Deaf clubs where many deaf people meet up, oppose such tactics, and say this is imposing on their social time, or impinging on their deaf ‘space’ or even the feel like guinea pigs….

There is no compulsary requirement for hearing learners of sign language to do this ‘immersion’ and gain direct experience to add to their skills as terps, or simply those who want to work with the deaf. A lot ask for it…but often it just doesn’t happen.

Therefore it must follow sign tuition is incomplete without that experience, a terp can gain academic sign skills and pass exams and go straight to the street and work with that, while having no direct experience.

If they meet a signer who signs nothing like the tutors they had….

If you learn a ‘trade’ or vocation, then an element of working in the field is a prime requirement, why not working with deaf ? but if deaf won’t go with it…. then the experience has to be gained the hard way, and by trial and error…

“As I am aware all BSL in my country is taught using English grammar and associated text material.”

If in this regard, it should have been called “SEB” instead of “BSL”. SEB means “Signing Exact British”. SEB is equivalent of SEE#1 and SEE#2 in the USA.

What do you mean Deaf won’t coomperate in relation to immersion classes?

ASL has to be discussed in ASL BEFORE it can be discussed in English as there is the very real danger of bastardization or creolization of ASL with English thrown in.

CI is a piece of technology, and NOT a language, therefore has no place in THIS particular discussion. CI will be discussed in another blog posting…simply not in this one.

Shel

Shel

An excellent blogpost.

Not many books are accurately, correctly, or properly translated into English from foreign languages according to Daddy who was an international foreign language translator in Europe for Washington, He had done a number of exegeses on books translated in English from foreign languages by some translators. Some of early works, as he noted, were incorrectly translated from foreign languages into English LITERALLY instead of EQUIVALENTLY; thereby causing the loss of the original meanings of velvetly rich idioms (in Boris Pasternak’s “Doctor Zhivago”, for one). Not only that, but Daddy also accounted for the loss of the rich original French idioms in the Moliére plays unbeknowst to some Broadway critics — idioms that are supposed to be much more bellylaughing. and much funnier.

Back to square one, it is not easy for a signer who is not proficient in English to accuately translate from ASL into English. Can a xenophobically monolingual American signer really translate “Train finish zoom sorry”? A person proficient in bilinual ASL and English can easily (translate EQUIVALENTLY : “Sorry, but I will not tell you what John Doe has said because you did not pay to what he has said. Your fault!”) Would the Rim understand Carl’s translation from his ASL vlogs nto English? Most unlikely in that the Rim does not use BSL and ASL.

Someone has said above that ASL is not grammatical. Indeed, ASL does meet the universal rules of grammar (Chomsky, 1957). It is, therefore, wrong to say that ASL is ungrammatical sans structure and syntax. It is. Anyone who denies it as a grammatical lanuage is not a scholar in linguistics. ASL is a unique language and has since 1960s become one of the most unique languages (Pinker, 1994).

I meant to say that transcription is impossible for ASL, as ASL is NOT based on English.

My apologies for the confusion.

Shel

Dianrez,
I would like to clarify: I did not say translation was impossible, but I did say TRANSCRIPTION is impossible for ASL, as ASL is based on English.

Don G,

I do see your point about why you found the spat amusing due to the behaviours that occurred.

MM,

Firstly, when I published your first comment, it had absolutely nothing to do with courage. Rather, I allowed you to have your say here especially since you figured in my blog.

Unfortunately, I’m not able to email you as blogspot.com apparently doesn’t allow me to obtain your email address. If you wish to give it to me, you can do so on my blog, and I can email you from there, and delete that information rather than publish it on my blog.

Secondly, you would do well to listen to what Carl had to say in his comment here, and reflect upon that. I realize there are hard feelings between you and Carl, but I would hope you would open your mind and heart this time because he gave valid points about experiencing tragedy, humilation, and marginalization to understand language bigotry. He is trying to educate you on that point. Self-examination is always a good idea for each of us.

JR,

You are quite correct that ASL and English are quite different grammatically, so that simply supports my point about the transcription issue.

You made an interesting analogy, by the way.

Carl,

Thank you for adding your points, which are valid as I’ve just told MM. I just wish I had thought of that for my blog post.

I’m aware Kalalau’s Korner is set up for a specific audience… the Deaf… or ASL people. Speaking of which, my kids miss your vlogs that were geared towards children such as the arm twisting things, and ASL Dragon stories. I do miss those, too.

Shel

I did not publish your latest comment as I would like people to stick to the topic at hand, and remain civil.

Thank you!

Shel