"i wonder whether, in other sl languages (like, hypothetically, latin), it's easier for hearing speakers to get the grammar"

Well, I've noticed similar tendencies in hearing nonnative LSQ signers; then again, LSQ is in the same language family as ASL, so it would take a *really* different language to test your (implied) hypothesis. I used to know a Japanese SL speaker (Deaf) and an Auslan speaker (interpreter), so I'll try and track them down for answers. :c)

"if i FELT like i was doing pidgen signing, even if i wasn't corrected, i might ask or at least indicate that i knew i was mangling the language. "like sound dork, i do?" "

Yeah, so would I (so *do* I, on a regular basis), but I think that does have a lot to do with our perfectionism. I've seen plenty of hearing folk who think that learning a couple signs immediately qualifies them for a job as a terp and a seat in heaven, and who seem blissfully unaware of just how unitelligible they are. (Among them have been many teachers of deaf students, alas!)

"i'm not certain i don't sprinkle body language subject indicators into speech, although i'd have to have someone watch me to be certain."

Santa didn't love me enough to bring me a webcam to sign into. (Life's rough that way, I guess.)


"*admiring the elbow patches, i am* i don't think they'd go with my whip"

I don't see why not; just make sure they're the same color leather and don't wear white socks and you'll be all ready to go. :c)

I do remember a certain picture involving you and leather...

So.....it goes under the bay???

obviously someone must tell Mori - she's posting at 1am!!

ahem

The context is that of the Vagina Monologues. The actors were considering how to best present their scene using props.

hmmmmmmmmmmmm

or it was a palm reader who gets very good tips!

So.....it goes under the bay???

Argh, so annoying, I keep writing long responses and forgetting to click "submit" after I've previewed them.

Here (again, and hopefully for good) is the low-down. Part boring technical, part frank discussion of female anatomy. Up to you if you want to read it all.

The context does indeed involve the Vagina Monologues, but not one of the actresses - the speaker was one of the two ASL interpreters. I was the other; I walked up at the very end of a conversation between the first terp and a third party about the challenges of making artistic choices in your signing that also make linguistic sense.

The issue in question was the sign for "vagina," which is normally made such that the two hands are in contact with each other in what's called the "neutral space," about 8 inches away from the body at roughly the height of the solar plexus, maybe a little lower. But signed in that way, it has very clinical connotations. Ok for interpreting an ob/gyn appointment, but it doesn't really *fit* with a first-person monologue about discovering one's clitoris, for example. My own approach to the problem was to move the sign to make it more visually compelling - which means that instead of some very abstract space out in front of me, I signed it level with, and barely an inch away from, my own vagina. So, when the actress is talking about her various interactions with her vagina, it's a lot more clear from this type of interpretation that she's not talking about some abstract vagina floating in space but rather her very own, first-person, right-there-between-her-legs vagina.

The other terp (quoted here) was apparently explaining this approach to the third party, and also explaining that she was very uncomfortable using the same strategy. (Most of her previous interpreting experience had been in churches and very family-friendly summer camps, heehee.) Hence, her statement of preference for keeping her vagina (which is to say, her sign for "vagina") in front of her, in the normal location, while interpreting.


Feel better now, Mori? ;c)

Yes. I DO feel better! And I think the quote is still hilarious, even in its context - but I'm just weird that way.

I feel better... the quote isn't as funny in context (although i can still take it out of context if i want. see? *in... out. in... out* hee.), but i'm fascinated by the particular case of asl and the way it's created and mutated, just like "regular" english, as much as i am by language in general (and as anyone who knows me will tell you, that's a lot). language geeks, obsess!

uh. short version: "actually, it WAS interesting. thanks."

I'm a linguistics major with mostly non-linguist friends, so I never know how far I can go before "cool new information" crosses over into "what is she talking about and why won't she stop?" *grin*

To be slightly pedantic, though (since you've stayed with me thus far), your comment about "'regular' English" implies that ASL is a form of "irregular" English. Which it is in the same sense that German, Navajo, or Mandarin Chinese are. (In other words, it's not. *smile* It's a language all by itself, which may borrow from English like any language will do with any other language it comes into contact with - but isn't in fact derived from it.)

