ASL or Signed English?


I have two qestions about this:
1. What's the difference between the two? From what I've heard, they're pretty similar.
2. Which one is used in the movie?

The wonderful thing about tiggers is I'm the only one!

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1. What's the difference between the two? From what I've heard, they're pretty similar.

The difference between the two is like asking what's the difference between French & html -- I hear they're pretty similar. AsL is a language with syntax, grammatical rules, additions and all the other stuff that goes along with living languages. Signed English is a code. What you are basically doing is taking another language's words (or in this case, Signs) & putting them in English word order.


2. Which one is used in the movie?

I haven't seen this film in years but from my best recollection both are used. When Deaf people are signing to other Deaf people I would bet it's ASL. If a hearing person is signing and speaking at the same time, that's a dead giveaway that it's Signed English.

Does that help?

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Yes. It's makes more sense now. Thank you for clearing things up for me.

The wonderful thing about tiggers is I'm the only one!

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ASL is a bit like simplified English. Whereas an English sentence might say "I am going to the store to get beans", the ASL would be "Go store I get beans", or such. Yes, ASL is a different language, but I find it much easier than English. Rather than "I want to hit you right now " the signs would be *points to self, smacks hands together, points at person* Basically, there is less conjugation and almost no use of words like the, is, or, etc.
Youd find that lady luck was a hooker, and you were fresh outta cash

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I must completely disagree with this one. ASL is NOT simplified English. That's like saying Spanish is simplified English just because they put adjectives AFTER the noun.

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... and it uses Spanish words.

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This is a pretty ignorant response. If you've ever studied ASL you'd know that it's a completely separate language, and while easily translated into English, it's actually closer to French.

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Little correction here. ASL is closer to French sign language than it is British sign language, even though the spoken languages in the US and Britain are closer than the US and France. This is because the first school for the deaf in this country was started with the help of a French teacher of the deaf that was brought over from France.

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A lot of opinions on here.

First of all Marlee is spot on when she wants to sign ASL and the biggest sin in this movie is when she's signing something important and all i see is Hurts mouth speaking.

There are many variations of sign language all over the world. There are about four that are really relevant to the USA though.

1. Gestural Sign. Signing using gestures that even hearing people can understand. This is NOT a language. However a crude means of communication, that is often necessary for the Deaf community.

2. SEE. Or Sign Exact English. Its not a separate language from English anymore than morse code is its own language. It means that for every word spoken in English a sign will be produced to represent that word. This is the English Language. The issue with this is that English takes up no space at all, whereas signing is 3-D and can be difficult to produce within those barriers.

3. PSE. This is Pidgin Signed English. PSE is not only English or only ASL but a combination of the two. Its like when you kinda know Spanish and you meet someone who kinda knows English and it produces Spanglish. PSE is very common. Marlee uses it often. Not so much in this movie, however later on in her life she does, and a lot of the sign language I see produced within the public realm is often PSE, not a bad thing. Deaf people can tend toward this for many reasons. The first is that almost all Deaf people are bilingual, they know English because they have to learn to read it, and they sign ASL. So its no surprise that they often sign in a combination of the two. The second is that 90% of Deaf children are born to hearing parents. So IF the parents choose to learn sign language they will probably never develop ASL proficiency and therefore at least within their own family the child will have to communicate using PSE. Also many Deaf people have told me that they choose to speak this way around hearing signers as well as interpreters because they can still express themselves and the other person can more fully understand them.

4. ASL. American Sign Language is often viewed as the person above said "a cruder or simpler form of English" . Well it has nothing to do with English so I choose not to go any further with that.

ASL is a 3-D language and has its own set of many rules and like any other language will take you a minimum of two years to become fluent.

Feel free to correct me if I made any mistakes, and I appreciate all of ya'lls interest in ASL.

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That's really an ignorant response. What about classifiers? Those are seperate from pronouns and to say "like simplified English...different language" is contradictory.

And for "I am going to the store to get beans" I'd interpret that as STORE ME GO, FOR-FOR? BEANS WANT.

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I'm in an American Sign Language class.

Like in english -
What are you doing tomorrow?

ASL Gloss -
TOMORROW YOU DO-DO WHAT?

The grammar is totally different from English. It's a whole different language.




-[I will love you forever]-

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ASL is used exclusively. When hearing people speak as they sign, they are interpreting not translating. There are a few instances where I noticed a fuller use of pronouns and such than is typical in ASL, but it could have been for emphasis (for example, Matlin signs each word of "no, I'm not fine" when I would have expect "no, not fine").

I should be able to love my country and still love justice. —Camus

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ASL is a 100% visual language. Signing English is signing the way this is written EXACTLY.

Lets say someone threw a blue ball past your body very fast. In English sign you would sign "The blue ball went by fast!". In ASL you would sign a blue ball whizzing fast past your body. One is totally visual and does not rely on "syntax", the other does.

"I hope you don't mind but I took the liberty of fertilizing your caviar!" Dr Zoidberg, Futurama

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Do you mean ASL is used exclusively as in ASL versus British Sign Language? Then yes, all the signs are ASL. However if you mean ASL is used exclusively and there is no signed English in the film, then I must disagree with you, Dehlia. Anytime William Hurt speaks & signs simultaneously (which he does often) then he is using signed English. Trying to speak English and sign ASL at the same time is difficult because they are 2 different languages.

Now I think Marlee Matlin goes back and forth between the 2 depending on the situation -- talking with Hurt vs. the party with the Deaf faculty. I haven't seen the film in ages so I cannot give a specific example at this time.

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Harriette, when I posted, I had seen the movie within days, so it was pretty fresh in my mind. You're probably right about Hurt, I watched Matlin more closely.

I should be able to love my country and still love justice. —Camus

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Matlin was great so she was definitely worth watching. Hurt was Hurt. His signing is awful (IMO) but Matlin did an amazing job considering how young she was at the time. The scene where she talks about what it was like when she came home from school was heartbreaking.

Chatting about this has caused me to add "Children" to my Netflix queue & bump it to the front.

Dehlia, just wondering. Are you Deaf or do you Sign? You speak knowlegably so that's why I ask.

Nice chatting with you.

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What do you mean the word "I" is not used in ASL?

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I used to learn BSL, and instead of "I" we used "ref", as in we would point at either ourselves or another person for "you" etc.

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