…as well as my acquaintance H… :smack:
Uh, no, it’s not. And that’s for two reasons:
(1) it is speaking, it’s just not speaking using the vocal cords;
and
(2) all languages are equally expressive. To assert that one language is more expressive than another is equivalent to saying that one language is better suited to romance than another. That’s just not the case.
For me, it’s printed typeface most of the time. If I’ve been immersed in sign language for a while, the text becomes hands and facial expressions.
They’re usually banging each other by that point, not talking.
Hey, I haven’t gotten drunk with friends since college.
To pull back to the OP for a bit, you have to remember that for a lot of deaf people English is a second language. They understand written English, they understand lipreading, but not fluently. ASL is as different from English as it is from every other spoken language. Sure, ASL signs are equivalent to some English words…just like most Chinese words are equivalent to English words and vice versa.
And so you get the phenomenon that Excalibre mentioned…passing. Someone says something, you think you’ve lipread the gist of it so you nod…but you’re never quite sure you understood. And it’s easier just to pretend instead of asking over and over again for someone to repeat themselves. And there’s a difference between ‘illiterate’ and ‘totally illiterate’. Almost all illiterate people know the alphabet and recognize common words, they can find the men’s room, they know traffic signs, they know lots of words by sight. But ask them to read a newspaper article and they just can’t do it, or they can barely do it.
And it was a lot easier for a deaf kid to slide throught the cracks, especially in the old days, because lots of deaf kids had permanent language disabilities because they never learned a complete language as children. They used home sign with their families…and that was it. Nowadays with IEPs mandated for every kid with learning problems it’s not likely to reach that point. But in the old days it was common for children to have only rudimentary language until they were sent off to a boarding school for the deaf. And THERE signing was often prohibited, so kids would have to learn to sign in secret!
Uh, yes, it is. You should put IMO behind that because I disagree. In ASL, in my experience, each person makes a sign for their name. I have met more than one Debbie and Cynthia and each was different signs and each were typically reflective of the owners personality or appearance. There are many examples that I feel are more fluid, expressive, pleasing to the senses. Likewise, I don’t find Russian as appealing to the ear as say French or Italian but I accept the fact that you may not agree.
My dictionary says:
Speaking:
1. Capable of speech.
2. Involving speaking or talking: has a speaking part in the play.
You may noises out your butt but I don’t consider it speech.
YMMV
That’s very nice. But there’s no meaningful way to determine that one language is “more expressive” than another. (And the fact that different people have different names isn’t a particularly convincing start, either.) Monty was speaking as a linguist - using the term “expressive” to mean, well, “expressive” - capable of expressing things. And there’s simply no way to make any kind of meaningful judgment that one language is “more expressive” or another “less expressive”. You’d have to manage to quantify the unquantifiable. Based on your post, though, what you actually meant by “expressive” was something more like “pleasing to me”. Which is very nice for you, but it doesn’t have any significance to anyone else.
I’m sorry, but this is a total non sequitur.
Again with a complete non sequitur. Of course sign language is “speaking”. What do you think it is if it isn’t “speech”? Interpretive dance? An elaborate hoax? Sign languages work the same way as any other language - they use the same brain processes, they can be analyzed by linguists in the same fashion, and they have the same essentially infinite expressive capacity. For you to draw a comparison between “sign language” and “the spoken word” indicates how poorly you’ve thought the issue out; there are six thousand-some languages spoken in the world, and among them several hundred sign languages. To somehow state that “sign language” in general is more expressive than “the spoken word” would require acquaintance with all or at least a substantial proportion of those languages. And then it would further require some method to quantify what can’t be quantified. You speak English and ASL. You might speak a couple other languages as well. But you certainly don’t know enough to make a statement like the one you just made. It indicates, frankly, that you didn’t think your statement through because you probably didn’t expect it to be subject to any particular scrutiny. Based on the rest of your post, where you indicate that what you said is an “opinion” and yammered about Russian and Italian, I can only assume that you actually meant to express an opinion - that being, as far as I can tell, “I like ASL. Oh, and Italian too.” That’s nice, but don’t mix your opinions up with statements that are subject to logical examination and then get upset when they are actually subjected to it.