;c)

you ever-so-slightly misunderstand. *grin* i didn't at all mean to imply that it's just an irregular form of english... thus the facetious quotation marks. i get annoyed when people think that it's just a matter of making up signs to stand for english (or german, or italian, or whichever) words rather than a language unto itself. gah! no, just... no.

not, um, that i know how to acutally sign. heh. still!

we love pendanticism here. thanks for clarifying - i forget people don't always know what i'm talking about, and if i HAD meant that, i should have been corrected. you haven't crossed the line yet.

just remember i speak strictly for myself. *grin*

To be extra pedantic, I don't think that Love quite covers our affection for pedanticism. (Effected as I am, "our" could be both a plural reference or the Royal We, depending on inflection.)

Adoration might be closer. Is there a word that applies the fanaticism of stalking, without the implied context of deification? Damn, time to install a thesaurus on my Palm Pilot, so I can look these things up.

Hmm, dictionary.com does have a thesaurus feature... 'attachment' is a bit weak, perhaps 'crush' or 'devotion'?

I've heard quite a bit about ASL from a friend at work who used to teach it. I used to be under the same misapprehension that steff described so well, but I've learnt better since. (Ooh! Apparently 'learnt' is an accepted form of 'learn', at least in dictionary definition terms. Discovered this in an email message from a friend at work yesterday.)

the "Royal We". I love it. Wait. We love it.

~Mori

yes - when steffi speaks about herself, she does so in a stern, strict manner. :)

So.....it goes under the bay???

From what I understand, sign language isn't an exacting language. What I mean to say, is that there aren't necessarily concrete ways to say certain things, and that it's really about how an individual finds a way to describe what they mean. Am I totally off on this? I might have misunderstood the person whom I was talking to about it.

Go on and be as pedantic as you wish with your answer. I'm a nut for learning things.

~Mori

... specifically for the pedantic occasion. :c)

Ok, so signed languages (in general; and keep in mind there are several hundred of them) and American Sign Language and Quebec Sign Language in particular (the only two I speak) *are* rule-bound languages, same as any other. There are definitely grammatical and ungrammatical ways to say things (as well as stylistically more and less attractive ways to say things).

What trips people up, and makes them think that anything goes in a signed language, is generally one of two things: syntax or speaker attitudes.

In terms of syntax: ASL has mind-bendingly complicated morphology (word structure), but what seems like completely unregulated syntax (word order/sentence structure). So to someone who's used to a language like English, which has a pretty strict Subject-Verb-Object word order, the fact that signing "CAT DOG CHASE" can mean that the dog was chasing the cat makes it seem like there are no logical rules for stringing a sentence together.

But think about languages like Latin or Turkish. In Latin, you can say:

Acta est fabula. "The play is finished."
Fabula acta est. "The play is finished."
Acta fabula est. "The play is finished."

[At least I think you can. Having never taken Latin, I don't know if these examples work. But in general, just know that you can mix around words in Latin sentences.]

What lets you do this is the case-marking on each of the words that tells you which is the subject, which the object, etc. (You can do this in Turkish, too, I just can't find examples.) English does this with word order, but if the case is already riding on the word, the word order becomes much less important.

Well, in the ASL sentence I mentioned above, CAT DOG CHASE, there's a very important marker riding on CAT that indicates that it's the object of the sentence. It consists of raised eyebrows and a forward-tilted head: easy to miss for a nonnative speaker, but the difference between a grammatical sentence and an ungrammatical sentence, just as in Latin. There are other markers involving eye gaze, torso postion, and the location and movement of the verb, but again, easy as they are not to notice, but they are grammatically significant (and so complex that linguists are only now even *beginning* to figure this stuff out).

The point being that, in most cases, you can in fact put signs together in any number of different orders (although OSV and SVO are the most common) and, as long as you get the markers right, the sentence is grammatical. But since the markers are really subtle, it's very easy to think that you can string signs together any old way and it won't make a difference.

Now ... put this together with the fact that signed languages are minority languages whose speakers generally don't expect members of the majority community to be able to speak. Imagine you're a tourist lost in Ethnostan. You're trying to get directions but no one speaks English - but finally you find someone who tells you:

"Store of clothings you walk easy to - it is just the street you are crossing for six cubes, then on the side of your right."

