American Sign Language vs. Signed English
American Sign Language began being used in the early 1800s (Bochner & Albertini 14). It is now recognised as a separate language apart from English. The linguistical constraints of ASL are different from those of spoken or signed English. In the 1960s, several groups of professionals were concerned about the academic levels, especially reading levels, of hearing impaired students. In reaction to these low scores, methods of encoding English into sign were begun. ASL, signed English, and spoken English are valid forms of communication. The big question is: Should deaf or hearing impaired children be taught in English or in another language? In the United States children are taught to read and write in English. Deaf children who are primarily ASL speakers, learn to read and write in a non-native language.
Signed English began with David Anthony. He was a deaf teacher in Michigan. His system of manually encoded English was known as Signing Essential English. He used standard signs from ASL but also included now signs to stand for English morphemes (Lou 91). Morphemes are meaningful linguistic units which can be discrete or bound together. For example "pin" is a discrete morpheme. "Pins" is a bound morpheme with 2 distinct sounds each with meaning. Every word had to be signed morphemically. A single word might require multiple signs. The idea was to give manually the same information a hearing person received aurally or in written English but without having to use fingerspelling. Many homonyms in Signed Essential English share the same sign just as they sound and are spelled the same in English. This is different than in ASL. In determining whether the words should be signed the same or differently, Anthony, looked at three factors: the sound of the word, the meaning of the word, and the spelling of the word. If 2 of these were the same, then the sign in Signed Esse...