for certain situation, such as surgery.
4. You need light, and that light must be perfectly balanced for a comfortable signing environment. If there's a light behind the one that is signing to you, you cannot see anything except silhouette. If there is no light, you cannot see anything. (Of course, for those who are blind and deaf, they can understand the ASL through touch, the most powerful sense.)
5. ASL is not a language in which anger can be easily shown. Sometimes, people just need to raise their voice, but how can you raise your hands?
6. When there is a conflict, and people are avoiding that conflict, the trouble is that that person with whom you are arguing may look away, thus frustrating your attempt to put your righteous ideas in your head.
7. Being unable to hear means that you don't hear all the fuck, cunt, shit, fag, and all the slang available in the hearing world. You are in fact isolated.
8. There is a limit in the number of signs that you have. After all, how many different signs can you really make that would have the same variety as in English? I understand that people claim that English speakers have a working vocabulary of 2,500 words a day, and from this therefore, the number of signs in the ASL lexicon is right there on the mark. The fact is that Shakespeare used 39,476 different words in his work, English has a total of 500,000 words. That total would make any ASL users quiver.
9. There is no sign for every single word. I will say that ASL can explain the meanings of any English words, just as English and Spanish can be used to explain the meanings of each other, but the limitation of signs mean that you cannot find a variety of words to give an exact meaning that you want to convey.
I understand that to augment the relative scaracity of signs ASL users employ fingerspelling (A B C . . .) and use classifiers to produce imagery. Two things: (1) Fingerspelling, especially for long word, can be slow for any native speakers, and mortifyingly slow for new beginners; (2) Classifiers are good for visual things, but not for abstract things. I'm sure that ASL signs can help to explain abstract meaning like condensation, abstract, antidisestablishmentarianism, but still (!) . . .
Some people regard number 7 to be a good thing, women in particular because they would prefer not to be exposed to sordid things.
True, ASL is the official language for international conference. Where there is needed a sign language translator, ASL is the one translating. Where two cultures want to meet, an ASL interpreter is there.
So what am I trying to say? ASL is a fun language to learn, it help you exercise with your hands and fingers. I take great delight in carving meanings in air that disappear very quickly, just as sound disappears, to leave a mark on the listener.
Sometimes, I feel that as I grow in support of viewing American Sign Language (ASL) as a true language for communication and discussion on any topics conceivable in the human world, I am using the same arguments I have heard again and again.
Yes, ASL is a language. ASL is based on visual modality, just as spoken languages of Spanish, French, Navajo and others are based on audial modality. Each handshape has a specific use to produce specific meaning, each sound uttered through the use of the tongue, lip, teeth, throat, and lung has a specific combination to produce words that we can understand.
Time and time again, I hear this argument. Time and time again, I hear the reseach cited and the Navajo and Russian languages held in comparison. Time and time again, I hear ASL praised as being the most developed and the most expressive sign language of all the sign languages of the world.
Time and time again, I hear how different Signed Exact English (SEE) is so different in structure from ASL. I hear that SEE is simply using ASL with some additional non-ASL signs signed in English word order, e.g. Subject-Verb-Indirect_Object "I love him." ASL says it instead in this format, "Him I love."
Again and again and again, this argument I hear so often and so much the same that I feel I should be rebelling, that I should say ASL is not a language, but a feeble composition of signs.
So here is the list of arguments I have to say that ASL is not a language:
1. It is limited to people who can see it. Unlike spoken language, which can be shouted to get the maximum attention, signed language exaggerated will not get the attention of those who are not eyeballing your way.
2. Your eyes must work well to see ASL. When something's caught in your eyes, communication is lost. Where there's fog, there's no one talking.
3. Your hands must be unencumbered to sign. If you are using your hands for something else, you cannot sign, which can be dangerous for certain situation, such as surgery.