That isn't grammatical English - but are you going to stop the helpful Ethnostani and tell him why his syntax is faulty, or are you going to gratefully accept his help because, after all, you can figure out what he was trying to say?

Well, that's what the Deaf community is like, by and large. If a hearing person turns out to be able to sign, it's a pleasant surprise, however rudimentary that person's signing turns out to be. And since popular belief is that only Deaf people will ever be able to master the language (and indeed are the only people who are entitled to master the language), there's no incentive to correct a hearing person's signing as long as he or she is making some sort of sense.

So ... the actual word order is relatively loose, governed only by cues that are often too subtle to notice; and even when you do royally muck up the word order and other elements of the language, no one calls you on it as long as you make yourself understood. It's then super-easy to assume that there *is* no "concrete way to say things" other than how you "describe what you mean." Even if, from a grammatical point of view, that's not actually the case.


*smile* Can you tell I study sign linguistics for fun and profit? (Well, mostly for fun. If you find a way to make significant profits in academia, do let me know!)

Yes, Maeve, those examples do work in Latin. In Latin prose, the words can end up in just about any order (though the Romans did have some suggested word order... having the sentence with words in completely 'reversed' order was not common). Fortunately, poetry has meter to consider, which restricts the word order by short and long syllables.

Huzzah for classicists!

Yeah, it's funny, even in so-called "free word-order" languages, there are definitely orders that are more and less frequent. I remember a Turkish TA of mine going off on how only a blundering oaf would utter a particular sentence - which she nevertheless had to concede was grammatical. She actually said blundering oaf, which made me very happy. :c)

In ASL and LSQ, as I (think I) mentioned (but may very well not have), the most common orders are OSV and SVO, but what often determines the order of a given sentence is the movement of the verb involved. If it's what's called a "directional" or "orientational" verb, it will move from the actor/agent to the recipient of the action (patient, theme, locus, beneficiary, etc.). In most cases, this corresponds to "from the subject to the object." The trick is, for these, to have to sign the object first, in order to assign it a particular space so that the verb can then *go* there. This is why you get so much OSV - SVO is usually only found with verbs that don't have movements at all, or in signing that's heavily influenced by English.

Huzzah again, this time for 3D syntax. :c)

I'm glad my brain hasn't ossified too much... it only took me a second to 'translate' OSV into Object Subject Verb.
'Course, I always had trouble when gerunds and gerundives came into the picture. The only way I remembered their function was to consider them 'verbal nouns' and 'verbal adjectives', respectively...

Has anyone yet made a Lego syntax set, so that you could fit grammar items together? That would be fun for linguaphiles, I think.

Frickin' fascinating. I mean it. I could sit down with a bucket of coffee and a pack of cigarettes and pick your brain for hours. Of course, with all that caffeine I'd probably prattle on at an exaggerated speed, diverging into about 8 million topics. (Now I'm all paranoid about my grammar, heh) Ignore me, it's late.

~Mori

Heehee! Glad you enjoyed that - and if you're worried about a caffeine OD, I'll be happy to help you finish off the bucket. }:cD

*grips bucket possesively* Alright, I'll share, but only if you give me chocolate and tell me about things I don't yet know.
~Mori

The chocolate's all yours (don't eat sugar), and I'll answer (or try to answer) anything you ask. :c)

Yeah, but like - can you still do it with Monk staring at us like that?

~Mori

ya get used to it after a while.

...it's a power kick. *GRIN*

Not all of us have gotten used to it. Darn dirty Monkey. *G*

I'm Apple, and I approve this message.

If a monkey is clean, he's probably someone's pet. That, or he has his own butler.
"Ook ook ook!"
"Yes sir, your banana bath is ready. Shall I prepare your organ grinder?"
"Oooooook!"
"Yes sir, and a pleasant day to you as well."

(In search of a clever .sig line...)

I know, with some twisted glee, that I'm not the only one that heard the butler's voice as British. *G*

I'm Apple, and I approve this message.

I vote for the second one.

~Mori

May i watch? And you should both be wearing something in leather (skip the whip if you like) and talking in a gravelly whisper.

So.....it goes under the bay???