Does ASL fulfill your university/college Foreign Language Requirement?

[Barbara LeMaster]

Hi Jennifer,

Am sending this to the whole list as these questions come up for many 
of us, and the resources listed below might be of use to others....

I will give you quick answers to your questions below, and can follow 
up with more detailed information if you do not get it elsewhere (I am 
trying to get some writing done today and may forget to get back to 
this!)

Barbara
On Feb 21, 2007, at 9:42 AM, Jennifer Dickinson wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> The College of Arts and Sciences at my university is considering (once 
> again) whether to include ASL in the list of languages that fulfill 
> the foreign language requirement.  I have been asked to gather some 
> background resources for consideration by the college curriculum 
> committee, although I do not have much knowledge of sign languages 
> beyond that of your "average" linguistic anthropologist.  If any of 
> you could provide information related to the questions below, it would 
> be a great supplement to the materials I have been putting together, 
> and I will be happy to summarize the information and post it back to 
> the list in a week or two.  Here is what would be most helpful for me 
> to know given the questions that are being raised here at UVM, but 
> feel free to send me other information or key sources!
>
> 1.  Does your university/college have a foreign language requirement, 
> how many semesters/credits is it, and can students take ASL to satisfy 
> the requirement?

CSULB does not have a foreign language requirement, but we do have a 
general education requirement that foreign language fulfills.  I have 
just submitted paperwork to have ASL accepted as a course taught 
through our Linguistics department, and to have it satisfy the same GE 
as the other foreign languages here at state.

At UCLA I used ASL as to qualify as my field language for my PhD in the 
Department of Anthropology.  Marina McIntire was the first to have ASL 
count as her language for her PhD at UCLA - she was in the Linguistics 
department there, and predated me, of course.

BTW, one of my MA students will use Eritrean Sign Language to qualify 
as her language for the MA in Anthropology here at CSULB.
>
> 2.  Can you recommend resources on how other universities have 
> resolved this issue? (I'm thinking of sites along the lines of BU's 
> http://www.bu.edu/asllrp/fl/)

Go to Sherman Wilcox' website - he has resources there, including a 
fact sheet on ASL, to help you with this.  
web.mac.com/swilcox/iWeb/UNM/ASL.html

He has information on other colleges/universities that accept it.
>
> 3.  Can you recommend good resources that discuss Deaf culture(s) as 
> distinct from mainstream American culture, and that would be 
> accessible to a non-linguist/non-anthropologist reader?

Go to this website - it gives you what you need to know:  
http://facstaff.gallaudet.edu/harry.markowicz/asl/

(or google "fact and fancy")
>
> 4.  Any information/studies on ASL writing systems OR equivalent 
> sources on a visual literature for ASL?

ASL is not a written language, although many are now working on a 
written version of ASL.  There is, however, a rich literature on ASL.  
Look at various publishers' websites, e.g., SIGN Media, Inc., DAWN SIGN 
Press, Gallaudet Press.

E.g., Poetry:  Ella Lentz, Dot Miles, etc.

Susan something out of UC Berkeley wrote about Deaf folklore.  There is 
a lot on this, maybe others can fill in the blanks.


Good luck with it.  BTW, am happy to answers questions about this any 
time.

Barbara
>
>
>
>
> ----
> Jennifer Dickinson
> Assistant Professor
> Dept. of Anthropology
> University of Vermont
>
>
*****************************************************
Dr. Barbara LeMaster
Professor
Departments of Anthropology and Linguistics
FO3-320
California State University, Long Beach
1250 Bellflower Boulevard
Long Beach, CA 90840
(562) 985-5037
(562) 985-4379 (fax)
lemaster at csulb.edu
***************************************************