Fw: searching for some ASL signs

[Don & Theresa G]

I think Tane sent this to me directly by accident, and not to the list as
she probably intended.  I'm forwarding this to the list.  Apologies if you
guys already got this message.

To Tane:  Thanks for the positive comments!

--Don G.

----- Original Message -----
From: Tane Akamatsu <tanea at ibm.net>
To: Don & Theresa G <DonTheresaGrushkin at email.msn.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 1999 2:08 PM
Subject: Re: searching for some ASL signs


> I'm not going to get into any arguments about how valid any of the
invented
> signs are; some seem to have been incorporated into ASL (but not ATOM, to
my
> knowledge).
>
> I raise a hearty "hurrah" for fingerspelling, however, for exactly the
reasons
> Don has mentioned.  Way to go!
>
> Tane Akamatsu
>
>
> Don & Theresa G wrote:
>
> > > I'm pretty sure I have seen a sign for 'atom'. It's been a long time,
but
> > I
> > > believe it was:
> > >
> > >      nondominant fingerspelling "A", neutral space, thumb-edge
uppermost
> > >      dominant fingerspelling "A" circling it
> > >
> > > So far it looks a lot like YEAR, but I *think* the circling movement
was
> > in an
> > > approximately horizontal plane, distinguishing it from the sagittal
(i.e.,
> > > vertical-front-back) plane of the movement of YEAR.
> > >
> > > The derivation is apparently the traditional "planetary" model of the
> > atom, with
> > > electrons circling the nucleus, plus initialization, producing Type 2
in
> > > Battison's typology of two-handed signs (non-neutral handshape on
passive
> > > nondominant hand; by Symmetry Condition, same as dominant handshape).
> > >
> > >    Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist and Manager of Acoustic Data
> >
> > Mark:
> >
> > Your description sounds like an "invented" or "ad-hoc" sign developed
for
> > use in the classroom.  While it does seem to conform to Battison's
typology
> > for ASL, I would be leery of accepting it as an ASL sign.  The "A"
handshape
> > alone in the sign suggests to me it is an initialized sign (although
> > admittedly, the "A" handshape is one of the 5 basic handshapes).  My own
> > intuition is, if one were to develop an ASL-based sign for "atom", it
would
> > be based on a classifier, probably using the "F" handshape and the sign
> > would be more iconically representative of an atom's (or its
electron's --
> > are those the ones that move around the nucleus? or was that the
protons?)
> > movements.
> >
> > One point of my article was to try to discourage the use of these
> > "invented"/initialized or "ad-hoc" signs, since they are not understood
or
> > known outside of the limited classroom community, and the students don't
> > learn to use the spelling of these words in the natural context, or
cannot
> > spell the words when the sign is not understood by a conversational
partner.
> >
> > --Don Grushkin
>
>
>
>
>