My name is Stephanie Howe, I'm hearing and I am going to Western Oregon University near Salem, Oregon and majoring in ASL Studies. I'm in a "Sociolinguistics of Deaf Communities" class and one of our books discusses differences in Black ASL. While watching a clip from the DVD portion of the book, some Black Deaf people mentioned something about how they differ from the "standard" ASL that White people use and I didn't even think that there WAS a standard ASL! So I wanted to research this more for my final project and when I talked to my teacher about my idea for my project, he said "there is no standard ASL," but the people on the video seemed to think there was. So i'm a bit confused.
I wanted to start a forum where I could get many different opinions to give me a better idea of what Deaf people think about the topic. Are there any "rules" about ASL grammar? Do you view people differently when they don't follow those rules? What about "elite" signers? What is the opinion of them? What exactly does it mean? etc.
Any help/discussion/opinions are appreciated! Thank you!
I wanted to start a forum where I could get many different opinions to give me a better idea of what Deaf people think about the topic. Are there any "rules" about ASL grammar? Do you view people differently when they don't follow those rules? What about "elite" signers? What is the opinion of them? What exactly does it mean? etc.
Any help/discussion/opinions are appreciated! Thank you!