Learning a signed language

My thoughts on this topic have been percolating for a long time – it's time to share them.

As some of you know, I've been spending the better part of my summer learning American Sign Language.

The Community College where I work has an Interpreting Program to prepare people to work as sign-to-voice and voice-to-sign interpreters in K-12 and university classrooms, courtrooms, doctor's offices, and other settings. One setting that particularly intrigues me is the hot and rapidly expanding video relay service (VRS). More on that later.

As someone who has been fascinated by human language since I was a little kid, earned two degrees in Linguistics, and managed to learn two languages in which I can order more than a cup of coffee and tell you my uncle has a red pencilbox, learning a signed language has been quite an experience.  i

First, put aside any notion that you believe a signed language is primitive, gesture-driven, and it's not a “real” language. Sure, it employs the use of some gestures,  but the language is governed by complex linguistic rules like all other languages, encoding grammatical information in movement and position of hands, and in the face (more on this later as well).

Simply put, ASL is a complex language, just like Arabic, Chinese, English, Tamil.

As you might suspect, learning a visual language when one has only learned spoken languages…well, your eyes are really put to the test, ears be damned. Of course, you can blink while someone is signing, and not miss much, but if you turn your head or look down for a couple of seconds to rummage through your book bag for a pencil, what that person said is gone.

I went to a sign language conference in Long Beach in May. Some sessions were signed only, while others were voiced. I spent one day in signed sessions exclusively, and I was exhausted afterwards. Though I had only had maybe six months in a signed classroom environment 5 hours a week, and a couple of Deaf Starbucks, I could follow maybe 60 percent of the presentations, and the presenters likely used a simpler ASL register to reach the wide range of people in the room. One session was on ASL idioms, while the other was on numbers in ASL. But  maintaining an unbroken visual connection with a signer for hours was a new experience and a skill that I'm going to have to develop. Like a muscle, right? Keep on exercising it until it's strong.

My ASL class is a lot of fun, and the teacher is wonderful. But it took some time before all of the students in my class followed a very simple rule – turn your voice off in a signed environment, especially if you want to learn to sign. Don't murmur each word the teacher signs. It breaks the concentration of the other students, and it's irritating. Don't carry on conversations with other students and interpret for them – let them stumble and puzzle over signs they don't understand. It's a deaf culture thing – it's rude to voice in the presence of a deaf person when there's no interpreter (Think about it – don't you feel strange or maybe even uncomfortable if you're in a group or classroom setting and someone you know begins to speak to another in a language you don't understand?) That's rude, isn't it?  And two, it's really disruptive to the processing of visual information to hear and block out spoken word processing. It's difficult to concentrate on processing signs if you have to process spoken words too.  That was a problem in the first summer session. I lost my cool with another student and barked at him that he should NOT have taken a cell phone call in class – he took advantage of the teacher. He would have never done that in a hearing teacher's class. That is what really bugged me – his lack of manners and rudeness. But he's better. The teacher is much more strict these days and occasionally “gives him the hairy eyeball” if she notices his lips moving while facing another student in class. The class is better now.

Once I have gained more experience in signing I'm sure I will be able to handle being in a voiced environment. In fact, I'm going to have to develop the skill of being in both the hearing and deaf worlds at the same time if I want to become an interpreter.