How does one verbally describe a sign in ASL?

I am very glad to see you asking this question. I have been following your linguistic posts with delight. You are a very wise and well-educated person. I have learned much from you, and I thank you for sharing with us. I notice that you have made mention of an interest in ASL. I was hoping that we could further pique your interest and bring you into the fold!

Attempts have been made over the years to create systems for verbally directing Signing. So far, all have been sorely wanting. There are few industry standards for teaching ASL. (I am actually working on one of my own.)

Susie's link is not a list of handshapes; it is a list of alphabet letters. (All alphabet letters are, indeed, handshapes, but not all handshapes are alphabet letters. [I have compiled a list of well over forty handshapes.]) These are some of the most common handshapes-- http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-layout/hands...

Handshapes have names, but movements, sources, and destinations do not. (Nothing more than "move forward" or "move quickly to the left side, crossing over the left hand".) Routinely, you will be faced with a paragraph something like this:

With your right hand, make an "open A" handshape while you have an open "B" left hand with the palm oriented toward the floor. Bring the "A" hand to the left hand, making a small twist as you go, and touch the back of the "B" hand twice while... Blah, blah, blah.

It is nebulous and painfully tedious. That is one of the many reasons that we say that ASL must be learned face-to-face. Deciphering what the books instruct to do is very difficult. (Signs are highly regional, as well.)

ASL is an extremely unique, sophisticated, and complex language. All at once, one must organize at least one handshape (which might be altered midstream), orient the palms appropriately (which also might be altered midstream), and move the hands correctly-- often while adding simultaneous inflection "markers" such as precise head movements, shifts of the eyes and/or the body, and/or hesitations and extensions. I believe that ours is the only language where two things can be said at the same time. (You could not speak two different English words simultaneously.) We can say something akin to DO YOU with our eyes while we say HAVE with our hands.

When you get into more advanced ASL, you find that "Classifiers" have specific names. These are a subset of handshapes which serve to categorize things that are similar-- things that are small and round (like coins or buttons), things that are large and round (like a pizza or a lake), things that are flat (like boards), things that are tall and cylindrical (like columns), things that are stacked (like books or magazines), things that are lined-up in a queue (like people or vehicles), things that have a rough surface, and so forth. (First you name the thing, then you represent it with a Classifier. Through it, you show specific action, movement, location, orientation, size, physical characteristics, relationships between things, et caetera.) It is a fascinating study that brings your Signing to full potential. Sadly, most ASL-as-second-language users never reach, or perfect, this level of Signing. They remain monotonously word-based and one-dimensional. They never Sign even remotely as Deafs, that is to say native Signers, do.

We also use "Mouth Morphemes". This is not to be confused with mouthing English words. These indicate that something is ordinary, pleasurable, awkward, difficult, haphazard, et caetera. These Mouth Morphemes have names, but most Signers are not aware of them.

So, first Sign CAR. Then use a Classifier (CL:3) to represent that car. Then show the CL:3 driving down a narrow road. Add the Mouth Morpheme "clench lips" (to indicate difficult), and squint your eyes to show that it is a tight squeeze. This is how we express in general concepts rather than specific English words.

Of course, when introducing this subject matter, we would ordinarily model it rather than write about it. Most novice students would not understand what I just said. But, because of your background in languages, you might get the gist of it.

I hope that you will look at my other posts. Some contain information about ASL syntax that you would find interesting. Some of them are at least partially redundant. As a teacher, I cannot resist the temptation to edify and to do my part to squelch universally misconceived notions.

©

I am Hard-of-Hearing, a native ASL Signer of thirty years, a nurse, a Sociologist, an ASL teacher, and an authour of ASL media. I have lived and Signed all over the United States, so I am well-versed in regional Signing.

http://deafness.about.com/cs/signlanguage/a/aslfac...

http://www.wikihow.com/Begin-to-Learn-American-Sig...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Sign_Languag...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf_culture

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In ASL they do have names for the hand shapes.

http://www.wepapers.com/Papers/12409/The_Handshape...