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From:
"Angus B. Grieve-Smith" Date: Sun Jul 2, 2000 10:11 pm Subject: Re: standardized spellings | ||||||||||||||||
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> I have a difficult time explaining to my students that signs are > different all over. Ummm I'm not even sure how to put this > question....but we were wondering is...if we are using the SW lessons, > and one of the signs shows different than how we use it here in NM, > should we rewrite the sign? I know that this is true in New Mexico; as you can see from the attached file, there is a sign that the rest of the ASL-signing world uses to mean "luck" or "lucky." But in New Mexico, that sign means "chile peppers"; it's a reduction of a phrase meaning "tastes hot." So New Mexicans use another sign for "lucky." This happens in all languages; I remember reading books from England when I was a kid, and trying to figure out what "dustbins" and "crisps" were. But no one crossed out those words and wrote in "garbage cans" and "chips." They just explained that people talked differently there. I'd suggest you do something similar, Nancy. If your students come to a sign that you know is different, just explain that Darline is from someplace else (Where, exactly, Valerie?), and write the New Mexico equivalent on the board. And maybe assign exercises where the kids write sentences in ASL using their own signs. How does this sound to some of the teachers on the list, as a way of teaching about language variation? -- -Angus B. Grieve-Smith Linguistics Department University of New Mexico | ||||||||||||||||
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