Right now in the MTC is a very critical time for the missionaries. They're about to leave in a week, and we've already had several leave early. Our focus is to help them prepare to be able to express themselves in ASL with deaf people. This district is definitely doing a good job at it, but several of the missionaries have not reached that point in their language yet. It is difficult for everyone to reach the point in their language learning to be able to express it naturally with native signers. To be honest with you, aside from several missionaries who are already fluent in ASL, only one elder is able to achieve this goal. The rest of the missionaries aren't as good but they're working hard towards that goal. It is essential for anyone to achieve the best as they can, and I truly believe that in two years (and 18 months) of their service, they will be able to express themselves in ASL anytime and anywhere.
Now, expressing yourself in ASL has some really confusing signs or gestures that you may not notice. I have included a video example from me and my friends after night-skiing at Brighton. Look at what we're signing and you will have no idea what we're saying. The point is that we're expressing something in ASL within our group of friends. It's pretty much an inside joke, really.
If the missionaries are able to come up with something similar to this to express a meaning or a description of something then they're making steps in expressing themselves naturally in ASL. For myself, it wasn't easy for me to finally understand how to express myself in English and it took me years and years to finally sharpen that skill. Here's a picture of a group of deaf people who are in part of an ASL poetry group. They express their poems in ASL, which is something I can't really do, haha.
This is a group named DeafJam.
There are various ways of expressing yourself in ASL, and there are ridiculous possibilities of how we can come up with a sign for something. This language has symbolic means and I love ASL so much for it.
I hope you all enjoyed this post!
Austin
thanks for sharing. I couldn't help but think while watching the clip of you and your friends that it must have been very "noisy" in that car. While I don't understand what was being said I really could see the expression in what was said rather than just signing.
ReplyDeletethanks for the link to DeafJam.
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ReplyDeletegreat post! I have noticed from watching you and the interpreters in class that expression is a major element in communication.
ReplyDeleteThis seems to me somewhat like becoming comfortable with the slang of a language, so much so that you can use and create your own slang.
ReplyDeleteThat is exciting the missionaries are leaving the MTC soon, good luck to them! The video of you and your friends was really cool!
ReplyDeleteI really like how ASL has so much room for expression. I think i was completely uninformed before, but i didn't know that how you sign a word matters just as much as how a person says it, which is cool. Good luck to your missionaries, and I like the personal touch from your video.
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