Lesson 34 American Sign Language (ASL)

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Objectives:

___ I have taken the Lesson 34 Practice Quiz
___ I have taken the general practice quiz for this lesson. See: PRACTICE QUIZZES
___ I know what an initialized sign is.
___ I am aware that gender has a reduced role in ASL.
___ I am familiar with the term "gloss" and its role in learning ASL
___ I am aware that dashes are sometimes used during glossing to indicate fingerspelling
___ I know what initialized signs are and that their use and acceptance varies between signers

List of signs and sentences:
Level 03 (Lessons 31 - 45) Practice Cards (in MS Word .doc format)
Level 03 Sentence List
Level 03 You Tube Playlist

Vocabulary:

CHARACTER
ESTABLISH-[set-up]
GOAL
LOCATIONS-[top, bottom, side, beneath]
MUSIC-[song, sing, singer, POETRY]
OCEAN/sea
PAY-ATTENTION-[focus, concentrate]
RACE-[compete]
RIVER
ROCK / stone
SKATING-[ice-skating, roller-blading]
SKI
SKILL-[good-at, talent]
TEMPERATURE
THEATER-[act, actor, drama, play, show]
VOLLEYBALL

Review Vocabulary

Expansion Vocabulary

absent-[L34] | BREAKFAST-[L34]

Practice:

Practice sheet: 34.A
01. FUNNY BOOK CHARACTER, YOUR FAVORITE, WHO?
02. what-SIGN B-O-T-T-O-M-[fs]? (or substitute TOP, or SIDE)
03. POETRY, YOU WRITE?
04. OCEAN, YOU LIKE SWIM YOU?
05. YOU NEED PAY-ATTENTION ASL TEACHER, WHY?

Practice sheet: 34.B
06. CAR RACE, YOU LIKE WATCH?
07. RIVER YOU FINISH-TOUCH, what-NAME?
08. YOU LIKE ROCK COLLECT YOU?
09. YOU LIKE SKATING-[roller] YOU?
10. YOU SNOW SKI YOU?

Practice sheet: 34.C
11. YOU LIKE VOLLEYBALL?
12. YOU SKILL WHAT?
13. A-C-T-O-R-(fs) what-SIGN?
14. YOU SWIM SAME FISH YOU?
15. BUILD THING, YOU SKILL YOU?

Practice sheet: 34.D
16. YOU SET GOAL YOURSELF, WHAT?
17. SUPPOSE THIS CLASS, YOU SKIP, MUST BRING-to-here EXCUSE QM-wig? (If you are absent from class do you have to bring an excuse?)
18. DURING TEST, CAN TALK QM-wig?
19. GALLAUDET UNIVERSITY, ESTABLISH WHEN? [1864]
20. YOUR NEPHEW HAVE ASL BOOK?

Additional Information:

NOTES:

ADA: Americans with Disabilities Act: The ADA is a law that requires reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. Among many other things, the ADA helps promote the provision of interpreters and captioning.

Glossing:
In regard to American Sign Language (ASL), glossing refers to the written or typed representation of ASL signs using English words or terms. This method is used to document the structure and content of ASL sentences, indicating the order of signs, specific movements, and non-manual signals, such as facial expressions or body movements, that are integral to conveying meaning in ASL. Glossing helps in studying, teaching, and analyzing ASL grammar and structure by providing a way to describe ASL using written or typed English. See: Glossing

DASHES: Note: When you see dashes between letters, that generally means to fingerspell the word.

Also, sometimes you might see "fs" when someone is writing about ASL. The letters "fs" are sometimes used as a shorthand for "fingerspell." Sometimes you may see a # in front of a word in ASL GLOSS. That generally indicates that the spelling of the word has transformed to become lexicalized -- which means letters have become blended or dropped and the spelled word now looks more like a "sign" and less like a series of fingerspelled letters.

GENDER: Cultural note:
ASL is much less gender (male/female) specific than most languages. It might just be the most gender-free language on the planet. For example: In ASL we don't use two separate signs for actor and actress.

Also, there is no distinction between the signs "HE" and "SHE." You just point off to the side, or if the person is in the room you point at them.

Initialized signing and variance:
Initialized signs are those that use the first letter of a commonly associated word for that sign as the handshape of the sign.

Some instructors don't like teaching the initialized versions of BREAKFAST, LUNCH, and DINNER, they prefer the "EAT-MORNING" "EAT-NOON" and "EAT-NIGHT" versions. But many Deaf out in the real world use the initialized versions. In real life every skilled ASL user will instantly recognize the initialized versions of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Many skilled ASL signers use the initialized versions as their preferred signs. Thus a strong argument could be made that those versions have indeed been adopted into ASL. Yet you will still see disagreement amongst instructors. When in doubt, as a student you should do it the way your current instructor does it because they are the one giving you a grade. Your current instructor gets to be "right" for 10 to 15 weeks (or however long your class lasts). Then after the class is over, go interact with the Deaf Community and sign the way you see signing being done by native Deaf adults (especially those who attended Deaf Schools). If you happen to be taking a general "ASL Proficiency exam" I recommend you use non-initialized versions of signs whenever possible. For example, instead of signing RED with an "R" hand, just use an "index finger" instead.

How do you know which signs have two versions? You learn them via taking classes and interacting with the Deaf community.

ABSENT: In this lesson I include the concept of "absent." There are several ways to sign absent. I am choosing to sign it as "GONE." However, the SKIP sign is also very commonly used.

Quizzes:

Self-study students, see: Lesson 34 Practice Quiz
Taking this as a class? Contact your local teacher or see your syllabus for the right quiz to take.

Notes:

SKIP and UNDER-subordinate appear in the source review lists without links; they have been kept unlinked here.

BOTTOM and SIDE share pages with BELOW and LOCATIONS respectively, exactly as linked in the source. The vocabulary list has been alphabetized, which moves TEMPERATURE ahead of THEATER and VOLLEYBALL.

ASL: Lesson 34