ASL exist in a world surrounded by English ASL users often have to use
English in order to communicate with the hearing world as well as to communicate
with one another through things like text email and other written forms of
communication
so it's not surprising that English exerts a great deal of influence on
American Sign Language
now traditionally ASL has been transmitted by deaf families deaf
schools and the community deaf children from deaf family learned ASL from their
parents they were native signers the children who did not have deaf parents
which is the great majority of deaf people would go to deaf schools where
they would interact with other children and other deaf adults who used ASL plus
when they went to the schools they learned ASL and then those few deaf
people who didn't go to the schools or who became deaf later in life or perhaps
who are hard of hearing and attended hearing schools and later joined the
community would then learn from people who attended deaf schools thus ASL was
somewhat insulated from English as its users often interacted with other fluent
users
however today we see the things have changed
there are still deaf families who still teach their children ASL
however a great many deaf people are educated in mainstream settings through
interpreters these interpreters might learn some sign language in the
community but often learn in universities as a result
ASL is transmitted in a very different way and because interpreters are by and
large hearing people who interpret for deaf people those interpreters often use
a mixture of ASL and English
thus the English that's transmitted in the deaf community is more heavily
influenced by english today than it had been before mainstreaming became common
moreover in the universitys ASL is often taught by hearing people who may
or may not be native signers and may or may not model native signing again this
is an opportunity for english to intrude into the ASL world
as a result we see a lot of English cropping up in sign language today and
this in itself is not something that's surprising
it's very common to have a language that exists within a region where another
language is spoken and have that smaller language absorb a lot of the grammatical
features and even words and idioms from the larger language ASL also experiences
some unique forms of oppression in the forms of oralism deaf children who are
who learn
spoken english and are often discouraged from using ASL the use of signed
English which is an invented system of English that initializes ASL signs so
that they look more like english words and that invents english-based signs for
those terms that are not found in ASL such as invented signs for the verb to
be am is are was were be beeing been each having its own individual sign this is
common in many mainstream settings as a way of teaching children to read and as
a result these invented signs often lead over into the sign language that these
deaf people use when they're not in the educational setting
finally cochlear implants are becoming more and more prevalent and as a result
there are fewer users of ASL who do not also use English because cochlear
implants are very effective at providing sound to children who are deaf and
these children often switch back and forth between the Deaf and hearing
worlds and as a result are using more and more English large portions of their
life they can carry this English over into their their communication and
the Deaf world as well