Signing For Dummies (4 page)

This icon highlights text that you also find on the CD. Many Signin’ the Sign dialogues appear on the CD, so you can practice with the Signers.

Where to Go from Here

The beauty of this book is that you can go anywhere you want. You may find it helpful to start with the first two chapters to get down the basics, but if that’s not your thing, feel free to jump in wherever you want. Find a subject that interests you, start signing, and have fun!

Part I: Signing On to Sign

In this part . . .

T
hese chapters use what you already know about Sign and give you a little bit more. This part introduces you to fingerspelling, sending a message by using facial expressions, and putting together simple sentences in Sign.

Chapter 1: Finding Out That You Already Know a Little Sign

In This Chapter

Expressing Signs that look like what they mean

Discovering the Signing basics

Signing isn’t difficult, although moving your hands, body, and face to convey meaning instead of just your voice may seem odd at first. Your reward, however, is being able to meet and communicate with a whole new group of people. That’s definitely worth the initial awkwardness!

This chapter illustrates the manual alphabet and talks some about numbers. Here, we show you the basics of making handshapes and using your facial expression and body language to get your ideas across. And, we start off by reassuring you that you already know some Signs. Trust us — you do.

Discovering Signs That Look Like What They Mean

Iconic
or
natural
Signs
look like what they mean — the up and down motion of brushing your teeth that means
toothbrush,
the right and left punches that mean
boxing.
Here are some examples:

Like the Sign for boxing, many sports Signs are iconic. Check out
Chapter 8
for more sports Signs.

Building on the Basics of Sign — Gestures and Expression

You already know that “speaking” American Sign Language (ASL) is mostly a matter of using your fingers, hands, and arms. What you may not understand yet is that your facial expression and body language are important and sometimes crucial for understanding Signs and their meaning.

The following sections explain how you get nearly your whole body involved in ASL.

Spelling with your fingers

Signers use the manual alphabet all the time, especially beginners. People’s names, at first, and some words need to be
fingerspelled
— spelling words using the manual alphabet. So, as a beginner, feel free to fingerspell any word you don’t know the Sign for. If you want to fingerspell two or more words in a row such as a title or first and last name of someone, pause for just a second between each word.

In this book, a word that you fingerspell is shown in hyphenated letters. For example:
Mall
is written as M-A-L-L. We usually don’t take the space to show the hand Signs for each letter; we leave it to you to find the appropriate letters here in this chapter as well as on the Cheat Sheet at the front of this book.

Don’t worry about being slow at fingerspelling. Remember, clarity is the goal, not speed. Silently mouth the letters as you fingerspell them. Doing so helps you to control your speed because you’re concentrating more on the letters.