Let's Learn that Proper Grammar!

Welcome back! This is week 7 of my Genius Hour project. Last week I looked into sentence structure for American Sign Language and this week I decided to further explore proper grammar of ASL. 
This is all the words that I learned this week. I decided to include some of the words that I have already learned as I had forgotten the signs for some of them.

Communication

There is more than one correct way to communicate in ASL. The person (signer) has the choice of using more or fewer words depending on what the individual wants to emphasize or the context of their sentence. 

For example:
 "Are you married?"
"You married?"
"Married you?"
"You married you?"

The second "you" in "You married you?" represents "are", another way to look at this sentence would be:
"You married (are)- you?"
This blew my mind, I was always confused why I would sign "you" twice in a sentence, especially when I could just shorten the sentence and sign "you married?". This brought forth much needed clarity.

Source: Lifeprint


This also helps to alleviate some of the pressure off my shoulders when it comes to signing. The more ways I can structure my words in ASL, the more freedom this allows me when forming my sentences.

Indexing, Personal pronouns & Directionality 

Another section that I was puzzled by was indexing, personal pronouns and directionality. It seems simple, but for some reason I was getting confused. So of course, I decided to do some research!

Indexing:
This is when you point your index finger at a person. If the person is in the room this pointing of the index finger at them represents "he" or "she" (the individual). However if the person is not in the room (and you have referenced the individual by signing their name or with some other identification sign) then you are able to reference them to a point in space and every time you point your index finger to that space this means you are referencing them. This spot will generally be to the right. 
                                  
   
Left - when person is present in the room
Right - when person is not present in the room
Personal Pronouns:
If you are talking to someone and want to say "you" the simplest thing would be just to point at them with your index finger. To pluralize the pronoun, you perform a sweeping motion. 
For example:
"They" - Point slightly off to the right and do a sweeping motion more to the right (picture below)

"For all" - Point slight to the left and a sweeping motion to the right 

Directionality: 
This is a sign that includes the subject, verb and object in one movement. By changing the direction of the verb, the signer is able to change the subject and object. 

When Including you and another person:
By moving the sign forward (or towards the person you are referencing) this represents you referencing them when signing your sign. 

For example:
Assume: I have Friend A on the left and Friend B on the right.
If I want to say "Friend A give to me", I would sign "give-to" to my left, in the direction of Friend A.                                                                     
When referencing others:
When using a sign to reference others you would sign the sign and start the movement from the person A  and continue the sign all the way to person B.
For example:
Assume: I have Friend A on the left and Friend B on the right.
If I want to sign "Friend A give to Friend B", I would start signing "give to" from my left and move the sign to the right. 

Note: this can be used for most but not all signs

Sources: Life print and Real ASL

Randomness

I randomly decided that I really wanted to learn how to sign "because". For some reason in my mind, by knowing how to sign this word I would be able to sign in longer sentences. The problem, when I sign "because" I don't know what to sign after because I don't know the signs to explain what I want to explain (if that makes sense). The sign for "because" has a couple of different versions, but the one that I will be sticking to is the sign for "why". It is the most common form used and it is easy for me to remember. 

Numbers

Another random thing I decided to learn was the numbers. Not going to lie I thought this would be straight forward but... it was not. I did however have fun learning them! I have only learned the numbers from 1-10 so far, but I will continue learning the rest. I definitely do not want to overwhelm myself by learning too much at once, resulting with me forgetting the signs.



Source: Laura Berg

Next week


For week 8, I will sit down and review all the words that I have learned so far up to date. The reason why I am struggling to communicate in ASL is because I have forgotten a lot of the words. I have no problem signing the sentence when the words are written in front of me, but it's more the process of forming the sentence by myself that I am still struggling. This will really help me to see which key words I am missing or forgetting in ASL. I am aware that I will not be able to proficiently communicate in ASL by the end of this project but I do want to be able to communicate in basic long sentences.

Check this out

Check out the video below from Deafies in Drag, this is the first video I ever watched from their channel and its hilarious! 


I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Next Blog: My Forgetful Brain

Resources:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Signing my Way to Longer Sentences

Image
This is week 6 of my Genius Hour Project, and this week I tried to communicate in longer sentences, the keyword being tried . It was a nice goal to have for this week, but sadly a goal that I was not able to complete. I feel like I still need to learn more words in sign language and learn how to construct the sentences when signing before I can properly communicate in longer sentences.  All the new words that I learned in sign language this week Forgetfulness I've noticed that the signs I have previously learned are signs that I am now forgetting as I am not using them. To counter this I will try to watch more than one Bill Vicar video in a week. He repeats a lot of the previously learned signs, which can help with the memorization process. I will also try to use signs when I am speaking, so far to date I have said I will do this, but haven't.  This week I learned that all yes or no questions require the eyebrows to be raised. This is similar to all WH - questions that requi
Read more

Learning Sign Language

Image
  Welcome back to my Blog! This is week four of my Genius Hour project and this week I finally started learning gestures in sign language. I can say that I feel confident about some of the signs I have learned this week and I can finally start to sign some short sentences (albeit rather slowly). However, I still have difficulty understanding signing when its being down in normal speed, I definitely need the other person to sign slowly, so I can recognize the gestures and have time to process what is being signed. Learning process This week I have been watching Bill Vicars Lessons to learning sign language and not going to lie I kind of wish I had learned the alphabet first. He uses the alphabet a lot in his videos and I am just sitting there lost as to what he is signing with the alphabet. On the positive side I have learned some of the letters. I know the letters, a, b, s, l and o. B and O I mainly know because when he would ask for his student to sign out a name, I would sign "
Read more

Welcome

Image
  Hello everyone and welcome to my Blog! My name is Jasman Nagra and I am currently in the Concurrent Education Program at Brock University. My teachables are biology and chemistry. I don't think I have ever written a blog before so this is pretty new to me, but it seems interesting and fun so I am excited to see where this blog will go! The topic I have chosen for my Genius Project is to learn sign language. I remember trying (where I would try for a day and give up) to learn it in elementary and middle school. I was interested in learning sign language when I was younger  because I remember that in the agenda's that we were given, there would be a page dedicated to showing the alphabet in sign language. I always thought it would be cool to learn it, but it was difficult as some of the signs looked the same. My interest was peaked again when I watched  A Quiet Place  and  The Silence . It would be a very useful skill to know in case we have aliens that are sensitive to sound o
Read more