Brochure Review: American Sign Language

American Sign Language Brochure Review American Sign Language: A Look at History, Structure, and Community by Charlotte Baker and Carol Padden serves as a beginner’s guide for new ASL learners. Topics including the history of American Sign Language, the Deaf community, and the basic building blocks of ASL including grammar, movement, and expression are discussed in a way that a person with no prior knowledge on the subject can easily understand and appreciate. American Sign Language is one of the many different types of sign languages used throughout the world. It is a language that is composed of gestures using the hands, arms, face, and body to depict a certain word or idea, and was created as a way of communication between hard of hearing and deaf individuals. While there is not much information known about sign language in America before 1817, it is assumed that deaf people in America have been using

Locations of signs can be on the head, chest, waist, or the area in front of the signer, but never occur on the knees, feet, or behind the signer’s head. The majority of signs are done near the signer’s face because that is where the listener’s eyes are focused. When signing with both hands, the signer’s dominant hand will move while the other stays stationary. If both hands require movement, then both hands will share the same hand shape. This is because it is nearly impossible for people to do two entirely different hand movements simultaneously. In addition to hand signs, hand movement, expression, palm placement, and body movement, all have an affect on the meaning of a sign. For example, signing the word “blue” requires a small back and forth hand movement with the “b” sign. If you change the small movement into one long downward movement, the meaning of the sign changes from “blue” to “deep blue”. Different movements of the hand can completely change it’s