a linguist says "hi!"

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vercingetorix02

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Hello! I'm a hearing graduate student from San Diego who took up ASL for an unusual reason: I study linguistics and realized that the subfield of linguistics that I am interested in has very little research done on ASL. And I'm even from a school that has a long tradition of sign research! I'm passionate about this because there's still so much more we can learn about the very cool similarities and differences between signed and spoken languages.

I joined AD because I want to learn more about Deaf culture than I am normally exposed to. But also, I have questions for my research that only a native signer (someone who learned ASL before age 5 and still uses it regularly) can answer, and I'm not a native signer. My advisor for this paper is a CODA so she answers a lot of my questions, but she and I agree that the more people we can ask to share their knowledge of ASL, the better! The internet is great for stuff like this. If you are a native signer and would ever be willing to take a short survey (they usually are about 5 minutes long) that just asks you whether you think particular sentences are good sentences in ASL, or not, I'd be delighted! You can email me (vercingetorix02@gmail.com) about it. If not, I'm still very happy to meet you, I like new people :)

And finally: HAPPY THANKSGIVING everyone!

~Kate
 
Can't answer your questions, Kate, as I am not a native signer. I learned ASL as an adult because I have a deaf son. However, he is a native signer, and I learned the language from native signers as I began exposing both my son and myself to the deaf community at the time of his diagnosis.

However, it is great to see another hearie who approaches the language from a liguistic comparative model. As well, I am extremely interested in imnpact of linguistic influence on cognitive development and functioning, and have come back to graduate school myself.

I'm sure you will find many interesting "discussions" here!:giggle:
 
I as well not a native signer too, since I learned to sign from my wife. I didn't know sign till I met her back in 2001. Our kids are to young to understand a survey.
 
Hi and :welcome: to AD!

Even though I was born with a profound bilateral hearing loss, I am not a native signer. I learned ASL in my late 20s.

I have studied some linguistics so Iam looking forward to more of your linguistic insights.
 
Hello , I am not a native signer didn't learn sign language til I was 28 years old. I am not deaf , learned bec there was deaf church members who I couldn't communicate with at that time now, I am using it more not everyday like I wish to use it.
 
Thanks for the replies! Jillio, good luck in your own grad school work- I find the whole thing exhilarating but tough. Shel, I hope you liked linguistics :) It's so nice to meet you all.

The one linguistic insight that I think should be spread as far as possible in both the hearing and Deaf communities is this: a child should get exposed to a language early, period. There has recently been some amazing work showing that it doesn't matter at all what language it is, but a child needs linguistic input from an early age or the part of their brain that is for language never completely learns the intricacies of language processing, which is quite a complicated task. Learning a first language by about age 5 also actually makes it easier (not harder) for the child to learn another language later.

I think this work is great for many reasons: not only is it (from my perspective) a knock-down argument for exposing babies who can't hear to sign language, but it also says something cool about the language capacity that we all share: how fragile and fickle it is, but also wonderful, that we're all born with this beautiful talent that needs just a little tending. Sorry for this cheesy metaphor, but it's like a seed that has the potential of a plant inside but just needs some water and soil to grow. And like a seed, if it's not grown by a certain time it will not longer be able to flower to its full potential.

Yours (stuffed with way too much turkey and pumpkin pie), Kate
 
OceanBlue, right after I posted that I noticed you're a huge NE Patriots fan :) My boyfriend of five years is from southern New Hampshire and although I'm from near Cleveland and grew up watching the Browns, he has finally won me over. The Pats are so off-the-charts awesome this year that I love watching them!
 
Hello and welcome to Alldeaf! Interesting introduction--hope you'll enjoy your stay here in AD! ;)



:wave:
~RR
 
I don't sign at all. Mainstreamed 100%. I have to say, I like your avatar name. I majored in history, so it jumped right out at me.
R
 
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