American Sign Language: Books

Learn the most commonly signed words in ASL in 1,000 Words to Sign. 1,000 Words to Sign is divided into two sections: an introduction to ASL, followed by a vocabulary section. Arranged alphabetically, the vocabulary section is organized by common themes, including people, home, food, school, work, and nature. Each word is clearly illustrated with two to four photographs showing the beginning, middle, and end positions of the sign, with instructional arrows to indicate movement. To make the learning process complete, this book comes with an instructional DVD to demonstrate real-time signing.

Open up a whole new world of communication through ASL You can easily learn ASL with help from The American Sign Language Phrase Book. With more than 500 phrases, this is the reference guide to everyday expressions in American Sign Language, providing a quick way for you to converse with deaf people. Clearly illustrated with hundreds of line drawings, this book focuses on areas such as health, family, school, sports, travel, religion, time, money, food and drink, and small talk. This edition's chapter on technology boasts 50 phrases to help you communicate about the Internet, computing, video relay, and more. There is even a chapter that gives you phrases for communicating about signing: asking people to sign slower, indicating your fingerspelling ability, and requesting help with your fledgling skills. This edition ncludes a two-hour DVD that presents right-and left-handed signers demonstrating every phrase in the book from chapter 3 through the appendix. From asking simple questions ("How are you?") to more complex phrases ("There's no sign for that, you have to fingerspell it."), The American Sign Language Phrase Book gives you the power to communicate easily and comfortably in ASL.

Few children can communicate effectively before eighteen months of age, but sign language can allow baby and parent to reduce the frustration up to a year earlier. With more than 450 full-color photos, text, and sidebars, Knack Baby Sign Language provides a user-friendly, efficient method to learn and teach a baby sign language. Organized by age, it provides signs appropriate to use with babies, with toddlers, and with older children for whom signing with games, songs, and rhymes is enriching. The signs can also be used with special needs children and those with delayed communication abilities.

The deaf community in the West has endured radical changes in the past centuries. This work of history tracks the changes both in the education of and the social world of deaf people through the years. Topics include attitudes toward the deaf in Europe and America and the evolution of communication and language.Of particular interest is the way in which deafness has been increasingly humanized, rather than medicalized or pathologized, as it was in the past. Successful contributions to the deaf and non-deaf world by deaf individuals are also highlighted.

Have you ever asked these questions? "Don't all Deaf people read lips?" "Is it OK to say 'deaf-mute' and 'deaf-and-dumb'?" "Do all deaf people benefit from hearing aids?" "What bothers a deaf person most about hearing people?" Here, in a handy question-and-answer format, are answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about deaf people, their community, and their language. Concise, easy-to-read, designed for those with no prior background, For Hearing People Only makes a formidably complex subject accessible. Each chapter can be read as an independent unit. This is the first book of its kind-written especially for laypeople who are curious about deaf people, and would like to separate truth from stereotype, fact from misconception, reality from myth. "Offers a quick fix without the mishmash of long-winded discourses and scholarly sources. Enlightening to deaf people, including myself. Honest and fair, with sage observations. A practical Handbook on Deaf Life and "The Deaf Reality." Should provoke lively discussions in class." - Dr. Robert F. Panara, Emeritus Professor of English & Drama at National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology

Introduction to American Deaf Culture is the only comprehensive textbook that provides a broad, yet in-depth, exploration of how Deaf people are best understood from a cultural perspective, with coverage of topics such as how culture is defined, how the concept of culture can be applied to theDeaf experience, and how Deaf culture has evolved over the years. Among the issues included are an analysis of various segments of the Deaf community, Deaf cultural norms, the tension between the Deaf and disabled communities, Deaf art and literature (both written English and ASL forms), thesolutions being offered by the Deaf community for effective living as Deaf individuals, and an analysis of the universality of the Deaf experience, including the enculturation process that many Deaf people undergo as they develop healthy identities.As a member of a multigenerational Deaf family with a lifetime of experience living bi-culturally among Deaf and hearing people, author Thomas K. Holcomb enhances the text with engaging stories interwoven throughout. In addition to being used in college-level courses, this book can also help parentsand educators of Deaf children understand the world of Deaf culture. It offers a beautiful introduction to the ways Deaf people effectively manage their lives in a world full of people who can hear.

