A proposal for a new ASL-centric group for kids to participate in. If you support this idea, please help it spread by sharing this video! Special thanks to Bethany Gehman for contributing ideas to this vision! Translation & Description: (Video opens with a cropped shot of Adrean Clarks artwork The English Accent. The camera pans upward over two hands sheathed in distressed metal on a dark wood background. The shot is replaced by a title card with the Spark logo and title English Fingerspelling both in written ASL and written English. Adrean then appears onscreen, a white Deaf woman wearing a blue shirt with dark blue beads across the chest. She stands in front of two dark brown wooden doors. Adreans curly reddish hair is pulled back in a bun and she wears glasses.) Hello, Im Adrean and welcome to Spark! Today Ive been thinking about English fingerspelling. Something happened recently that brought it to mind. Ill explain further. My husband John Lee Clark (the DeafBlind author of Where I Stand) and I had a discussion recently. We were concerned that our hearing sons ASL skills were lacking. They needed help improving their fluency. As John and I continued to discuss, we realized that we were a part of the problem too. Why were we a part of the problem? Well, there is a strong cultural inclination in the Minnesotan signing community for English fingerspelling. John had been born and raised in it, and I was pulled into that as well. If we wanted to see changes in our children, then we would need to change. Our three boys were then called in, and we explained our new goal. John and I took on the challenge of dropping English fingerspelling for ourselves, and the boys were free to join in as they liked. They were open to that new development. As we proceeded with the challenge, it soon became clear that our signing skills were improving. We learned how to work around words that had no ASL name yet, and rediscovered techniques for inventing ASL words. Most surprising of all, our boys responded to the process, their signing improved and they became curious about their language and how it works. This incident caused me to think further about English fingerspelling. Why do we even need it? What are the reasons for it being in ASL? After some thought I figured out three possible reasons. The first reason for English fingerspelling is to replace ASL words that the signer does not know. For example, back in 2007 the iPhone was released. There have been some proposals (demonstrates several versions including 2 with English initialization I at the ear) but most people still spell it out. Do you realize that the release of the iPhone was 7 years ago? Something is wrong with this picture. When we do not take action in naming things of significance in our community, English takes over. Fingerspelling delays the process of reaching consensus. The second reason for English fingerspelling is a limitation of expression on the signers part. Ive often noticed that people in the signing community tend to have a mental list of English words with corresponding list of matching ASL words. If an idea comes up that has no matching ASL word, then the English is fingerspelled. This is frustrating because there is so much more to ASL than that! The language has a diverse vocabulary ready for us to use, and built-in thinking that otherwise goes unused thanks to English. Take the English term Public Library for example. In ASL we automatically know that when someone is going to a library that the library is open to the public. If there is something specific about the library, like a medical or law library, then we would state so with the proper ASL words. English fingerspelling comes in the picture with Public Library because it is printed on the signage and other materials associated with libraries. Thats the key influence there. Ignore it and allow a more natural ASL expression of the proper name. When we stay in that English mindset we lose touch with ASL. Its concerning. The third and final reason for English fingerspelling is to boast of ones own English skills. This reason is the most unfortunate one of all, I think. It is tradition for deaf schools and deaf education in general to emphasize English mastery to the detriment of ASL. We say that we are proud of ASL but we continue to accept the encroachment of English on our language. Would this be acceptable if it was done in any other spoken language? Lets demonstrate using spoken French. Sometimes speakers occasionally borrow terms from German or from English. Would they go running to German speakers and ask to borrow words, entire grammatical structures, and the cultural mindset in order to create a half-French half-German creole to be defined as spoken French? Why do we accept this for ASL? This is wrong! Now in closing, those are my thoughts and opinions. If you disagree with them, that is fine. What are your thoughts? Feel free to share and discuss! (End title card appears with written ASL text Thank you! and 2 links: ASLspark and Patreon/adrean. Artwork The English Accent pops up again with English title and link to adreanclark/prints)
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 18:53:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015