How did ASL grammar and English grammer get to be so different in the USA?

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Jane B.

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I get no response on hearing tests from my left ear (since the age of 5) and at this point am profound in the right. But, the right was very good during my school years and all I did was sit wherever the teacher was going to be talking from most (I particularly remember one that was usually at the side rather than front). Thus, I had no contact with sign until many, many years later as the right deteriorated as an adult. I took sign through the local community college twice but made NO contacts to really use it and have forgotten 99% of what I did learn. This background is a good part of the reason for me bringing up what follows.

I have come across numerous things about ASL and American English being different. BUT why? Can’t think of the names at the moment but I have read history that talks of about a guy from here getting a guy from France to develop sign. Why wouldn’t he have him follow English grammar if it was to be used in an English speaking country?

The difference seems to show up in written English by someone who’s first language was sign. I think this lack of English grammar in writing may well be an obstacle to employment, especially in certain fields.

Is there that radical difference between sign and spoken/written language in other languages? If so why?

Going ahead and actually posting something about this after thinking about it for a long time was inspired by this thread http://www.alldeaf.com/sign-languag...eech-grammar-where-you-going.html#post2036892
 
From a hearing person's perspective (me) who is looking at ASL, I think the grammatical structure makes perfect sense: the language can be used quickly and efficiently. It's not meant to replicate English (that's what SEE and the others are for), it's meant to let you communicate. All the necessary elements to be understood are there in an ASL sentence.

LinuxGold said:
Remember ASL is spoken language, NOT written language.
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ASL is a separate language from English. It is arranged in a different way from English that makes it easier to show spatial relationships. I don't know about other countries. ASL naturally uses the syntax/grammar it does because it's a more intuitive grammar for a visual language; to graft English syntax/grammar onto it is to make it more of a constructed system (like SEE).

I think I should also note that (I'm reasonably sure) LSF (and its "parent" Old French Sign Language) did not follow the grammar of French. Note that Charles Michel de l'Épée, an educator in 18th century France, thought that LSF was ungrammatical and devised a system of "methodical signs" to go along with it.
 
purplewowies said:
ASL is a separate language from English. It is arranged in a different way from English that makes it easier to show spatial relationships. I don't know about other countries. ASL naturally uses the syntax/grammar it does because it's a more intuitive grammar for a visual language; to graft English syntax/grammar onto it is to make it more of a constructed system (like SEE).

I think I should also note that (I'm reasonably sure) LSF (and its "parent" Old French Sign Language) did not follow the grammar of French. Note that Charles Michel de l'Épée, an educator in 18th century France, thought that LSF was ungrammatical and devised a system of "methodical signs" to go along with it.
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Why the need to show "spatial relationships"? What does "spatial relationships" mean in this context? As someone coming from English what I have heard about ASL makes it seemed that word order is completely reversed? Which does not make sense to me when the dominate language in the US is English.

I thought I had run across something that said that it does follow the French. Anyone know? I am getting ready to eat as I post this and may get to do more searching later.
 
I had often wondered this same thing, but eventually I figured out that ASL is arranged in such a way to facilitate speed of conversation and combat fatigue. When it's a word-for-word signed translation of English, it can be confusing and very tiring because it takes a lot longer to sign it out and add in the body language and facial expressions necessary to make up for the lack of vocal emphasis and such. Sure, there is body language and facial expressions in ASL, but they are used a lot more efficiently. Honestly, I think that's what it comes down to more than anything else: ASL is the way it is because it is more efficient, and efficiency is something that matters a lot when it is your primary means of communication and you do a lot of it.
 
Jane B. said:
Why the need to show "spatial relationships"? What does "spatial relationships" mean in this context? As someone coming from English what I have heard about ASL makes it seemed that word order is completely reversed? Which does not make sense to me when the dominate language in the US is English.

I thought I had run across something that said that it does follow the French. Anyone know? I am getting ready to eat as I post this and may get to do more searching later.
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I am certainly not an expert in all the whys and whats of ASL but I will share what I do know. Spatial relationships in english describe with words where something is located, ie: the blanket is under the table. In ASL using signing space to indicate location, ie: blanket, table, under. ASL creates a visual picture of a blanket being under a table, spatially indicating where the blanket is, because ASL is a visual language. Simply put, english is an auditory language and ASL is a visual one - the rules of grammar for one do not hold for the other. To say they should be the same is akin to saying both french and english are spoken in Canada so their rules of grammar should be the same. They aren't and shouldn't be because they are two completely separate languages. In order to learn a second language efficiently (be it ASL, or french or spanish or chinese), you must let go of the idea that it should follow the rules of your own first language (english).

