Torn - subtitled and a bit of faux pas signing

I agree with shel90 and kokonut. It took me awhile to figure out that ASL wasn't really transparent as I thought it was, and that the only reason why I found it so easy to pick up receptively was because I was exposed to it early on compared to other people.

Hearing people would not get Keith Wann's sketches without a voice interpreter. And interpreting a song won't aid them either in understanding ASL humour.
 
shel90 said:
My hearing friends didnt understand my brother's video "Ice Cube" which was done in ASL/Mime..they couldnt find it funny while my deaf friends and I laughed our asses off.

I think it takes a very visual hearing person to understand someone using mime with ASL.
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Hmm true. Maybe depends on the person. Good point shel :)


I'd rather have this sort of discussion than "No, it's my way or the highway" style of discussion!
 
The impression I get with ASL is that some signs are easy to tell the meaning of and others aren't. The second the signs are put into sentences though, then none of it is transparent.
 
souggy said:
Heh... finally saw this one Koko? Old news.

I remember it was constantly posted on Facebook back when Facebook were exclusive to college students.
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How old are you Souggy? That was in 2004. I thought you were a little kid then.

Were you in college?
 
CJB said:
The impression I get with ASL is that some signs are easy to tell the meaning of and others aren't. The second the signs are put into sentences though, then none of it is transparent.
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Yes, there is some iconicity in ASL, but as it evolves, it loses that. There are far less iconic signs in the ASL lexicon now than there were 80 years ago.
 
Em903 said:
Respectfully, I disagree. I think hearing audiences would. Jaw drop is pretty universal for "OMG". Signs individually? Maybe not. I showed this video to my mom who doesn't know a stitch of sign and she laughed. Yes they are world's apart, you hit the nail right on the head. Because they ARE different. :) A lot of Keith's stuff is also interpreted by his wife too btw so hearing audiences DO understand what is going on if they don't know sign.
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No, they wouldn't. There are too many ASL signs that get in the way to make any full meaning of what he's signing and the song being played. It's not per se pure visual sight gag on the same level as miming. You can understand and see it as funny because you understand completely of all the ASL signs!! A hearing audience wouldn't understand much of what Wann saying in his interpretation of a song. Again, there is no comparison on this. None. Two different audiences here.
 
Em903 said:
Hmm true. Maybe depends on the person. Good point shel :)


I'd rather have this sort of discussion than "No, it's my way or the highway" style of discussion!
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You would get the "No, it's my way or the highway" style from me in the Deaf education threads! :D
 
shel90 said:
Yea, I agree with you there.
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Yes, Shel. There are many subtle signs there. In David Armand's miming comedy his is more "loud" (can't put it in another word) where the audience can grab each of his gesturings and match them much easiser to a word or song phrase much more readily.
 
TheWriteAlex said:
Yes, there is some iconicity in ASL, but as it evolves, it loses that. There are far less iconic signs in the ASL lexicon now than there were 80 years ago.
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Right. And I imagine a lot of the same thing happened with spoken languages but since they're so much older they are much farther along in terms of losing iconicity.
 
TheWriteAlex said:
Yes, there is some iconicity in ASL, but as it evolves, it loses that. There are far less iconic signs in the ASL lexicon now than there were 80 years ago.
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Right.

Have you seen the differences between the signs for "movie" between the older Deaf and the younger Deaf? Most of the ones I know of that are 50+ use the hand-crank for "movie."

I grew up with a different one... with a base hand and a FIVE handshape moving side to side.
 
souggy said:
Right.

Have you seen the differences between the signs for "movie" between the older Deaf and the younger Deaf? Most of the ones I know of that are 50+ use the hand-crank for "movie."

I grew up with a different one... with a base hand and a FIVE handshape moving side to side.
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I am over 50 and I don't know anyone who uses the handcrank. We use you sign.:laugh2:
 
souggy said:
Right.

Have you seen the differences between the signs for "movie" between the older Deaf and the younger Deaf? Most of the ones I know of that are 50+ use the hand-crank for "movie."

I grew up with a different one... with a base hand and a FIVE handshape moving side to side.
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I use both signs except my teacher corrects me and says to use the crank-sign for like VHS tapes at home and the FIVE handshape for like going to the movie theaters. :dunno:
 
Em903 said:
I use both signs except my teacher corrects me and says to use the crank-sign for like VHS tapes at home and the FIVE handshape for like going to the movie theaters. :dunno:
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That's weird... I never seen that for recording videos or VCRs. I just have seen it in a form of "we're watching a movie" or "we're going to the movie on Tuesday" with the group I have described above.

For recording a movie... we use a completely different one that is not even transparent to the hearies.
 
souggy said:
Right.

Have you seen the differences between the signs for "movie" between the older Deaf and the younger Deaf? Most of the ones I know of that are 50+ use the hand-crank for "movie."

I grew up with a different one... with a base hand and a FIVE handshape moving side to side.
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The base hand, palm down was the first sign for "movie" that I learned about 10 years ago the first time I took ASL classes, but when I moved to Indiana, I saw it with with the palm up, so that's how I sign it now.

I always thought that hand crank sign was the sign for "old movie" as in, a silent film or black and white movie?
 
Exactly. ASL humor is different from "interpretive mime" humor when it comes to which audience it caters to and an audience that would undoutedly get the most enjoyment out of it. David's second mime comedy piece "Where I lay may hat" I think it is a bit more funnier than his first one, "Torn," a few years back.
 
I know two variants of the sign for movie. One is with the non-dom hand as A handshape and dom hand in 5 handshape as described earlier, and the other is double 5 handshape.
 
Em903 said:
I use both signs except my teacher corrects me and says to use the crank-sign for like VHS tapes at home and the FIVE handshape for like going to the movie theaters. :dunno:
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Hand crank means "movie camera." My source is Martin Sternberg.
 
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