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HOW DEAF PEOPLE COMMUNICATE (Series 2)
Page 8
LEARNING SIGN LANGUAGE
After you learn some signs, you will want to use them. There are different
ways deaf people put signs together to express ideas. They may follow
the grammar of American Sign Language (ASL). Ways of putting signs together
in ASL are different from the ways we put words together in English. Learning
a sign language can be like learning any foreign language. Foreign languages
are not like English. Neither is American Sign Language. It has its own
grammatical rules.
Sometimes, however, deaf people use signs in English word order. Look
at the following illustration. You will see some identical signs in each
"sentence. " But you will notice that the ASL sentence is very different
from the sentence signed in English word order.
The English sentence, "Have you eaten yet?" looks different signed in
American Sign Language and in English word order.
As you learn more about sign language, you will
learn that it involves more than hand movements.
Facial expression is very important whenever a person uses signs to
communicate. For example, if a deaf
person asked you the question in the illustration, you
would see more than the signs shown here. You
would see raised eyebrows. This raising of the eyebrows signals a question in any signed communication, just the way you signal one by raising your voice
when you ask a question.
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