Size and Shape I American Sign Language
this course: Expand your ASL vocabulary and enhance your visual communication skills with descriptive classifiers. Learn to express specific concepts accurately and creatively using hand shapes and mouth morphemes. Perfect for intermediate learners looking to broaden their understanding of ASL and communicate more effectively with Deaf individuals. Start quadrupling your vocabulary today!
What you’ll learn
- Think visually.
- Use surroundings to speak creatively.
- Be confident to express concepts accurately.
- Stimulate interest.
- Build relationships with Deaf individuals.
Not every object has a sign. Does that mean we must rely heavily on fingerspelling if we need to be specific? No one really enjoys fingerspelling OR reading it. And sometimes it may not even be enough to specify exactly what “thing” we are talking about! Descriptive classifiers help us clarify, and add detail to existing signs to specify a particular type, category or feature. Using such class thereby expands our vocabulary. For example: you may know the sign for “cup”, but how do you express the idea of a beer stein, a coffee mug, a wine, glass, or a champagne flute. All of them are technically cups, but you definitely don’t want to be drinking your prosecco out of a coffee mug! We also use descriptive classifiers the same way English would use adjectives and adverbs. Everyone knows the sign for “tree” but how could you explain that a tree is small and thin or large and full of leaves. These descriptive classifiers do not replace the sign for tree, but they help us elaborate on what kind of tree by answering the “how” questions: How tall? How big? How high? Just like adverbs do in English. In this unit, we will focus not only on how to describe objects using hand shapes but we will also learn how to couple these descriptive classifiers with mouth morphemes to support reinforce our expressions. Just by learning this type of classifier alone, you will be able to quadruple your vocabulary! Are you ready to get started?
Who this course is for:
- For the intermediate who want to expand visual concepts in ASL.
