How to Learn American Sign Language through Structure

The best way to learn American Sign Language is to enroll in a class taught by a Deaf person. If you are learning on your own, here are a few tips to guide your lessons that you may or may not receive from self-tutorial materials. Understanding the basic structure of ASL vocabulary will not only help you comprehend individual words easier, it will also help you better contextualize them into sentences and conversations. There are five basic parts to every sign: Handshape, Movement, Orientation, Location, and Non-manual cues (facial expressions). Changing one part can demonstrate a completely different word or add grammatical information to a word. Read on to learn more.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Visual aptitude
• ASL Handshape Dictionary
• ASL Self-Tutorial videos
• Deaf persons and/or other ASL students with whom to practice

1. Dominant hand: Your dominant hand is the hand you write with or use more often. If you are ambidextrous, choose one hand as your dominant signing hand. Although it is very useful to be able to sign confidently with both hands, in case your dominant hand is otherwise occupied, switching hands in everyday conversations is distracting for the person with whom you are communicating.

2. Handshape: Handshape refers literally, to the shape of the hand. There are 26 basic handshapes and their variations from which almost all ASL vocabulary words are derived. The more commonly used handshapes include: flat or bent B, V/#2, #1, L or curved L, ILY, F, A, flat #0, X or modified X, K or P, #5, C or claw, and S.

3. Orientation: Orientation refers to the direction that the palm of the hand is facing when forming the sign. This can be towards the sky (up), towards the ground (down), facing towards the signer (in), facing away from the signer (out), or facing perpendicular to the signer (right or left). Although it can be a very subtle feature to a particular sign, the palm orientation can completely change the meaning of a word. In addition, palm orientation can change throughout a sign with movement.

4. Movement: Every sign has a movement attached to it, even if the Location of the sign remains the same. Equally important to the movement is whether the sign includes pauses, called holds. Movements and holds of an individual word can change in context with other words, via dropping a hold or adding a movement, or they can add grammatical aspects to a word. Directionality of a movement can also add or change grammatical information about the sign, such as tense, plurality, and time lapse. For example, a signer expresses time and tense along an imaginary line that runs perpendicular to the body. Future words include movement forward and out away from the signer, past concepts include movement backwards and towards or behind the signer’s body and present time occurs at the body itself with no time-related movements.

5. Location: To a signer, use of signing space is inherent for clear communication. The location of the sign can tell you a lot about the basic meaning of the word as well as other contextual information about the word. There are basic areas for a sign to take place that may or may not affect the meaning of the sign. For example, signs around the head usually relate to cognition or mental states. Signs around the chest area can relate to feelings or states of being. Again, time and tense can also be location-dependent in conjunction with movement.

6. Non-manual cues (facial expressions): A native ASL speaker uses facial expressions to express much of the grammar of this visual language. Facial cues are the punctuation of ASL defining the type of sentence you are stating or asking. For example, a Yes/No question uses raised eyebrows (as does rhetorical questions) while an open-ended question (who, what, why, where, how) uses furrowed brows. Facial cues can also express size (small or large) and distance (near or far).

Tips & Warnings

• An ASL Handshape Dictionary can help you understand structure as it categorizes every sign through its handshape, not its English equivalent.
• As ASL is a visual, active language, practicing with native signers or people who are learning the same language as you can help tremendously.
• As with any language that develops naturally, ASL has been greatly affected by the more dominant language surrounding it. As a result, it can be confusing to differentiate accepted ASL words from “initialized signs,” which use the first letter of the equivalent English word to form the sign.
• Be aware of the various forms of Manually Coded English such as SEE (Signing Exact English) and Pigeon Sign that can distract and confuse you from learning correct ASL structure and vocabulary.