I have to say, as well, that there’s a certain condescending quality to marvelling about how expressive sign language is. Of course it’s expressive. It’s human language. Human language has limitless expressive capacity. That’s one of the things that makes it what it is. Sign language is no different in that regard, nor should you expect it to be. It seems a bit patronizing to me to go around remarking on it as though it’s amazing that deaf people can communicate just like the rest of us.
I take it from this that you are hearing impaired , if I may ask? If so, to expand, you say that when in thought, you see the origin of an idea in print? That is interesting and a possibility I had not considered. Do you see it like a ticker runs on TV or a scrolling paragraph like a word processor? I hope this isn’t imposing but it has long been an unanswered question in my mind.
Nic2004, don’t feel bad.
It may be that sign language is more expressive than spoken languages. But even though it seems more expressive to you, that’s just a subjective opinion. What if someone else said voiced languages are more expressive? How would you go about proving that sign language is more expressive?
In the past there have been competing claims that certain languages are “more complex”, “more expressive”, “more beautiful”, “more etc”, than other languages. Latin is sometimes the top language, but often, suprisingly, the claimant’s native language is ranked as the top language.
So the linguists ask, well, if we claim that one language is more “X” than another language, what does that mean? How can we measure “X”? And it turns out that the more you try to measure “complexity” or “expressiveness” or whatver the more confused you get. So while it isn’t impossible that some languages are more complex than other languages, it IS impossible to prove that one language is more complex than another language.
And so sign language. Once upon a time people were sure that sign language couldn’t be as expressive as a spoken language…it’s pantomime, it’s simple, it’s charades, how can it be as expressive as the language of Shakespeare (or Cicero, or Homer, or Voltaire, or whatever)? Except when you try to SHOW that sign language is simpler than voiced language, you just can’t do it, the supposed simplicity vanishes the more you learn about sign languages. But the same applies when you try to do it in reverse.
And from this both of you take it that I mean ASL is ALWAYS MORE EXPRESSIVE than ANY OTHER language under any circumstances?
Excalibre said:
And speech to mean communication or language. And as stated, it is an undefinable thing and something subject to opinion. This is mine.
Good of you to establish significance for everyone else and thus save some much unnecessary postings but others.
How so. If I state that I think one form of communication is more expressive or appealing than another, how is an example of a SPOKEN language different?
Again, the dictionary and I disagree. It is communication. It is a language. It is expressive. Although your attempt at being cute is endearing, it really isn’t beneficial to understanding the topic.
Were did I state that sign language in general is more expressive?
In the futre I’ll email my intended yammerings to you in order that they be put in the concise and patronizing tone that suits you like “I like ASL. Oh, and Italian too.” Also, I’ll ask you as Junior Mod to clarify the rules of General Questions and how they differ from Great Debates.
Wow. How can you even hear us from that high horse. From one who makes statements like the “Oh, and Italian too” I’d think you better recognize condescending tones. You needn’t preach about the PR view of ASL to a long time user and condescend to me about “marvelling about how expressive sign language is” like speaking to a starry eyed child. Your tone of They are all equally expressive and marvellous and none are any better than another and you shouldn’t be surprised that deaf people can communicate is crap and implied by me nowhere in my conversation.
And, I just realized that I’ve allowed myself to be pulled into one of these inane conversations by Excalbre. I’ve seen your work before and typically avoided wasting my time on you.
Anyone else have experience and insight into this topic?
Nic2004 said “often much more expressive than the spoken word.” Now, saying that ASL is "the spoken word’ does strain the meaning of “spoken”. It’s certainly a language and a means of communications. But it’s not a spoken means of communication. Is UNIX “speaking”? How about Morse Code? Navy Wig-Wag signaling? :dubious: Not all means of communication are spoken- some are written, some are transmitted by electrons, and others are signed using the hands.