4. You need light, and that light must be perfectly balanced for a comfortable signing environment. If there's a light behind the one that is signing to you, you cannot see anything except silhouette. If there is no light, you cannot see anything. (Of course, for those who are blind and deaf, they can understand the ASL through touch, the most powerful sense.)
5. ASL is not a language in which anger can be easily shown. Sometimes, people just need to raise their voice, but how can you raise your hands?
6. When there is a conflict, and people are avoiding that conflict, the trouble is that that person with whom you are arguing may look away, thus frustrating your attempt to put your righteous ideas in your head.
7. Being unable to hear means that you don't hear all the fuck, cunt, shit, fag, and all the slang available in the hearing world. You are in fact isolated.
8. There is a limit in the number of signs that you have. After all, how many different signs can you really make that would have the same variety as in English? I understand that people claim that English speakers have a working vocabulary of 2,500 words a day, and from this therefore, the number of signs in the ASL lexicon is right there on the mark. The fact is that Shakespeare used 39,476 different words in his work, English has a total of 500,000 words. That total would make any ASL users quiver.
9. There is no sign for every single word. I will say that ASL can explain the meanings of any English words, just as English and Spanish can be used to explain the meanings of each other, but the limitation of signs mean that you cannot find a variety of words to give an exact meaning that you want to convey.
I understand that to augment the relative scaracity of signs ASL users employ fingerspelling (A B C . . .) and use classifiers to produce imagery. Two things: (1) Fingerspelling, especially for long word, can be slow for any native speakers, and mortifyingly slow for new beginners; (2) Classifiers are good for visual things, but not for abstract things. I'm sure that ASL signs can help to explain abstract meaning like condensation, abstract, antidisestablishmentarianism, but still (!) . . .
Some people regard number 7 to be a good thing, women in particular because they would prefer not to be exposed to sordid things.
True, ASL is the official language for international conference. Where there is needed a sign language translator, ASL is the one translating. Where two cultures want to meet, an ASL interpreter is there.
So what am I trying to say? ASL is a fun language to learn, it help you exercise with your hands and fingers. I take great delight in carving meanings in air that disappear very quickly, just as sound disappears, to leave a mark on the listener.
20031107
That it were not so!
But now that I have outed myself as a deaf, with all the meanings that that word implies, it shall be consolidated into a part of me that will present and absent itself in these electronic texts that I submit on a semi-regular basis.
Having discover this, reading this passage, you must now have gleamed a reason for my awkward language, and my awkward choice of word. I believe you would term these sentences, these paragraphs, these essays that I write with three words, "intellectual deaf quality." I am intellectual, as I have said time and time again. I am deaf, as I have explained yesterday. But what of quality? I believe, and perhaps this is due to my gross insecurity, I write deaf. Not that I write deafly, nor that I write of deafness or like an illiterate deaf, but that I write with such peculiar grasp of the meanings of certain words. This peculiar meaning you can understand does not have the full colors of the meaning that native speaker knows.
Two weeks ago, I have never heard of the word corey. Or, I could say that I have, but I never learned the meaning of the word as a slang. Who but a native speakers could surmise that it has a similar meaning to "goofy," "childlike," or "juvenile"? Who could surmise that meaning? The word is probably British, that is all I can guess.
Let us move on. People who have read my essay from my childhood know that I have the tendency to jump forward and back, to leave behind such a chaotic structure and numberless disorganizations that leave most teachers fumbling for what I am saying, yet they do know that what I say is profound.
I do not believe I have overcome that disorganized reality.
Let me say this very clearly, these are the aspects of my life that I believe is normal, is not something from which you will discern any evidence of deafness:
1. I enjoy philosophy.
2. I don't understand arts.
3. I hate biology and English.
4. I like the idea of physics, but that does not mean I will understand the mathematical concepts that physics employ.
5. I like Star Trek: The Next Generation and some of Deep Space Nine. I do not like any Star Trek that comes after these shows. I have not watched Star Trek: The Original Series.