*Completely Revised with New Signs and Lessons *Each Sign Illustration Features Sentences in English and ASL Order *New Class Activities and New Student Activities for Homework or Quizzes *New Facts about American Sign Language Grammar and Deaf Culture Now, the bestselling American Sign Language textbook Signs of the Times has been completely revised and updated. The new, second edition is an excellent beginner's American Sign Language textbook designed for use in the classroom or at home. Organized into 44 lessons, it presents more than 1,300 signs representing 3,500 English glosses. Each lesson contains clear illustrations of all signs, English equivalent words and synonyms, sample sentences to define vocabulary context, and practice sentences to display and reinforce ASL usage. Signs of the Times is a complete text that includes new class activities for teachers, plus new student activities that can be done in class, as homework, or as quizzes. The new edition features the Contextual Sign/Word Appendix, which displays groups of sentences using the same English word to show different meanings along with the corresponding ASL signs. It also provides an expanded index, vocabulary lists, and a reading reference list. The new edition offers facts on ASL grammar and Deaf culture and includes mind ticklers that enliven the lessons with hints, tips, and mnemonic devices. The new Signs of the Times expands the features that made it a standard, easy-to-use ASL textbook. Signs are repeated in sentences throughout the book to provide excellent practice for the students. The clear, easy-to-understand sign illustrations facilitates the learning process, enhancing students' success while also making ASL fun.

When Gina Oliva first went to school in 1955, she didn't know that she was "different." If the kindergarten teacher played a tune on the piano to signal the next exercise, Oliva didn't react because she couldn't hear the music. So began her journey as a "solitary," her term for being the only deaf child in the entire school. Gina felt alone because she couldn't communicate easily with her classmates, but also because none of them had a hearing loss like hers. It wasn't until years later at Gallaudet University that she discovered that she wasn't alone and that her experience was common among mainstreamed deaf students. "Alone in the Mainstream" recounts Oliva's story, as well as those of many other solitaries. In writing this important book, Oliva combined her personal experiences with responses from the Solitary Mainstream Project, a survey that she conducted of deaf and hard of hearing adults who attended public school. Oliva matched her findings with current research on deaf students in public schools and confirmed that hearing teachers are ill-prepared to teach deaf pupils, they don't know much about hearing loss, and they frequently underestimate deaf children. The collected memories in "Alone in the Mainstream" add emotional weight to the conviction that students need to be able to communicate freely, and they also need peers to know they are not alone.

This heavily illustrated, self-teaching guide to ASL--American Sign Language--is useful both for the deaf and for those men and women who teach or work among deaf people. E-Z American Sign Language presents ASL's 10 key grammatical rules and emphasizes the use of "facial grammar" as an important supplement to manual signing. Most of the book's content takes the form of a presentation of more than 800 captioned line drawings that illustrate signs for their equivalent words and then show how to combine signs in order to communicate detailed statements. Barron's E-Z Series books are updated, and re-formatted editions of Barron's older and perennially popular Easy Way books. Titles in the new E-Z Series feature extensive two-color treatment, a fresh, modern typeface, and more graphic material than ever. All are self-teaching manuals that cover a wide variety of practical and academic subjects, written on levels that range from senior high school to college-101 standards.

The meaning of any linguistic expression resides not only in the words, but also in the ways that those words are conveyed. In her new study, Miako N. P. Rankin highlights the crucial interrelatedness of form and meaning at all levels in order to consider specific types of American Sign Language (ASL) expression. In particular, "Form, Meaning, and Focus in American Sign Language" considers how ASL expresses non-agent focus, similar to the meaning of passive voice in English. Rankin s analyses of the form-meaning correspondences of ASL expressions of non-agent focus reveals an underlying pattern that can be traced across sentence and verb types. This pattern produces meanings with various levels of focus on the agent. Rankin has determined in her meticulous study that the pattern of form-meaning characteristic of non-agent focus in ASL is used prolifically in day-to-day language. The recognition of the frequency of this pattern holds implications regarding the acquisition of ASL, the development of curricula for teaching ASL, and the analysis of ASL discourse in effective interpretation."

In the sign languages of the deaf some signs can meaningfully point toward things or can be meaningfully placed in the space ahead of the signer. Such spatial uses of signs are an obligatory part of fluent grammatical signing. There is no parallel for this in vocally produced languages. This book focuses on American Sign Language to examine the grammatical and conceptual purposes served by these directional signs and demonstrates a remarkable integration of grammar and gesture in the service of constructing meaning.