We recently discussed listing objects and how to describe a three dimensional space. The former changes a lot depending on the situation. For example, if I have three children I would sign ME HAVE THREE KIDS. I would sign the number three with my dominant hand before switching to my non-dominant where I would hold out three fingers (thumb, index, middle finger). TO name and describe each child I would point to the corresponding finger descending from oldest to youngest. But after indicating which child I would use both hands to describe them before returning to the three finger list on my left hand to discuss the next.
However, if I am listing options for a meal, let’s say pizza, burgers, or soup, then I would not use the hand list. Instead I would shift my body three times and sign one option at each position. That is the same for discussing places to go or activities to do. My understanding is that you only need to make a list with your hands when you need to say something about each item on the list. I learned this the hard way. I did not need to make a hand list to talk about the different rooms in my apartment.
When working with three dimensional spaces, the concept of space in ASL overlaps greatly with the English language concept of spatial awareness. That is to say, we work clockwise, from the bottom up, and start with the things closest to the “speaker.” It’s one of those things that you don’t think about often, but imagine you are recording the interior of a renovated house about to go on the market; wouldn’t you orient yourself and direct the video as I have described above?
Clockwise works best because most people are right handed, regardless of the language that they speak. Bottom-up works because ASL is a visual language, so with our signs we are helping the viewer visualize themselves going through the space from where they would enter, which is usually the ground floor. Distance is important in ASL for both physical and metaphorical spaces.
I suppose that this commonality is not just between English and ASL, rather it is shared in Western cultures, broadly speaking. Our perception of personal space in the US tends to extend farther from our front and back than our sides. That is to say, our “personal bubble” is more oblong than circular. However, when I visited Sweden last year, I saw that people went out of their way to maintain an evenly spaced distance from one another to the point that on a busy train it was still common to find people standing rather than sitting beside a stranger.