6. I do not have cable, so I cannot watch Discovery Channel.
7. I do not know the direction that my life is taking.
8. I have made some mistakes, embarrassing, stupid, ignorant, and impulsive.
9. I do not know whether there is an afterlife. I waffle between believe in it supremely, and believing that death is something that occurs to you and you from existence fade.
10. I am not doing well at school at all, and this has also taken a bruising on my belief in myself as being capable of managing my schoolwork.
Where in these things can you find that could be applied to only a deaf? Where indeed, that they can reflect many Americans?
So, you readers, whom I might have driven away from this website because of my content, because of my deafness, because of who I am, I have nothing to say to you. I will not tell you what to do, because you have that decision already made within yourself.
For those that stay, that believe themselves interested by what I write, by my opinions that have been influenced by many things of my life, by the fact that I have a unique perspective on many things, I do have one thing to say: read on. And that is what you are allowed to follow or not, disregard or not, and do with what you will.
But now that I have outed myself as a deaf, with all the meanings that that word implies, it shall be consolidated into a part of me that will present and absent itself in these electronic texts that I submit on a semi-regular basis.
Having discover this, reading this passage, you must now have gleamed a reason for my awkward language, and my awkward choice of word. I believe you would term these sentences, these paragraphs, these essays that I write with three words, "intellectual deaf quality." I am intellectual, as I have said time and time again. I am deaf, as I have explained yesterday. But what of quality? I believe, and perhaps this is due to my gross insecurity, I write deaf. Not that I write deafly, nor that I write of deafness or like an illiterate deaf, but that I write with such peculiar grasp of the meanings of certain words. This peculiar meaning you can understand does not have the full colors of the meaning that native speaker knows.
Two weeks ago, I have never heard of the word corey. Or, I could say that I have, but I never learned the meaning of the word as a slang. Who but a native speakers could surmise that it has a similar meaning to "goofy," "childlike," or "juvenile"? Who could surmise that meaning? The word is probably British, that is all I can guess.
Let us move on. People who have read my essay from my childhood know that I have the tendency to jump forward and back, to leave behind such a chaotic structure and numberless disorganizations that leave most teachers fumbling for what I am saying, yet they do know that what I say is profound.
I do not believe I have overcome that disorganized reality.
Let me say this very clearly, these are the aspects of my life that I believe is normal, is not something from which you will discern any evidence of deafness:
1. I enjoy philosophy.
2. I don't understand arts.
3. I hate biology and English.
4. I like the idea of physics, but that does not mean I will understand the mathematical concepts that physics employ.
5. I like Star Trek: The Next Generation and some of Deep Space Nine. I do not like any Star Trek that comes after these shows. I have not watched Star Trek: The Original Series.
6. I do not have cable, so I cannot watch Discovery Channel.
7. I do not know the direction that my life is taking.
8. I have made some mistakes, embarrassing, stupid, ignorant, and impulsive.
9. I do not know whether there is an afterlife. I waffle between believe in it supremely, and believing that death is something that occurs to you and you from existence fade.
10. I am not doing well at school at all, and this has also taken a bruising on my belief in myself as being capable of managing my schoolwork.
Where in these things can you find that could be applied to only a deaf? Where indeed, that they can reflect many Americans?
So, you readers, whom I might have driven away from this website because of my content, because of my deafness, because of who I am, I have nothing to say to you. I will not tell you what to do, because you have that decision already made within yourself.
For those that stay, that believe themselves interested by what I write, by my opinions that have been influenced by many things of my life, by the fact that I have a unique perspective on many things, I do have one thing to say: read on. And that is what you are allowed to follow or not, disregard or not, and do with what you will.
20031106
I want to say something here to make it exceedingly clear to everyone who's reading this.
I AM DEAF/HARD-OF-HEARING/HEARING-IMPAIRED.
Yet, I will not give my opinions on such stuff. It is not something of which I can be proud, nor something that I wish was not part of me. It is a unique part of my existence, and I wear that proudly, my experience, my life, my history, my past, every part of me, has been influenced by my hearing, but is not under its control nor controls it.
