It's a Sign!

Last week professor Rust gave a lecture on American Sign Language (ASL) and how it parallels fairy tales. Before his talk, if you had asked me to describe the relationship between fairy tales and sign language in one word, I likely would have said, "non-existent." However, I now know that the two subjects have a great deal in common.

Hopefully you remember me talking about the fluidity of fairy tales - each time someone tells a fairy tale, they are likely to embellish it and fashion it uniquely. In this way, although the story stays basically the same, fairy tales can look very different when conveyed by different people. Well ASL is very much like that. Even though the signs for words are pretty much the same, the attitude and facial expressions of the signer can reveal a lot more emotion. Thus in both fairy tales and in ASL do the "speaker" take the story and tell it as his or her own.

The coolest part of Professor Rust's lecture was the videos that he showed us. I never before realized that ASL could be taken to such an art form. For example, one signer mimed golfing a ball, using four distinct motions - motions, which, in fact, spelled out G-O-L-F. Another signer told a whole story of riding his snowmobile, crashing, recovering and continuing by using 26 signs which were the letters A-Z.

So if i had a thesis to this post, it would be : like fairy tales, ASL is malleable and fluid, allowing the storyteller to add his own ideas and inspiration, while still following the basic structure of the story.