Welcome to my In-Depth Night Blog Post!
For my in-depth project, I decided that I would learn ASL. I was fortunate enough to have a mentor (Tori) to guide me throughout this journey. Tori has taught me and helped me with any questions I had, so I would first like to thank her for that.
This journey has taught me so much about sign language, as well as how there’s more to being Deaf than just using sign language. I have learned that they have a culture that has overcome so many challenges in the past, and how Deaf culture is really significant to the Deaf community. One part of Deaf culture is the appropriation of hearing people using sign language. I am a hearing person, which means that it is disrespectful for me to do teach sign language or teach about Deaf culture, as I have not been properly or professionally educated on these topics. Sign language is a language and not a skill to be shown off.
Why ASL?
I decided to learn sign language as I thought that if I were to come across someone who was Deaf, it would be nice to be able to sign with them, rather than communicating with pen and paper. From my perspective, I also thought the Deaf community/culture was very interesting and I wanted to learn more about it. I also think the difference between learning a verbal language and having to use my hands to communicate was really compelling to me.
Throughout this experience, I unfortunately did not get a chance to learn about ASL grammar and sentence structure. We focused our time mainly on vocabulary, so in my video, I included all the questions we covered, and possible answers to each question that we learned.
(This video is not a demonstration; it is a video I created to share my learning. If you want to learn more ASL vocabulary, please use an ASL dictionary, such as https://www.signasl.org/)
Some parts of ASL that I observed and found interesting are:
- Expressiveness is extremely important and helps with making others understand you better
- For most signs, your right hand does most moving while your left hand mostly stays still
- A lot of signs are similar, which means context is also very important
- Fingerspelling is not commonly used, especially for people who know a lot of ASL, but more for beginners, used to ask how to sign signs you don’t know
- Part of expressions are lowering and raising your eyebrows when asking questions
- Raising with questions with yes or no questions
- Lowering with every question other than when you need to raise them
- If you ever notice (capitalized) text beside a sentence that is supposed to be translated into ASL, it means that the order of the words written is the equivalent translation of the sentence in English (also known as ASL gloss)
- Example, what is your name? – YOUR NAME WHAT?
- If someone, when signing moves their shoulder over (hand over when fingerspelling), also known as shoulder shifting, it indicates a separation of topics, mostly used in place of and, as well as at the end of a sentence/start of a new one
- (means double letter such as oo when fingerspelling)
(I am not an instructor, this is not a demonstration, this is what I learned/noticed, what’s listed here should not be used for personal learning)
If you are interested in taking sign language, universities/colleges in Vancouver that offer sign language courses are:
- Vancouver community college (VCC)
- University of British Columbia (UBC)
- Douglas college
Thank you for coming to my In-Depth night blog post! If you have any questions, leave it in the comments and I’ll reply as soon as I can!
Thank you for this thorough and informative post. This is a great way for us to learn a few aspects of ASL as well. What was the most challenging for you throughout this project?
Mulder
Hi Ms. Mulder. Thank you for commenting, I appreciate what you had to say about my post. To answer your question, I would say the most challenging part of learning ASL was definitely having to mostly do everything independently. To be more specific, my mentor is hearing, which meant that they were not allowed to directly teach me signs. I had to search up signs and follow videos according to what we decided to practice and talk about in our next meeting. It became very self-directed and having the motivation to take time and memorize signs, was challenging at times. Although ultimately, I think it helped because it made me more responsible in making sure that I was doing what I was asked to do in/on time.
Wow Sinu, it looks like you learned a lot! Did you already know any sign language prior to your In-Depth project? Or was this all completely new?
Hi Glen. I did learn a lot and I’m glad that it showed. I did slightly learn a little bit of sign language in grade 7, although only for a short period of time by myself, and not to this extent. I also forgot everything I learned back then, and the signs I learned during this project were pretty much all new to me.
Thank you, Sinu! I am so glad you share your learning around deaf culture and the notion of appropriation. It’s so interesting how language and culture are inextricably linked. Thank you for the helpful demonstrations – I’m amazed at how subtle the shifts are. It seems that you have learned alot already.
I really learned that ASL communication is more than the signs, it involves expression, eyebrows and shoulder shifting as well.
Do you think you will keep on working on this..how long do you think it would take to become fluent?
Thanks!
Hi Ms. Quach, I’m glad that you commented. With the shoulder shifting, there are many more noticeable ways, such as turning your shoulders. I just decided to demonstrate what me and my mentor briefly touched upon. I’m not really sure if I’ll keep working on this. It is a lot of memorization, and not having the aspect of a mentor, or even some sort of deadline makes it hard for me to stay motivated. To answer your second question, I think that it would probably take 4-5 years of constant learning and practicing to be fluent. My mentor, who has been learning for a few years does not consider herself fluent. I guess it comes down to how much you practice. I’m guessing it would be similar to the time it takes to learn a foreign language.
Amazing job Sinu! This post was very organized and was a fantastic way to show what you learned, and I also appreciate the text at the end, and also how you gave us professional ASL courses if we wanted to learn as well. 😲
(Also don’t forget that you still owe me airpods)
Hey Justin, I’m glad that you thought it was organized. Thanks for commenting.
(I haven’t forgot, I shipped it out already just wait a couple years!)
Cool post, Sinu! I can tell you put a lot of work into your project and I like how in-depth you went discussing so much vocabulary.
Hey Bana, Thanks for the comment! I’m glad that you appreciated how in-depth I tried to go.
Hi Sinu, your presentation alone is so in-depth, engaging, and seeing what you learned is really cool! I really appreciate what you shared and it made me realize the nuances to communication that exist. Epic job
Hey Anita, thanks so much for all the kind words. I’m glad I was able to portray the difference in communication, especially with ASL.
Whoa! Super cool project! I love the way you organized everything, the layout made it super easy to understand how much learning you did! You should be proud of yourself for this awesome In-Depth work!
Hi Sinu,
What surprised you about wat you learned about deaf culture or the notion of appropriation?
Mrs. Chambers