Shakespeare in ASL

[Scott or Pafra Catledge]

I agree.  "Us linguists" should take a lesson from persistent misconceptions.

----------
> This is surely an exaggeration and too severlely suggests the linguistic
> ignorance of chairs of deaf ed grad programs. In many places (a working
> group at UMass-Amherst, for example), therapists, deaf ed people, and
> linguists are working together to look at these problems and others (with a
> nice give-and-take, by the way). Walt Wolfram worked for years at the U of
> DC to establish principled linguistic research knoweldge among speech anhd
> hearing therapists, including those who work with the deaf.
> Unfortunately, as progress has been made in linguistic research (making it
> "harder"), it has been easier and easier for people with "real world"
> problems to ignore it. Let's hope that us linguists take a lesson from such
> persistent misconceptions as the one Beverly mentions and do moore to make
> the results of our work better know, particualrly among those for whom it
> is most important.
> It don't do no good to complain about being ignored if you don't
> (comprehesibly) toot your own horn.
>
> dInIs
>
>
>
>  >Probably one reason that the alleged myth persists is that chairs of
> graduate programs in Deaf Education give it to their graduate students as
> an acknowledged fact of life.
> >
> >----------
> >> For some reason, this 3rd grade level myth persists; I've heard it from my
> >> undergrads in both Education and Hearing and Speech.  According to one
> >> source (G. Yule, _The Study of Language_, 1996), Signed English, SEE, and
> >> oralism were encouraged instead of ASL because they were easier for hearing
> >> parents and others to learn, seemed more like "real language," and prepared
> >> students to read and write English--despite the fact that they take much
> >> longer to produce and interpret and therefore in practice result in
> >> incomplete or imprecise utterances.  That ASL might be a better and more
> >> efficient primary language, with written English taught as a second
> >> language (as Dennis implies below), has apparently been only recently
> >> understood by educators, though the deaf community has known this for a
> >> long time.
> >>
> >>
> >> At 05:53 PM 7/6/99 -0700, you wrote:
> >> >In Deaf Ed classes, we studied the basics of ASL, Signed English, and
> >> Signing Exact English.  Of these, only SEE [has] morphology, but not even
> >> it made a pretense of phonology,, much less phonetics.  All the languages
> >> studied had syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, of course.  The morphology
> >> of ASL seems more complex than English to the naive English learner because
> >> ASL is a "dialect" from French, not English.  I have yet to hear an
> >> explanation of why students who learn ASL are such low achievers when the
> >> few students who are fortunate enough to learn SEE do as well as if not
> >> better than their hearing classmates.  Unfortunately, it is politically
> >> incorrect to research such a point, and we are left with only anecdotes.
> >> >
> >> >----------
> >> >> One can only hope that the gist of this does not lie in the direction
> >>which
> >> >> I first understood. ASL, of course, is a fully developed, complex human
> >> >> language (with a phonetics, phonology, morphology [much more complex
> than
> >> >> English], syntax, semantics, and pragamtics). The idea that it is
> >> >> Tonto/Tarzan talk is simply a misunderstanding of the phrase "sign
> >> >> language."
> >> >>
> >> >> Further, the idea that learning it (and becoming proficient in it) would
> >> >> "retard' one's ability to read and/or write English is unfounded
> (similar,
> >> >> in fact, to the popular notion that children's acquisition of a second
> >> >> language might retard their advancement in their first or, more
> insidious,
> >> >> that continued development in their first might retard their acquisition
> >>of
> >> >> a second, the apparent foundation of "English Only" and anti-bilingual
> >> >> education measures roundly condemned by every responsible professional
> >> >> linguistics organization (e.g., LSA, AAAL).
> >> >>
> >> >> dInIs
> >> >>
> >> >> PS: One nice thing (among many others) about being from the South
> Midland
> >> >> (i.e., Hillbilly) area is that nobody wants to translate Shakespeare
> into
> >> >> our variety, since the popular press has told us that us shit-kickers
> >> >> already speak Elizabethan English.
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> >Just pretend that you are Tonto/Tarzan.  Why do you think that deaf
> >> students
> >> >> >graduate with an average achievement level of 3rd grade, as I was told
> >> in my
> >> >> >graduate Deaf Ed classes at UNF.
> >> >> >
> >> >> >----------
> >> >> >> Is anyone familiar with translation of dramatic works into American
> >>Sign
> >> >> >> Language?  I am assisting a dramatist who is in the process of
> >> translating
> >> >> >> _Twelfth Night_ into ASL and I am looking for works on translation
> >> and use
> >> >> >> of ASL in drama.
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> If you're interested, the website for this project can be found at:
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> www.yale.edu/asl12night
> >> >>
> >> >> Dennis R. Preston
> >> >> Department of Linguistics and Languages
> >> >> Michigan State University
> >> >> East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
> >> >> preston at pilot.msu.edu
> >> >> Office: (517)353-0740
> >> >> Fax: (517)432-2736
> >> >
>
> Dennis R. Preston
> Department of Linguistics and Languages
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
> preston at pilot.msu.edu
> Office: (517)353-0740
> Fax: (517)432-2736