Today I got an email from the sign language linguistics email list that announced a new dinosaur comic about sign language.
Spoiler alert! Look at the comic now if you want to be surprised before reading on. Not that there’s much of a plot…
So first off, I’m not really sure how I feel about dinosaur comics. They’re dead, extinct, gone. Is it fair to make fun of them when they can’t defend themselves? I’m reminded of the caveman ads for Geico.
In all seriosity, this comic shows a new direction in the awareness of sign language and perhaps shows that there’s a standard on the rise. With ASL classes becoming increasingly popular at colleges/universities and Baby ASL spreading with each play date and Fockers movies, the old myths about sign language are thankfully disappearing (albeit slowly). Thoughts like “signs are like pictures”, “sign language has no grammar”, and so on are being challenged by contemporary understanding of ASL and sign languages in general. (Although the dinosaur in the comic does say “many of the signs are really evocative”…)
The dinosaur in the comic states that nouns can be “placed” in space and then adjectives that modify them can be signed in the space the noun was placed. For example, if I signed BOY on the right and GIRL on the left. I could, according to the dinosaur, then sign SILLY on the right to describe the boy and FUNNY on the left to describe the girl.
This gives me pause. Do I actually do that? Hmm, I don’t think so. Do people I know do that? Hmm, I don’t think so. (I have to point immediately after signing the adjective to the particular space I’m referring to.) But I haven’t attended any ASL classes and I don’t know what’s being taught in those. From skimming the lesson books, I know that some of the lessons in ASL classes have become increasingly stylized. For example, instead of signing JEWELRY we are supposed to say NECKLACE, EARRINGS, BRACELETS, ET CETERA. Such “group” terms in English (e.g., furniture, amenities, vegetables, fruit) aren’t supposed to have their own signs in ASL. I don’t know anyone who agrees with that anymore (except perhaps the much older generation).
Could it be that “Standard ASL” is on the rise? With any language standard, silly stylized rules become easily etched in stone. Just take the split infinitive rule in which your fifth-grade teacher told you not to split the English infinitive. For example, you couldn’t say “to boldly go” because “to go” is an infinitive which should not be split (Thank goodness the Star Trek writers didn’t listen to their fifth grade English teachers). This contrived rule came about because Latin did not split its infinitives. Back then, Latin was considered a superior language and was among the first to have its grammar recorded. When English became more common for writing, people attempted to write grammars for English and they used Latin grammar books as their guide. And, actually, Latin couldn’t split the infinitive because the infinitive form was just one word while in English it is two. In any case, when things get written down, and whether they’re right or wrong, they have a pesky habit of sticking around and becoming the authoritative voice later in a classroom.
Is the rule that the dinosaur spouts to his dinosaur friend actually something we use? Or is it a fossilized rule being perpetuated by ASL classes and that students who take those classes are acquiring a more “standardized” version of ASL than what’s actually being used? (And no I’m not forgetting that varieties of ASL depend on different regions, gender, ages, levels of education, types of careers, and so on).
This happens with every language. The more books printed on and classes taught on languages, the more that the formal variety deviates from actual, everyday language use. This dinosaur comic may be a positive sign, proof that ASL is becoming standardized. But it’s also a sign that hearing people are learning a version of ASL that we don’t use.
You may be asking why all the fuss? Well, this topic has been discussed at considerable length for quite awhile now especially with the recent protests at Gallaudet bringing up issues about ASL at Gallaudet. Some people want ASL classes for incoming freshmen, and these classes aren’t the type of classes that warrant numbers (e.g., ASL 1, ASL 2, etc.). But the kind of ASL classes they’re talking about is teaching a more formal register that students can use for homework (e.g., a video essay on Dickens or an ASL summary about the fetal pig dissected in class). One of the things that keeps coming up, “but there’s no ‘standard’ ASL!” Hmm, maybe not?
All this from a dinosaur comic!