How would one sign "The House That Jack Built" in ASL?

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jejones3141

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I ask because in spoken languages there seems to be a family of children's songs and stories that make use of, and maybe serve as instruction in, recursive grammar rules, with each verse or paragraph going one level deeper: "The House That Jack Built," "The Rattling Bog," "There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea," and so forth. (I've heard one in Spanish, but I don't remember the title or lyrics.)

So...how does one express such things in ASL?
 
Really, you're trying to combine the grammar rules and rythms of another language into ASL, so it's not possible at all. Either that, or you can do it in Signed English.

To do something like this in ASL, would be to be able to be creative with hand classifiers, location and motion. For example, the C handshape can be used to listen, then near eyes as if one were using binoculars, etc... then you can see the "rhyme" and "rhymth" in ASL.

There is also another thing such as ABC stories where you tell a story by using hand classifiers used for A B C, etc... It's a bigtime favourite for the Deaf community!
 
Check out the "Grandfather Moose" books, they are story books in ASL
 
Eh? Surely ASL is complete in the sense that other languages are complete, i.e. there's nothing that you can say in English but not in ASL. Word play and the like won't carry over, of course--an ABC story translated into English necessarily won't be appreciated the way an ASL user will appreciate the ASL version--but the literary aspect of "The House That Jack Built" doesn't matter to me. I'm just curious how one would communicate to an ASL user the entities and the relationships between them that are communicated in spoken languages by recursive grammar rules as used in this sort of children's story, just as if I were to ask "How do I express comparatives and superlatives in ASL, e.g. 'X is Y-er than Z' where X and Z are nouns and Y is an adjective?"
 
I see what you're saying, but I think that the relationships are pretty clearly conveyed through body language in ASL. You use the "inflections" of your body language to create the relationships between the objects in your story.

Unlike in English, where you just stand there and say it, ASL uses motion and body posturing to create the delineation between character actions.

Sort of like how when you are conveying a conversation that you overheard, or interpreting two people talking, you subtly move your body...same thing.

Honestly, I think this is one of the things that makes ASL such an interesting and beautiful language.
 
jejones3141 said:
Eh? Surely ASL is complete in the sense that other languages are complete, i.e. there's nothing that you can say in English but not in ASL.
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Trry translating these stories to another language, and see that even in those other languages it doesn't always work. People of other languages usually have their own stories. I fail to see how you get the idea that ASL s not a full language.
 
dkf747 said:
Trry translating these stories to another language, and see that even in those other languages it doesn't always work. People of other languages usually have their own stories. I fail to see how you get the idea that ASL s not a full language.
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I don't have that idea. ASL is indeed a full language. The Deaf knew it all along, and William Stokoe convinced everyone else over forty years ago. (Well, almost everyone else...I exchanged a few messages with someone here on this board a couple of years ago who didn't think ASL is a "real language.")

I'm just curious about how ASL users would communicate the same information that is communicated to English speakers by the text of "The House that Jack Built."
 
What you ARE NOT getting is that you are trying to use ASL to follow so called English speakers of a text.

When you read the works of Goethe in English, the translation can very and meanings can be lost. It's better to read his works in German to get the full gist of what he was thinking.

Stop using English as a control and pay attention to ASL itself.
 
Eh? Surely ASL is complete in the sense that other languages are complete, i.e. there's nothing that you can say in English but not in ASL
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using a language to prove that another language is a real language doesn't work. if you have ever learned a second language you would know, that two different languages do not translate perfectly, sometimes not even close, and other times not at all....you can try and convey they same meaning, using different words, but it will never be an exact translation. some languages have words that simply do not exist in another language.

a funny example i saw on TV the other day, in english we have the saying "make sure your ducks are in a row", in sweden they have a similar saying, but translated to english means " make sure your tongue is in the right cheek"...which doesn't work in english.
 
I have a tape of ASL Signed House that Jack Built. It is old, but very good!
 
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