as a result of the long history of interaction between American Sign
Language and English we find that the two languages exist on a continuum
by continuum we mean that there are various forms of language that are more
like ASL and others that are more like English and then it's rare to find
within the continuum a pure form of either language that is it's rare that
you're going to find a person signing in a way that you recognize no English
influence
it's also rare that you're going to find a person signing in a way that
exclusively represents English as a result most of the time you see
something in the middle
this is common in situations where you have one language that exists within a
larger area of another language
for instance in Jamaica many people there speak a language called patois
now if you ask a Jamaican they often say that is simply broken English
but as a linguist we recognize that it has its own rules its own structure and
it's unintelligible to english speakers but it's rare to hear a person simply
speaking patois you can find that but more often you find a person speaking
patois with english thrown in in more formal settings they might speak more
english and in less formal settings more intimate settings you'll find more and
more patois
as a result you find this continuum this movement between the two languages and
that's exactly what we find between ASL and English
now when deaf people use the term ASL
they often mean something that is less precise than what ASL linguist mean for
deaf people
ASL is simply anything that is not an invented form of sign language
if it uses the signs that deaf people know and use whether they're in
ASL word order whether they're in pse or pidgin signed English which is sort of a
mixture of ASL and English weather they're in case which is basically exact English
word order as long as the signs are ASL signs and not those invented signs for
going with word endings and invented signs or am is are was were
things like that
then people say that's ASL deaf people don't differentiate between whether or
not the grammar looks more like the ASL grammar or more like the English grammar
at least not most of the time now they see a person signing these invented
signs are signing cued speech which is a representation of the sounds of English
then they'll say oh that's definitely not ASL
so just be clear the deaf community tends to use the term ASL in a broader
way than linguists do now ASL linguist recognize this continuum that we've
already spoken about the continuum exists between ASL in english in such a
way that you can find forms of ASL that have very little borrowing from English
with the rules that we've been learning about now
but that's very rare in modern ASL we usually find some borrowing from English
this will occasionally be one of those SEE signs we talked about that's
borrwed in or perhaps english word order appearing or English mouthing appearing
now in the very middle between english and ASL you find contact side
that's just a broad term sometimes you'll find more specific terms like PSE
or CASE
conceptually accurate signed English these contact signs generally try to
follow English like structure but they're still using some ASL features
such as space classifiers perhaps role shifting and they they will still be a
mixture of ASL and English in these now as you move down the continuum towards
SEE signs you see did
these invented sign systems that were originally intended to teach their
children how to read but that have sometimes replaced ASL and this will
include lots of initialized signs that replace widely used ASL signs these
invented signs for grammatical terms that ASL doesn't have these invented
word endings that will then be signed to mirror the english word endings and this
is where deaf people stop using the term ASL when they see SEE sign language
they generally say that's not ASL and then finally rochester method which uses
fingerspelling to spell every English word in the exact English word order
that would be the most like pure English that you would find on the continuum
now we need to make sure you have a clear understanding of what CASE is that
conceptually accurate sign English especially those of you that are going
to be sign language interpreters because it's quite common CASE generally uses
English word order or strives to use English word order although it might use
a little bit more initialization than regular American Sign Language
it's also going to use a lot of mouthing to show the specific english words that
the signers trying to convey rather than in ASL where the mouth doesn't convey
English terms but rather conveys mouth morephemes for verbs and adjectives and
those that are required for other signs CASE is going to use a lot of english
prepositions like and with and on but it will still use some classifiers and it's
not going to go so far as to use these invented signs that represent word
endings in the verb to be so it's going to look a lot like ASL with lots of the
features though it's going to be in order that's going to be more familiar
to english speaker this is very common for interpreters to use when they have
clients who request that they show the exact a representation of the exact
English now within the deaf community
english is valued on different levels where the ability to talk is
simply not very valued
this doesn't mean it's looked down upon it's just simply not something that's
discussed
I have interacted within the deaf community for a long time
remember situation where i was signing with a person and then suddenly that
person turn to a hearing person and use their voice to say something
I had no idea that person could use their voice because in the Deaf community it just
simply never comes up
it's not a good thing or bad thing it's just not valued in signing the ability
to use English somewhat valued the ability to code switch between english
and ASL is looked at as I as a mark of intelligence and as a mark of
prestige but it's only used in certain situations if you had a deaf person who
simply could not use ASL and only use the signed English system that would
certainly be frowned upon and then of course english is valued in the
community
- right people deaf people who
have a good command of English are often sought out in the community to help with
interpreting letters to help write
fill out forms and to just help other deaf people navigate the English world
so as we think about this code switching between ASL and CASE or PSE we can
recognize certain instances where code-switching is used
first of all it's a market prestige in the deaf community has this ambivalence
about using English on the one hand English is frowned upon English is
seen as sort of a mark of a hearing person on the other hand in a formal
setting such as a National Association of the Deaf business meeting or perhaps
on a discussion between two deaf intellectual you will often see English used
and english is sort of seen as a mark of intelligence or a mark of
worldliness and as a result of this ambivalence does exist English is
on a whole not something that's accepted in the community but on the
other hand is seen as a mark of pride and related to that informal situations
often you're going to see the English used again the deaf community has this
ambivalence toward this and this is starting to change
more and more deaf people are recognizing that there's no reason
English needs to be used in formal settings and ASL certainly could be used
but because of this tradition you will often find people who switch to more
English like signing in formal settings
the one place where English is definitely used in the deaf community is
in communication with hearing people by and large the deaf community agrees that
when a hearing person who's learning to sign starts to sign then English like
signing is going to be used and this is where you're going to see lots of CASE
or PSE used to communicate with you
this can sometimes be frustrating for a person learning the language who wants
to see the pure form of ASL
but instead often sees this code switching this mixture between
CASE & PSE