*speak ( P ) Pronunciation Key (spk)
v. spoke, (spk) spo·ken, (spkn) speak·ing, speaks
v. intr.
To utter words or articulate sounds with ordinary speech modulation; talk.
To convey thoughts, opinions, or emotions orally.
To express oneself.
To be on speaking terms: They are no longer speaking. *
“To express oneself” does include ASL, but the other two, more common meanings- "*To utter words or articulate sounds with ordinary speech modulation; talk.To convey thoughts, opinions, or emotions orally. * - clearly do not. Thus, it appears that generally, ASL is not considered “the spoken word”.
“American Sign Language
n. Abbr. ASL
The primary sign language used by deaf and hearing-impaired people in the United States and Canada…” Makes it pretty clear to me that ASL is a SIGN language, not a SPOKEN language.
And, you’re being hard on Nic2004 also about his (her?) opinion about ASL’s expressiveness. I took it as a statment of opinion, not fact- like saying “to me, French is a beautiful language, while German sounds ugly to my ears”. Sure, you can’t quantify “expressivness” for most languages, but you can’t quantify how musical a language sounds either. Your critism is like telling someone they are wrong when they say that GanstaRap sounds like crap to them, as “all music is equally musical”. Well- it ain’t. That being said- Nic2004 - this is GQ, not IMHO. Although opinions aren’t out of place here, it’s best to state them clearly as opinion, as I am sure you meant to.
Nic2004 - pay no attention to Excalibre- it’s what most of us do. 
It’ll save you headaches and a fortune in Tums. Don’t let him upset you.
Lemur866- right, good post. But as long as one is clear that it’s your *opinion, * then it’s perfectly fine to say one language is more expressive, more musical, less harsh, etc. Just so we know that for the most part- it *is * opinion, and nothing else.
DrDeth “Nic2004 - pay no attention to Excalibre- it’s what most of us do. It’ll save you headaches and a fortune in Tums. Don’t let him upset you.”
Ha! Simulpost! 
High Five, dude!
None of the other things you mention are human language, either, so the comparison is irrelevant.
“Expressive” is a term with an actual meaning. Using it as a synonym for “beautiful” is poor communication. Making an unproveable factual statement and then declaring it to be an opinion is nonsensical. You might as well declare that it’s your opinion that Germany won World War II, and then continue hiding behind the notion that opinions are not subject to verification when people disagree.
Why is it that attempting to speak with you is like attempting to speak with a twelve-year-old with an attitude problem?
I guess I have to admire, in a weird sense, the self-confidence that you obviously possess. I can’t imagine acting the way you do and then blaming others for it. In a way I have to respect the sheer self-deception and stubbornness that allows you to imagine that the difficulties you and I have are somehow my fault.
Mayhap we need to add “expressiveness of sign language” to that one thread about “dark horse meltdowns” we had a week or two ago.
Crud. A cool thread about deafness and language, and I hit it at the end of the day? :smack:
So, my thoughts on this thread:
I’d never thought about *passing * as the name for what I do with a lot of people – the only context I’ve heard that word in is from the history classes I took where we learned about passing as white, forgive me. Or as applied to functional/nonfunctional literacy. But upon reflection, it does make sense. Excellent posts in this thread, lemur866.
Regarding the expressiveness of language, I vote with the avalanche that it’s a highly subjective topic and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 
(cf: Euler’s Equation, I think that’s what it’s called. Most people: “It’s an equation. So?” Many physicists: “It’s… it just is beauty.”)
Oddly enough, given that I’ve been about as profoundly deaf as they come since birth, I have an internal soundtrack as backup to a foggy visualization of the text. I also tend to give words shape, color, and motion in what seems to be very much like synaethesia in some ways – these values aren’t always necessarily directly related to the accepted ASL signs for the word – and the shapes aren’t always related to what a word in print looks like. Weird, eh?