Therefore, for me to meet someone on the Internet, I am at a loss to explain that though I am deaf, it should not preclude me from meeting someone in real life. Yet, it does. Yet it does.
Note two experiences, both bad, that I have had with meeting someone from online. My faith in myself, life, and the non-superficiality of gay men, twice broken, has left me nothing but to say "SHAME ON YOU!"
The first experience I now relate. It was a boy, AIM: Sharky4150, XY: 4uphoenix, junior in Castro Valley High School, first name Patrick, last name unknown. He lives in Castro Valley of the San Francisco Bay Area. He lives on Stanton Ave. He told me he was working at the Plunge, the swimming pool at Hayward. I decided to meet him, and he me. What transpired was an awkward avoidance.
After that, the Internet is never same. He refused to initiate conversations with me. He refused to participate in conversation with me. He refused to do the things which must be done to further any relationship, such as self-disclosure. After all, communication study states that to further a relationship, it is necessary to reveal an inner part of yourself so that the other person will do the same.
I revealed an area of myself that I am still sensitive about, my deafness. What do I get back for this self-disclosure, ignorance, bigotry, stupidity to the far extreme.
I pressed him to explain why he stopped talking to me. At first he said it was video games taking up his time, then it was his homework. I pressed him harder, longer, and brought up my deafness and the meeting with him.
He typed back to me. "I thought it was weird."
We never spoke again.
Witness the second experience. I never met the man. His first name is Jay, he is a student at University of San Francisco. He lives in San Francisco and enjoys driving. His AIM screen name are doikomo and jtboyzzz.
Because of my depression arising from the first online meeting with Sharky, I decided not to tell him about my deafness. I had in effect, endured a bruising to my already blantant insecurity.
I suppose I understand why meeting people from online has such a bad rap. The people you meet expect you to be some perfect person, with all five senses available. That you can whisper to them in the dark, that you can talk without looking at each other, that you can do so many things that deaf people cannot, that you can talk on the phone, and hear the sweet sound of his voice.
I suppose I should initiate conversations, and not let conversations be initiated upon me. For when they do so, they do so with the expectation of perfection. For when I do so, I should expect less, because I will tell them upfront, whosoever answers unto me, that I possess only four and a half out of five senses available to me.
So what happened was that I eventually told him and explained to him about my hearing and how I look. I wear glasses, contact lenses are possibility to my ears. I wear hearing aids, and I am a gifted lip-readers. Say anything to me, and with a face to look at, I will pick up what you say.
He never replied to me again. No matter how many times I try to talk to him, I know he is ignoring me and has put me on the block list. To prove that he did not reply, I signed in with another screenname and initiate a conversation with him quite quickly. That means, he has effectively ignored me.
I want so much to tell you how I grew up. I grew up with speech therapist and patient English teachers to build up my language. I never learned how to sign in the years of my growth, years of my puberty, years of my existence since birth. I have worked so hard to learn English, I have not started learning Sign Language until two years ago.
What have I learned all this English for, worked so hard to communicate with hearing people for, but to get overlooked by men in search of superficial perfection? Indubitably, my good man. That I had to be gay, and deaf, and chinese, and myopic is all the worst to my life when people are looking for someone else. Would not woman be more tolerant than this?
Why, I dream of a society in which a prince would choose to kiss a toad, and view such beauty in it as a princess!
I AM DEAF/HARD-OF-HEARING/HEARING-IMPAIRED.
Yet, I will not give my opinions on such stuff. It is not something of which I can be proud, nor something that I wish was not part of me. It is a unique part of my existence, and I wear that proudly, my experience, my life, my history, my past, every part of me, has been influenced by my hearing, but is not under its control nor controls it.
Therefore, for me to meet someone on the Internet, I am at a loss to explain that though I am deaf, it should not preclude me from meeting someone in real life. Yet, it does. Yet it does.