As for written english, perhaps it might make things clearer to you if again you think in first/native and second languages. For many deaf, ASL is their first language and written english is their second, much like a french Canadian's first language is french and writing in english requires extra effort and study as a second language.
 
Makes sense to me....ASL is more visual and not spoken. We hear with our eyes. Basically, there's no need of using the words "the, of, am, is"....etc., but as for myself, I sign SEE. It's slower, but I use it, because at times when I do write written English, I'm prone to leave out several words, making the sentence unclear (to hearies).
 
You ask why ASL is so different from English. You may as well ask why English is so different from ASL.

ASL is a visual language, separate and distinct from English. It's not backwards any more than English is backwards. Being a visual language, phrases are constructed in the order that makes sense to the visual center of your brain. For instance, imagine yourself drawing a picture of a boy climbing a tree. You'd first draw a tree, then the boy, then something to indicate that he's climbing. In ASL, you would sign TREE BOY CLIMB because that makes the most sense visually.

But even that's somewhat misleading because the sign for TREE does not represent the English word "tree", it represents the concept of a tree, because not only is ASL visual, it's also conceptual. For example, the words "big", "large", and "humongous", which can have different meanings in English, can be represented by the same sign in ASL because it's all the same general concept; however, intensity is represented through facial cues and body language.
 
Jane B. said:
I have come across numerous things about ASL and American English being different. BUT why?
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ASL is different than American English for the simple fact that they are two different languages. ASL isn't meant to be English. ASL is ASL. It was taught here to be a way for deaf individuals to communicate, and was altered slightly from the LSF it branched from due to differences in culture. (Something really obvious and iconic in France may not have the same meaning in America.)
Comparing the grammars and word orders of ASL and English would be similar to translating Russian word-for-word into English. It would be backwards and different when compared to English. Learning English when ASL is your first language would be hard, the same as learning ASL when English is your first language, or learning Russian when English is your first language. they are just different.
Also, just because a language (like English) is mainly spoken somewhere, it doesn't mean new languages shouldn't be. Yeah, it would make life easier. But it wouldn't be as fun!
 
I am hearing. I am a novice ASL user, and anything I say about it is kind of like a six year old explaining the meaning of life to her grandmother. The grammar gives me fits when I try to sign in ASL grammar. When I am watching somebody else sign, the grammar is so cool it gives me goose bumps.

What particularly enchants me right now is the chronological order of ASL. I also love, love, love the orderly way points are laid out in ASL. It makes so much sense from a visual and conceptual point of view. You probably want me to give you an example, and I can't because I can't reproduce the grammar. I can only watch it and appreciate it at this point.

Maybe this will help- as a child did you ever put pictures in order to tell a story? My godsons did this a lot in their preschool. They'd have a series of pictures illustrating a story and they were supposed to put them in order, what happened first, what happened next, what happened last.

Imagine you have a picture of the three bears going for a walk, three bowls of porridge in various stages of being eaten, a broken chair, and goldilocks in a bed.

With spoken or written English you could tell the story in any order- you could say "Goldilocks went to bed. But before that, she broke baby bear's chair, and before that she ate his porridge after finding out one bowl was too cold and the other too hot, and she was able to do all this because the three bears went out of a walk."

But if you are trying to tell that story using only the pictures on a few cards, you have to put them in chronological order.

Now, I am *sure* there are ways and reasons to rearrange the order in sign language, too. But ASL, like the pictures on the cards, is more like pictures, and not at all a word for word correspondence (because that would be tedious and ineffectual). So it makes more sense that it would be more careful with chronology.

Also, in English we communicate nuance with voice inflection and with vocabulary- we might have thirty words that almost but not quite mean the same thing. ASL would be exhausting if the vocabulary were word for word correspondence, and voice inflection would be mostly meaningless- so you have fewer signs but far more ways of making them (body language, facial expression, where they fit in the sentence, speed or emphasis, repetition) because you can't rely on voice alone to communicate those nuances.

As I said, I am a raw novice and do not mean to set myself up as an expert by any means. It's just that these are the things that strike me as a beginner.

Incidentally, yes, I am sure that anybody whose written English clearly shows that English is their second language will find that an obstacle to employment, especially in certain fields. But this is true whether the first language is Spanish, ASL, German, or Japanese.

What is an even bigger obstacle is not learning any language at all for the first six years of life, which is what often happens to deaf kids who aren't allowed to learn sign. If you have a native language in which to think, you can probably learn the grammar of a second language, and even if you are like me and never get the grammar of your second language right, you can still think in your own language, and even in your new language.