PS – **DrDeth’s ** ex’s response to the OP made me grin.
Thanks for your post, dude. Good insights.
Yeah, she’s able to call a Spade a Fucking Shovel in two languages, never one to mince words. We still get along though. Mostly. But when she reminded me " that’s what closed captioning for the hearing impaired is, you moron" I had to slap my head and do a Homer.
Excalibre, Nic2004, DrDeth - Please stop the bickering.
This thread has been very informative; let’s keep it that way.
Thanks.
-xash
General Questions Moderator
There’s a real distinction here, between “full-fledged human languages” which includes the ones spoken using the vocal tract, like English, and as well as those that use hand motions, facial expressions, etc., like ASL, and other things, like UNIX and Morse code, which are not “full-fledged human languages.” Full-fledged human languages are capable of being learned by a child as their first language and as serving as the primary language of a human community. Computer languages and signalling systems (like Morse code) which encode full-fledged human languages are something else and are only to be called languages by a rather strained analogy. Full-fledged human languages can be invented at some point, as long as they can eventually be turned into the language of a human community. So ASL and Esperanto are full-fledged human languages, as are (probably) Elvish and Klingon, although there’s not been a real effort to use Elvish and Klingon as the primary language of a community. They would probably have to pick up some vocabulary and grammar as they were introduced to a community, but that’s just the normal process of creolization.
The problem here is that there’s no good terminology here. I was going to call this category “natural human languages,” but that term is taken. ASL, Esperanto, Elvish, Klingon, etc. are usually said to not be natural languages but artificial ones. It doesn’t quite work to call all full-fledged human languages “spoken languages” either, since “spoken” usually means that it involves the vocal tract. I would like to say that all these thing are just “language,” but the term “language” has spread to include things like computer languages, which I consider to be a bad analogy. I’m stuck then making the distinction between full-fledged human languages and other communication systems, like computer languages and signalling systems, which aren’t really languages at all.
He (or she) was comparing a particular language to other languages. The comparison was not “English is often more expressive than English” but “ASL is often more expressive than the spoken word.” I correctly identified ASL as a particular language, a particular kind of speech.
I am a linguist. Linguistics is my bag. Linguistics is a science, not an opinion. Language itself is expressive, as Excalibre correctly inidicated above. And the poster in question did not identify that assertion as an opinion.
To address your questions:
-
No, Morese Code is not a language. It is the means of representing languages. It’s a means of transmitting a writing system telegraphically (thus, ‘telegraph’).
-
By Wig Wag, I take it that you are referring to semaphore. Again, no, semaphore is not a language. It is yet another system of representing a writing system, this time visually and at a distance.
So, for 1 & 2, they are not speaking. They are writing.
Re the OP, one thing that’s critical is the time element. As **Lemur **pointed out, deaf education has not always served deaf people all that well. Deaf people of a certain age may have received particularly poor schooling, and not be at all fluent in English. Others, on the other hand, may have received an education that was entirely oriented toward English, with a focus on lip-reading, and away from sign. It’s worth remembering that captioning, while it’s been around in some form since the late '70s, hasn’t been anywhere near universal since the mid-'90s. Before that, many programs went uncaptioned and you needed to buy a special caption decoder box. So captioning as a factor in literacy is a relatively recent phenomenon.
In short, fluency in English reflects a number of factors – age, schooling, degree of deafness, age at onset of deafness, family attitudes, exposure to signed English, etc. But if you posit a deaf person who grew up in a deaf family, and went to a school that didn’t stress English, or was simply lousy, you shouldn’t be surprised that their acquaintance with English is that of a foreigner.
And if you want a *real *subject of controversy, let’s talk about cochlear implants and the imminent demise of Deaf culture.
You’re a far, far braver soul than I.