Learning Sign Language

Learning sign language has many different aspects that go into it. As stated from the website Medicine Net, ASL parents are often the source of a child 's early acquisition of language, and being around it at an early age the child will pick it up just like a spoken child was (para. 7). Being around language either hearing it or seeing it a child will be curious and begin to pick it up naturally. The same article supports the idea that age is critical when learning a language, to become fully competent exposure must begin as early as possible (para. 9). When one is young parents begin to read, and try and talk to children. Many parents will use the same simple words over and over and the children will naturally learn it. Finally stated from

Signing relies on the hands and body a lot. David Stewart and Barbara Stahlman, writers for the The Signing Family, states that the signing space is the area between the hips to the top of the head, from the body to the forward and sideways reaches of the hands (3). Most signs happen in the front of the body, there may be signs that start behind and come to the front. Stewart and Stahlman continues on by noting that nothing stops a signer from signing outside of the signing space, but those who do are usually exaggerating something (62). The signing space is basically as far as one can reach in both directions, so it would be hard to exceed those boundaries. If one does it is very uncommon, but sometimes people have to do it to exaggerate something. As mentioned by J.G Kyle and B. Woll, in the book The Study of Deaf People and their Language, moving the hand to a certain position on the body will have a certain meaning for a word; different points on the body may serve for locations for hands (86). Hands are most valuable in sign language, because they are used in every sign a signer uses. Kyle and Woll continues on by noting that when using left and right it refers to dominant and non-dominant, and most signers are right hand dominant making most signs on right hand (84). Majority of today 's society is right handed, and most signs are used with the right hand rather than the left. Kyle and Woll states back to the points of the body by saying signers look at each others faces rather than their hands because there are many points of the body around the head (86). Behavior is a key aspect when listening or reciting sign language. According to Michelle Jay, in the article “Deaf Culture,” states that in hearing culture it is rude to stare, but in deaf culture staring is necessary; if one breaks eye contact while signing it is incredibly rude (para. 9). When following a conversation in