Secondary Research (Part Two)

• There has been no reliable census to find the number of ASL users in the United States, but estimates are between 500,000 and 2 million.

• ASL is a different language than English. It has its own grammar and culture.

• In 1817, Laurent Clerc and Thomas Hopkins Callaudet founded American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb,which is now (for apparent reasons) called American School for the Deaf.

• ASL adds new signs all the time to keep up with the new technology and such.

• Signs are grouped into categories:

1. Transparent: Non-signers can usually guess the meaning correctly
2. Translucent: The sign makes sense to non-signers once explained
3. Opaque: The meaning can't be guessed by people who don't sign

• Most signs are categorized as opaque.

• ASL is a visual language as opposed to a written one. Therefore, when it is translated to writing, the characters written aren't the exact same as they are when signed.

"American Sign Language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."
8 Oct. 2008 "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_sign_language"

Secondary Research (Part One)

• Deaf people in the United States use American Sign Language.

• The language is based on ideas, rather than actual words. (I'm thinking this is because there would be thousands of motions to memorize.)

• When words in English don't have a sign, finger spelling is used.

Source:
Madsen, Willard J. "Sign language." World Book Advanced. [Decatur High.] 7 Oct. 2008

"http://worldbookonline.com/advanced/article?id=ar510080"

Research Plan

I will answer my secondary questions through websites. Hopefully I can use only subscription websites that the school has. When I research, my keywords will be American Sign Language and variations of this.

For primary sources, I hope to interview my mom's friend. (She taught her children baby signing.)

Research Questions

Here is my list of questions I hope to answer through my research:
(ASL = American Sign Language)

• How long has ASL been around?
  

• How many people use ASL?

• Are there variations or different dialects of ASL? Does slang exist?

• How does ASL compare to spoken language? Is it faster? What about punctuation? How is emotion shown in ASL?

• What is the idea behind teaching hearing babies to sign?
  

Research Goals

I want to know more about American Sign Language. I know almost nothing about it. There are many people who can't speak and this is their only way of expressing themselves, so I feel like I should understand what it is all about.

Language Beliefs

I believe that language is a critical tool for getting by in the the world. I think that when people understand what you say, the most important aspect of language is covered. Although I say this, I also believe that using correct grammar makes it much easier for people to understand what you are saying. This belief comes from my mom because she is always talking about the importance of grammar.


We watched a video in class that interviewed many people from around the U.S. about accents. I learned a ton from the movie. A few things include: Some accents may only be present in a few hundred people isolated because of water or mountains. A second thing was that although there is no such thing as a better accent, there is one that is favored by actors and speakers. This is called the voice from nowhere. This concept confuses me. It makes sense that one way of speaking is most common and accepted, but I wonder what this "voice from nowhere" is based on. It wouldn't make sense to combine all ways of speaking through some software, because this would just create one really odd sounding voice. I guess there can be a close to accent-less voice, but it seems to me that the voice has to be based off of some accent somewhere.

Source: The movie we watched was called "American Tongues".