This sign has many meanings and interpretations. For example, it also means: Hire/Invite/Introduce
Also see the "HIRE" page.
WELCOME:
The sign is done by holding the flat hand palm up out away from your body (off to the right a bit) and then bringing the hand in toward your torso.
Quite a few ASL teachers will try to tell you it is NOT appropriate to use this sign to mean WELCOME.
The concept of "WELCOME" is in a state of changing opinion in the Deaf Community. Some people say it is an appropriate response to "thank you." Others prefer to sign: TRUE/SURE, FINE, NOTHING-TO-IT, THUMB-UP, HAPPY ME, NO PROBLEM.
I personally feel the sign WELCOME is a fine response to "THANK YOU." Many people would disagree with me, but then again, many would agree with me. Only the passage of time will resolve this issue.
When teaching ASL there is a prescriptive approach and a descriptive approach.
Some ASL teachers try to tell their students that the sign WELCOME is not an ASL sign. Doing so is "prescriptive." Such teachers are trying to prescribe ASL according to their purist notions of how ASL should be--as opposed to what ASL is.I remember a conversation in ASL with a Deaf ASL instructor named ________ (name on file, initials: CB). Near the beginning of the conversation I had signed WELCOME in response to him thanking me for something. He "corrected" me and indicated that WELCOME wasn't an ASL sign (we are both interested in what is and isn't ASL so it wasn't as rude as you might imagine). I questioned him about it and apparently he had been to some workshop or seminar recently and a person with letters behind their name who lived more than 50 miles away (which means he MUST be an expert, heh) had told everybody at the seminar that the sign WELCOME isn't an "ASL" sign.
I asked ________ (name on file) what he suggested instead and he gave me the usual, "SURE, THANK YOU, THUMBS-UP, FINE" replacements. I said "OH-I-SEE" and we went on with our conversation.
Now here's the funny part, near the end of our half-hour long conversation on my doorstep, I thanked him for coming by and he signed "WELCOME!"
I immediately pointed that his usage of the "forbidden sign" and he did a major "gulp" and turned a pretty shade of red.A descriptive approach to ASL instruction simply tells the students what is currently out there being used by the Deaf Community without trying to "preserve, memorialize, or de-English" it.
Thousands and thousands of Deaf people do use the sign WELCOME. Plus, numerous recognized experts in the field of ASL have documented the sign as being part of the lexicon of ASL in various ASL dictionaries and instructional texts.
The text "A Basic Course in American Sign Language" by Tom Humphries, Carol Padden and Terrence J. O'Rourke lists the sign as "HIRE, INVITE and then includes the word "welcome" in lowercase.
Rod Butterworth in the Perigee Visual Dictionary of Signing: An A to Z guide to over 1,200 signs of American Sign Language, lists the sign as meaning WELCOME, "a common gesture of politeness and acceptance."
Elaine Costello in the Random House American Sign Language dictionary (1st ed.), includes the sign--and what's more--SHE INITIALIZES IT with a "W"!!!
Martin Sternberg includes the sign in "American Sign Language: A Comprehensive Dictionary"
I could go on, there are others, those are just the first four I grabbed off my shelf, but you see my point. The sign is prominently listed in dozens of major ASL dictionaries and is used and instantly recognized by every native Deaf ASL signer I have met. How in the world could anybody say that it "isn't" ASL?
WELCOME:
All material copyright © 1996 by Dr. William Vicars
