Why can't deaf people respect deaf people's choice of sign language?

pixiestix

Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2008
Messages
69
Reaction score
1
I sign mostly PSE and SEE. I know very little ASL, I do not know FULL BLOWN ASL at all, it is very hard for me to understand. I often ask for clarification and they are always happy to oblige.

Deaf people are giving me grief over it. It is starting to annoy me.

SEE was my first language and I am almost 50.

Someone posted on my facebook from youtube.. "Signing SEE" Poetry by Lance 2013. I watched it, I got what he said at the beginning and at the end, but in between, I could not get it at all.

I respect people who know ASL because it is their first language and that's their method of communication, and I want the same from my friends. SEE/PSE is my main language and level of comfort.

How do I handle this? Thanks!
 
my wife gives me grief the way you feel too. sigh. I grew up in a hearing school and grammar was a natural thing.
trying to sign pure ASL makes me goofy - if you dont know what I mean - I tend to dance with hips back and forth when doing pure asl. when doing in see I dont. I don't know why and cant seem to figure it out. I tried stopping my hips and I .... well never mind ..
I know your feeling. I just ignore em.
 
my wife gives me grief the way you feel too. sigh. I grew up in a hearing school and grammar was a natural thing.
trying to sign pure ASL makes me goofy - if you dont know what I mean - I tend to dance with hips back and forth when doing pure asl. when doing in see I dont. I don't know why and cant seem to figure it out. I tried stopping my hips and I .... well never mind ..
I know your feeling. I just ignore em.

:laugh2:....:hmm:
 
No offense to the OP, but here is what I think:

You know that feeling of "oh man, let's get this over with" when hearing people try to fingerspell a sentence one letter at a time, and it feels like a few years went by before they finished?

That's probably why many deaf get impatient with people who use anything other than ASL.

Regardless, criticizing your method of signing is rude, period. Ignore them. If people really want to hear what you have to say, they will be patient.
 
Same reason I get ignored by lots of deaf. My signs are the same way I talk, english. Just have to find more people who are the same as you. I am a zebra with my SEE. Just can't turn into a ASL jackass overnight
 
its political, and half of them so-called enlightened deafies arent realoy Deaf, just wanna-be-Deafs for the cool-ness sake and sometimes it just give them an excuse to practice Deafisms on brothers and sister in the Deaf community, instead of downing them, why not jsut be nice polite, befreind for whatever you+they may have in common not nope politics not only creates bonding it also creates rifts, it also tears people apart...terrible i know...
their loss and its also bad, not just for 'them' or 'you' but us all where when supposed to be supporting each other of our all-too-well-know-shared experiences of Audism, (um ok im seeming abit like Deafhood-ish here but its true...it seem the hearings LIKES it when we are dividded because they KNOW that is where we lose strength and hence why things never changes...
we've got to stop bickering amongst ourselves ! and start challengeing the HEARIES!!! not ourselves..it's crazy
 
I sign mostly PSE and SEE.
so do I but not SEE. I sign in PSE/ASL but over time - it's slowly shifting to ASL. very slowly. I just need to practice more how to express/communicate things in ASL style.

I know very little ASL, I do not know FULL BLOWN ASL at all, it is very hard for me to understand. I often ask for clarification and they are always happy to oblige.
same here. I've met hundreds hundreds of deafies in just few years and they don't give me grief over my signing style.

I can read deafies' ASL just fine but I just can't sign in ASL fluently because English is my first language and I learned ASL only 4 years ago. I know some of them adjusted to PSE/SEE after seeing how I sign but sometimes I tell them to not to do that because it is, forgive me, painful for me to read SEE.

Deaf people are giving me grief over it. It is starting to annoy me.
dump them and pick a new friend wisely.
 
Good advice Jiro, and I have trouble fingerspelling myself I can finger spell out, but i cant READ it...grr really hard, unless i use it all the time, like as if i am in school, so I dont get that sort of practices...

yea, totally 'dump them' chose better freinds wisely , ... and get a thicker skin, (not easy i know , but what I mean is, dont feel bad to 'dump' them, YOU WILL find other freinds, like dont get needy...they KNOW ( the mean ones) that you're the victim of them, DONT BE IT, dont put up with it, move on , you deserve more peace.

Cheer up!, its hard too, even for me i dont get the easiest time either)
 
It is very hard for me to understand SEE. Also, it is cumbersome.

No offense but maybe that is the same for other deaf people. When someone signs SEE, the other person's mind is probably straining to make sense of it as it is not following ASL structure.
 
ASL is actually FRENCH structure...in origin, no wonder its bloody difficult to read...
 
ASL is actually FRENCH structure...in origin, no wonder its bloody difficult to read...

And I have never gotten a really good explanation of why it was allowed to continue to be using the French structure. When they were bringing it to the US it was known that English was the main spoken/written language!
 
Not so much French as visual structure (in the mind's eye).

For example, describing an object.

Try to draw a 1968 red convertible Ford Mustang in this order, flipping over each descriptor like a flash card:

1968 (an event?)
RED (what?)
CONVERTIBLE (what?)
FORD
MUSTANG

Now, do it in this order:

CAR
FORD MUSTANG
CONVERTIBLE
RED
1968

Or this:

OLD
LONG-HAIRED (what?)
BLACK (what?)
CAT

Now this way:

CAT
LONG-HAIRED BLACK
OLD

The images "take shape" in ASL; SEE requires more back stepping and mentally readjusting the image.

Then, of course, there is the ASL topic/action structure, for visualizing who or what is doing the action to whom or what. It's a logical structure for viewing the event. Using SEE structure, especially passive voice, really makes that confusing because it appears that the topic is doing the action rather than receiving it.

It takes time but the ASL structure can become more natural for the SEE signer.
 
Not so much French as visual structure (in the mind's eye).

For example, describing an object.

Try to draw a 1968 red convertible Ford Mustang in this order, flipping over each descriptor like a flash card:

1968 (an event?)
RED (what?)
CONVERTIBLE (what?)
FORD
MUSTANG

Now, do it in this order:

CAR
FORD MUSTANG
CONVERTIBLE
RED
1968

Or this:

OLD
LONG-HAIRED (what?)
BLACK (what?)
CAT

Now this way:

CAT
LONG-HAIRED BLACK
OLD

The images "take shape" in ASL; SEE requires more back stepping and mentally readjusting the image.

Then, of course, there is the ASL topic/action structure, for visualizing who or what is doing the action to whom or what. It's a logical structure for viewing the event. Using SEE structure, especially passive voice, really makes that confusing because it appears that the topic is doing the action rather than receiving it.

It takes time but the ASL structure can become more natural for the SEE signer.

Why should it have to in a country where English is the dominate language?
 
dump them and pick a new friend wisely.
The OP will have a hard time to find new friends who listen to and/or sign SEE. REALLY! SEE turns alot of ASLers off. She should know better. If she wants to hang out with ASLers, then she would have to learn ASL to have better communication with them. ASL is fun and beautiful.
 
Please keep in mind that SEE was my first language and ASL was never used in schools growing up.

I do sign PSE, too. I just do not understand full blown ASL at all. I just want people to respect me and my signing as I respect their ASL signing even though I don't understand it if they speak full blown ASL.
 
Back
Top