Pre-Interpreting ASL – I

The following global ideas guide the design and delivery of this course:

• ASL is based on a grammatical structure which is different from English. Effective, grammatically correct ASL is an essential tool for individuals working with Deaf children, youth and adults in one-to-one interactions, small group interactions and presentations.
• In ASL, affect and grammar are communicated visually.  Individuals who use ASL effectively are able to distinguish between affective markers and grammatical markers and can appropriately include both in their expressive communication.
• The visual-gestural nature of ASL requires frequent use of spatial locatives and classifiers to clearly convey information.  It also uses a highly sophisticated system of directional verbs.
• Pausing and phrasing is a linguistic tool which allows a listener to make sense of an utterance by chunking information and/or phrases so the receiver knows which ideas relate to other ideas. Fluent language users are able to manipulate the language so it contains appropriate pauses and phrases.
• Linguistic cohesion helps a listener determine the relationship of one current utterance to prior and to following statements.  In ASL, cohesive devices include eye-gaze, indexing, truncated summaries and/or specific signs.
• ASL tends to be highly descriptive, detailed and narrative in nature.  ASL uses techniques to communicate information in a direct high-detail manner.  Advanced level signers can use the techniques of reiterating, couching (or nesting) and faceting correctly.
• Clear, effective communication requires that ASL users recognize the twenty-seven numbering systems and use them appropriately.  Further, fluent signers are expected to use fingerspelling and loan signs appropriately, to produce fingerspelled words and loan signs clearly and to read them with relative ease in context.
• Social and community events, where native users of a language gather, provide a rich resource for learning the nuances and complexities of conversational forms of that language and cultural norms of group interaction.
• Local, provincial and national organizations of, for and by Deaf people publish their own newsletters and online resources.  These are a means for sharing the Deaf cultural experience, and are vehicles for disseminating news and information pertinent to Deaf people.
• Literature reveals insights into the culture of the Deaf community.  In ASL literature, Deaf people portray themselves and reaffirm their identities as members of a distinct culture group. Therefore, literature provides an excellent medium for studying culture and is a vital component of any foreign language study.