Reply To: Why do deaf people expect me to learn written ASL?

#19171

Rachel30207
Participant

It’s not clear from what you said what field you are in, but it might benefit you to learn some more about ASL and deaf culture, especially if you deal with a lot of deaf people. There’s a book called For Hearing People Only that is a good starting place. As for deaf people learning to write ‘proper’ English: There isn’t really such a thing as written ASL (though some systems have been worked out for research purposes and such). What you’re encountering is probably English words in ASL grammatical order. For deaf people who learn ASL as their natural first language, English is a second language. I know that when I’m attempting to speak a language that isn’t my native language, I make grammatical errors. So when speaking (or writing) to another person for whom English is a second language, I try to cut him or her some slack and focus on mutual understanding and grasping meanings as the point of communication.

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Name : Rachel30207, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Christian, Age : 25, City : Los Angeles, State : CA, Country : United States, Occupation : Customer Service, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,