Course Description
Continuation of development of skills in ASL with emphasis on advanced comprehension and expression, increased exposure to more complex grammatical structures, further study of deaf folklore, and cultural aspects of language use.
Athena Title
American Sign Language II
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in AMSL 1020E
Prerequisite
Permission of department
Pre or Corequisite
AMSL 1010 or AMSL 1010E
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
At the end of this course students should be able to: 1. Describe effects of Deaf folklore on survival of ASL and Deaf Culture. 2. Explain factors influencing the construction of ASL and types of variations. 3. Identify and produce basic sentence types in ASL. 4. Describe and utilize movements of inflections for temporal aspect. 5. Demonstrate and recognize more complex grammatical features, including noun/verb pairs, compounds, contractions, loan signs, classifiers, and plurals. 6. Receptively exhibit mastery of ASL dialogues and narratives. 7. Expressively exhibit mastery of ASL dialogues and narratives. 8. Explore the culture and daily lives of deaf people in America and in other countries where sign language is used. 9. Explore differences in technologies that influence communication in American and global Deaf cultures.
Topical Outline
I. What is ASL? A. History B. Role of ASL in deaf community C. Bilingualism and language contact II. Sign formation and variation III. Sign types A. Noun/Verb pairs B. Compounds C. Contractions D. Loan signs E. Idioms F. Classifiers G. Plurals IV. Time signs and modulations A. Non-manual adverbs B. Regularity C. Duration V. Numbering A. Money B. Age C. Ordinal D. Cardinal VI. Sentence Types A. Questions B. Statements C. Commands D. Rhetorical E. Conditionals VII. Role shifting VIII. Adjectives and attributing qualities to others Cross Cultural Issues (1) Compare cultural differences among deaf Communities in developed countries and developing countries (e.g., Deaf women wearing niqab/hijab in Muslim countries and how this clothing item influences their ability to use facial expressions). (2) Compare and contrast available technologies such as closed captioning, videophones, etc. in American and developing countries (e.g., New Zealand does not offer or mandate closed captioning and videophones for the Deaf).
Syllabus