Having read D.Crystal’s “How to Investigate Language Structure” and Jean Aitchison’s “Aitchison’s Linguistics,” I am now more knowledgeable about the discipline of linguistics as a whole as well as its many sub-divisions or strata—namely phonetics, phonology, grammar (morphology + syntax), and semantics. To develop a more holistic understanding of my target language (ASL), I would need to break it down and analyze it from the different disciplinary perspectives mentioned above. The uniqueness of ASL is that it is a non-verbal language, substituting signs and facial expressions for the traditionally spoken word. Because there are no sounds used to communicate, the first two sub-divisions of phonetics and phonology respectively does not apply.
The importance of grammar within ASL is still a little ambiguous to me. Having spent the last few weeks learning the basics, I notice that there is a significant diversion from the baseline syntax in the English language that most of us are accustomed to. For example, the sentence “What time did you arrive home yesterday?” would be signed out in ASL as “Yesterday, you home arrive, time?” In fact, many commonly used English words like “what” does not have an equivalent signage within ASL. As I continue to learn more about the language and its application, I hope to pick up on the subtle grammatical nuances although as it stands, I find it relatively easy to follow because in a way, ASL strips down the sentence to be communicated to its bare bones or essential elements while filtering out the rest that is traditionally associated with grammatical syntax within our daily spoken context. The bulk of our focus, however, will be on the final component or semantics which is the study of meaning. Facial expressions are a very important aspect of ASL as it allows us to communicate emotions within context better. For example, when we want to communicate that we are tired, we slouch our shoulders down and make a tired expression on our face along with the respective signage. Without the expressions, the sentence is incomplete and might not make sense to the receiver. I find it particularly interesting that while languages may differ greatly on other aspects or the relative importance of each aspect, semantics will always be a crucial element of any language written or spoken because ultimately, I think all languages operate with the singular mandate of conveying meaning—both in a physical and abstract sense.
In terms of the trajectory of my learning, I will use some of these newfound insights to tweak my learning plan for a more holistic approach. Previously, one of my concerns with learning any new language was about grammar however, seeing the relative importance of grammar compared to semantics within my target language, I will focus more time and attention on the latter.
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