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Slurred Fingerspelling?

Fingerspelling 1:  Introduction  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7  |  8   |  9  |  10  | Lexicalized  |  Font  | Quizzes  |  Practice   

Question:
A student asks: "Why are you slurring your fingerspelling?"

Response:
Because I have to drink heavily in order to get through class.

Kidding!!! Just kidding!

The term: "slurring" -- has a negative connotation and is often associated with drunken or impaired speech.

That is not what is happening in the video.
I'm fingerspelling quickly and that results in many of the letters becoming naturally blended together.
Blended fingerspelling is analogous (similar to / comparable to) cursive writing.
The reason why cursive writing naturally developed is likely because it is considerably faster than block or print writing (by hand using a pen or pencil).
When socially active, Deaf adult skilled signers fingerspell -- our letters tend to naturally blend because we are spelling very fast (often around five letters per second).
Life (in the overall scheme of things) is short.
Those of us who use ASL as our primary means of daily face to face communication spell quickly as a form of efficiency that allows us to share more ideas, thoughts, and concepts in a shorter amount of time and thus communicate more during our lives than we would if were were carefully segmenting each fingerspelled letter into carefully formed shapes.

In the video, I'm training an advanced student who is nearing graduation from a four-year ASL program.
So the answer to your question is:

I'm fingerspelling quickly (which naturally results in some blending) so that my students will learn to recognize and understand the type of spelling that often appears on the hands of skilled signers in the Deaf community.

https://youtu.be/gs6LRZ24VhQ
 
 


 

Notes:  Fingerspelling 1:  Introduction  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7  |  8   |  9  |  10  | Lexicalized  |  Font  | Quizzes  |  Practice

 




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