American Sign Language (ASL)

This first course of study of American Sign Language (ASL) (used by the Deaf Community in the United States) is designed for students who have little or no previous knowledge of ASL. Visual-gestural communication techniques promote learning to think in pictures and concepts. Students learn the fundamentals of sign production and vocabulary, fingerspelling/numbers, basic structure of ASL grammar for simple conversation, and information related to Deaf Culture.

This course is designed to continue the study of American Sign Language (ASL) and the culture of Deafhood. Students refine receptive and expressive skills necessary to understand and utilize the language in its structure and format. Emphasis will be on accuracy of sign production/vocabulary (using the correct parameters as introduced in ASL 1001). This course will also emphasize ASL sentence types and correct ASL grammatical structure, and conversational skills.

Building on American Sign Language (ASL) II, this course covers more complex ASL grammatical features and vocabulary, short stories, narratives, and dialogues. Students recognize the difference between present, past and future events in a range of signed material that includes familiar language in less familiar contexts. Students learn the application of complex sentence structures with appropriate non-manual markers (facial morphemes/grammar), classifiers, timeline referents (tense markers, temporal aspect) and the grammar used to convey sequence of events. Students whom have completed ASL courses at locations other than Northwestern Campus of CT State Community College must be evaluated before registering for this course.

The primary goal with this course is for students to achieve a level of competency in American Sign Language (ASL). Building on ASL III, this course expands on the development of American Sign Language vocabulary and grammar, step-by-step processes, cause and effect, and the use of two- to three-character role shifts. Students engage in narration, description, argument, and hypothesis with complex topics in paragraph-length discourse related to employment, current events, matters of public and community interest, and culturally significant topics relating to the Deaf Community. Students also develop expressive and receptive skills in storytelling and dialogue and processing that is required for higher-level thinking in the field of interpreting and working with the Deaf.

Surveys theory, methods and findings of linguistic research and how it relates to American Sign Language (ASL). A review of the historical views of ASL and the prominent people who have contributed to the acceptance of ASL as a modern language. Focus is on the comparison of English with ASL rules including but not limited to phonetics/parameters, syntax, grammatical structure and semantics.

Semantics and culture impact sign/word choice and syntactic structures when interpreting between English and American Sign Language (ASL). In order to accurately convey the message, interpreters must understand semantic and cultural influences on both the target and source languages. By analyzing semantic accuracy/cultural nuances and by employing discourse strategies, students will expand their expressive and receptive skills for both ASL and English. Students will employ these expanded skills to accurately interpret prepared texts between English and ASL.