ASL over 25 years. Younger Deaf people tell me that my signs are old!
Oportunities like this for researchers present themselves rarely. .
that's really interestnig,
I have noticed similar too, though I'm not fluent, but conversant with Sign Language. Anyway, increasingly 'old signs' have been recently dissed as old fashioned or 'boring' or 'unsensitive' or even for lacking correctness to Politics.
I am skeptical of politically correctness, as it on the surface it seemed 'nice and fair and caring for all' but in reality it is more about fashionable attitudes which cleverly indoctrinates society to believe its's Ok to replace the worth of individuals according to intricately detailed measures of wealths and everything else matters not.
The social mobility has somewhat changed rules. Rules in society game-playing in pursue of wealth and success has been shifted to high gear. The rise to riches is much faster now as well the fall to poverty is much steeper also.
Back to sign language, it seem there was a trickle down occurring somewhere, (sometimes I'd blame the interpreters, EVEN though they are "bounded by ethics" that is ONLY limited to NOT tell clients what their decisions should be, however it is the SIGNS which clients gets exposed to) (yes that is off topic, but I do wonder however, then again Deafhood might be a good thing to change 'attitudes' to allieviate Deafism (again thats way off topic!)
Old signs should be preserved, and circulated, as it is the only way to stoke the energy of pure signs forms into the this cultural entity where storage of signs are 'kept in between individuals whose uses it, no single individual would know the library of signs., Also that said, I think deaf peolpe needs to be aware Sign language arent immune to politics and should be viligent to keep hearing ideology from seeping in, on other hand deaf people do need to be aware of know bargaining rules has changed in society in order to maintain the income and livihood. This will keep changing - nothing stays the same.
Yes you are right oppurtunies should be there to tackle all signs , but Id would say (to linguists) to caution to understand what they see isnt' neutral either. Hope there are some linguistist who are mindful of this, got this sneaky feeling they may not be, but only interested in their own academic pursuit regardless of how it affects us.... you might think im against linguist nosys peaking in, well to a point yes, but with a reason, they are only interested to 'see' what languages people using 'now' or 'then' as snapshots, in a manner nothing more that 'statisticising the profile of language used'.
If you prefer old signs, USE it, too bad what others think, if it flows as your style, so be it.
l reckon if you keep al our old signs, and use some new ones, and forth, it might make def culture more intriguing and most interesting to entice hearing people to take notice.
Breaking barriers in communications should not be just about hiring interpreters, but disseimnation sign languages in ALL situation in society, make it a compulsory learnign modules in hearing classrooms lessons, topics, even better make a it s formal subject, like "ASL is an American Sign Language" start from there, no wait, it doesnt start there it has to start really small like an inclusion to 'history lessons' or 'Social studies' , someone has to motivate the development of pedagogy and cirriculum that include sign language to enchance (greatly) the awareness of it to hearing people. Hearing childrens learning it now in classrooms are far better for the future to be aware of the existence of intricatency of sign language. I realise its not that simple, easy said than done but this is something we really jump up and down about it, get it going!
