Distracting movements or patterns that make it hard to focus on something visually.
© Copyright 1999 All Rights Reserved. Curriculum Branch.
Maintained by: International Languages Coordinator
The following terms are defined as they pertain specifically to this Integrated Resource Package.
A visual-gestural language indigenous to the Anglophone Deaf community in North America, using a distinct grammatical and syntactic system not derived from any spoken or written language. Varieties include old, traditional, and modern.
Social and cultural norms regarding the use of ASL to communicate. Includes such things as attention-getting devices, how to interrupt a conversation, how to insert a comment, and how to change subjects.
Resources such as newspapers, magazines, videos, and news broadcasts, the primary purpose of which is to communicate meaning or information rather than to facilitate language learning.
Communicative tasks (real or simulated) that require the use of language as it would be employed in everyday life by a native user of that language. Authentic situations are distinct from artificial situations, which test particular vocabulary and structures rather than communicate meaning (e.g., memorized conversations).
The way in which the meaning of a word, phrase, or sentence can be construed from surrounding words and sentences.
The process of using a series of handshapes (referred to as the manual alphabet) to spell out individual letters of a word.
A relationship between a symbol and its referent in which the symbol looks or sounds like the idea or concept it represents. Found in both spoken and signed languages.
A visual resemblance between the sign and the idea or concept it represents. A relatively small percentage of ASL signs are iconic, otherwise people who do not know the language could easily construe meaning just by observing the movements.
Signs in which a particular handshape from the manual alphabet is used in the production of the sign because that handshape corresponds to a letter (usually the first letter) in a word from a spoken language that may have a similar meaning.
Those visual and kinesthetic linguistic components of ASL that are required in order for the language to work. Includes such things as facial grammatical markers, physical affect markers, and the simultaneous, spatial conveyance of information.
Signs based on fingerspelled words with modified movement to reflect the characteristics of a sign.
Those parts of ASL that are required to convey meaning but that do not involve the hands. Includes the eyebrows, eye-gaze, cheeks, lips, nose, head, shoulders, and upper torso.
A device initially developed for use with telegraph communications, modified in the early 1960s to allow Deaf individuals to communicate via telephone lines. The sender types out words to be read by the receiver.
Similar to a pen pal, but correspondence is by way of exchanged videotapes.
visual noise
Distracting movements or patterns that make it hard to focus on something visually.
© Copyright 1999 All Rights Reserved. Curriculum Branch.
Maintained by: International Languages Coordinator
Revised: February 5, 1999