Note two experiences, both bad, that I have had with meeting someone from online. My faith in myself, life, and the non-superficiality of gay men, twice broken, has left me nothing but to say "SHAME ON YOU!"
The first experience I now relate. It was a boy, AIM: Sharky4150, XY: 4uphoenix, junior in Castro Valley High School, first name Patrick, last name unknown. He lives in Castro Valley of the San Francisco Bay Area. He lives on Stanton Ave. He told me he was working at the Plunge, the swimming pool at Hayward. I decided to meet him, and he me. What transpired was an awkward avoidance.
After that, the Internet is never same. He refused to initiate conversations with me. He refused to participate in conversation with me. He refused to do the things which must be done to further any relationship, such as self-disclosure. After all, communication study states that to further a relationship, it is necessary to reveal an inner part of yourself so that the other person will do the same.
I revealed an area of myself that I am still sensitive about, my deafness. What do I get back for this self-disclosure, ignorance, bigotry, stupidity to the far extreme.
I pressed him to explain why he stopped talking to me. At first he said it was video games taking up his time, then it was his homework. I pressed him harder, longer, and brought up my deafness and the meeting with him.
He typed back to me. "I thought it was weird."
We never spoke again.
Witness the second experience. I never met the man. His first name is Jay, he is a student at University of San Francisco. He lives in San Francisco and enjoys driving. His AIM screen name are doikomo and jtboyzzz.
Because of my depression arising from the first online meeting with Sharky, I decided not to tell him about my deafness. I had in effect, endured a bruising to my already blantant insecurity.
I suppose I understand why meeting people from online has such a bad rap. The people you meet expect you to be some perfect person, with all five senses available. That you can whisper to them in the dark, that you can talk without looking at each other, that you can do so many things that deaf people cannot, that you can talk on the phone, and hear the sweet sound of his voice.
I suppose I should initiate conversations, and not let conversations be initiated upon me. For when they do so, they do so with the expectation of perfection. For when I do so, I should expect less, because I will tell them upfront, whosoever answers unto me, that I possess only four and a half out of five senses available to me.
So what happened was that I eventually told him and explained to him about my hearing and how I look. I wear glasses, contact lenses are possibility to my ears. I wear hearing aids, and I am a gifted lip-readers. Say anything to me, and with a face to look at, I will pick up what you say.
He never replied to me again. No matter how many times I try to talk to him, I know he is ignoring me and has put me on the block list. To prove that he did not reply, I signed in with another screenname and initiate a conversation with him quite quickly. That means, he has effectively ignored me.
I want so much to tell you how I grew up. I grew up with speech therapist and patient English teachers to build up my language. I never learned how to sign in the years of my growth, years of my puberty, years of my existence since birth. I have worked so hard to learn English, I have not started learning Sign Language until two years ago.
What have I learned all this English for, worked so hard to communicate with hearing people for, but to get overlooked by men in search of superficial perfection? Indubitably, my good man. That I had to be gay, and deaf, and chinese, and myopic is all the worst to my life when people are looking for someone else. Would not woman be more tolerant than this?
Why, I dream of a society in which a prince would choose to kiss a toad, and view such beauty in it as a princess!
20031103
It's amazing how life can turn on a dime, isn't it? And now I'm in the middle of the week of the quarter system, where I'm halfway through and halfway still more to go. I waded so far that to try to go back would be as tiring as continuing the journey.
I am busy, I have two things due tomorrow and Wednesday, and they about writing an essay.
'I am in blood stepped so far that should I wade no more,
returning were as tedious as go o'er'--Macbeth
African Anglican Leaders Outraged Over Gay Bishop in U.S.
Watch the news, you might need to log in or register.
Watch the news, you might need to log in or register.
20031102
Herald.com - Your Miami Everything Guide
The link above leads to an article on the splitting of the Episcopal Church in Florida. We should be watching this very carefully.
The link above leads to an article on the splitting of the Episcopal Church in Florida. We should be watching this very carefully.