If you have been barred from any native language in which to think when you are a very young child, the obstacles that face you are far more serious than not writing your second language well enough to get a job requiring good grammar, and those obstacles are, frankly, pretty much insurmountable.
 
Grayma said:
Imagine you have a picture of the three bears going for a walk, three bowls of porridge in various stages of being eaten, a broken chair, and goldilocks in a bed.

With spoken or written English you could tell the story in any order- you could say "Goldilocks went to bed. But before that, she broke baby bear's chair, and before that she ate his porridge after finding out one bowl was too cold and the other too hot, and she was able to do all this because the three bears went out of a walk."

But if you are trying to tell that story using only the pictures on a few cards, you have to put them in chronological order.

Now, I am *sure* there are ways and reasons to rearrange the order in sign language, too. But ASL, like the pictures on the cards, is more like pictures, and not at all a word for word correspondence (because that would be tedious and ineffectual). So it makes more sense that it would be more careful with chronology.
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THAT is a fantastic way of looking at it. I really like that!
 
My students ask me why Spanish grammar is different than English. Actually, they say "backwards", because in their eyes, Spanish is wrong and English is right. Anyhow, I simply say that they are two totally different languages. If they lined up exactly, they would be the same language.

For example, in Spanish to express that you like something you actually say it as "it pleases me". Why? Because some old, dead Spaniard enjoyed something and came up with a way of expressing his feelings. Likewise, some old, dead Briton wanted to express similar feelings. These two old, dead guys didn't consult each other. So there are two totally different and unrelated ways to express the same idea. This only gets confusing when you know one of the ways and then want to learn the other.

So ASL grammar only seems wacky to someone with other grammar in their brain. And vice versa.

My guess is that when FSL came over on the boat, and in the early years of teaching it the grammar was actually more like English. At first the language was used by the school and was formal, academic, textbook language. But as the deaf people used the language they found more efficient ways to express things. (like in English saying c'mere instead of come here). The users of ASL needed to express things that weren't part of the curriculum. The language evolved and changed into what it is today, a very different language than French, Englsh, or FSL.
 
Jane B. said:
Is there that radical difference between sign and spoken/written language in other languages? If so why?
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Yes, there is. German sign language has more in common with ASL then German. In Germany and Austria you speak the same language but the sign languages are totally different from one another, except the grammar.
 
Wow. These are great posts. I haven't yet been taught the rules about ASL grammar, so reading your posts have given me very interesting glimpses into my future with ASL. I don't think it is fair on either to be comparing English with ASL. They are so totally different, it's like comparing apples and oranges. English is a spoken and written language, whereas ASL is a visual and conceptual language. Therefore, it makes complete sense why ASL is different from English.

As for SEE, I consider this a bridge between English and ASL. Please correct me if I am wrong. I have not read about SEE at all. All I know about SEE is that it is Signed Exact English, and is often used for babies and toddlers whose communication skills are not yet verbal.
 
If you (or anyone else reading this) has a mind that likes grammar and detailed explanations (I know that this is a minority of people!), you might search your local library for "American sign language linguistics" or "syntax" and see what you find. My library had several linguistic texts about ASL, which I'm enjoying reading very much. :)
 
bibliotech said:
...As for SEE, I consider this a bridge between English and ASL. Please correct me if I am wrong. ...
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SEE is not a bridge between English and ASL. SEE is more like a detour between English and ASL.

"Recalculating...."
 
well, i am hearing and i just started learning ASL, it seems pretty straight forward, grammar isn't too different from english, but what makes it hard are the words that dont translate to ASL, FOR example, if i want to ask someone "how are you! " would it be "how you? " and would i use the sign for how(where i touch knuckles with both hands and roll them forward till my palms are facing up) or is there a different sign i would use in that sentence?
 
cristen said:
well, i am hearing and i just started learning ASL, it seems pretty straight forward, grammar isn't too different from english, but what makes it hard are the words that dont translate to ASL, FOR example, if i want to ask someone "how are you! " would it be "how you? " and would i use the sign for how(where i touch knuckles with both hands and roll them forward till my palms are facing up) or is there a different sign i would use in that sentence?
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tsk...

Take an ASL class. You would learn in your first class how different.

Say PSE....
 
excuse me? tsk??!?!.. i am taking a class, i just started, i've learned a lot, but i'm no where near done. and yes its different, but from what ive seen, not outrageously so
 
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