Heather: Can you leave out words like "it"
"so" "the", etc. when signing?
DrVicars: Yes. Signed English strives to include all those words as
separate signs, but ASL simply incorporates them into other signs,
non-manual markers (body language and facial expressions), or uses indexing.
When you sign ASL your aren't really "leaving those signs out.
You are simply expressing them in other ways. For example, the sign
"to." If I want to say, "Do you like to eat
ice-cream?" I would raise my eyebrows slightly, tilt my head
forward a bit, and sign, "YOU LIKE ICE-CREAM?" The word
"to" is not necessary for that sentence. Even in English I
can get rid of the word "to" by simply choosing different English
words, for example: "Do you like eating ice-cream," or
"You like ice-cream? [while inflecting my voice]"
Another example using "to" is the sentence "I am going to
the store." You would simply sign, "I GO STORE."
The sign "STORE" following the sign "GO" makes perfect
sense. The word "to" is incorporated into the sign
"GO" and doesn't need an extra sign. So rather than thinking
of the sign "GO" as the sign "GO" you should think of it
as the sign "GO-TO." That same idea applies to many ASL
signs like "WANT-TO" "HAVE-TO" "NEED-TO"
"LIKE-TO" "REMEMBER-TO." For example the
sentence, "You need to remember to go to the store" could be
signed "YOU NEED REMEMBER GO STORE" or it could be signed,
"HEY, STORE YOU GO NEED REMEMBER." (In real life, if I were
communicating with my wife, I'd simply sign "REMEMBER STORE.")
Another example, the word "it" can be done as an indexed
motion, (pointing at the "it").
"A, an, the" and "be verbs" are also either
incorporated into other signs, indexed (pointed at), signed as
"TRUE," or indicated through non-manual markers such as a nod of
So remember, even though ASL is not using a specific sign to show these
English words, the functions they serve are "still expressed," but
in a different form, (body, language, facial expression, syntax,
directionality, pointing, etc.)
One more example, with the "head-nod," I can say, "I am a
teacher" by signing "ME TEACHER <head-nod>" the
function of the words "am a" are taken care of by the head-nod.
Heather: Good! That helps a lot, because it's easier to get the point
across without them.
If you were sitting in a room with other signers waiting for the class to
begin and you wanted to know the name of your teacher you would sign: "WHO
TEACHER?" This would be understood as: "Who is our teacher?" Notice how we
don't need the sign OUR? You would only need the sign OUR if you had to
distinguish between your group's teacher and some other group's teacher.
In a message dated 4/27/2006 4:57:17 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
a student at csus.edu writes:
I'm studying and it occurred to me that sometimes when someone
asks a question in English they furrow their brow when they are
asking the question in disbelief, or concern. Is it legitimate
to use the same method to punctuate an ASL sentence if that is
the energy you want to put on question? It seems to me that
both the raised brow and furrowed would work to show concern.
Am I completely off base in regard to ASL?
Raised brows would show surprise or questioning the veracity of a
thing or idea.
So, in English, disbelief would be indicated with raised eyebrows.
Lowered brows would show disapproval or indicate a request for more
than a simple yes or no answer.
From what I've seen, it works that way in both English and ASL for
raised brows. English doesn't furrow the brows as much as ASL for
simple "wh-type" questions, but I suspect that if you were to
videotape Hearing people asking wh-type questions you would find a
number of them furrowing their brows slightly.