Seneca College CUL361: Signed English, ASL, and Deaf Community Report

This report delves into the origins and development of Signed English, highlighting its emergence as an educational tool for deaf children post-1970, addressing issues in education. It explores the differences between Signed English and American Sign Language (ASL), emphasizing that Signed English mirrors English grammar and is primarily used in classrooms, while ASL focuses on shared thoughts and messages. The report provides an overview of how the deaf community utilizes sign language, including hand movements, facial expressions, and body posture, as well as village sign languages for local communication. It references key figures like Dr. March Marschark and relevant research, providing a comprehensive understanding of Signed English's role in deaf education and communication.

Running head: DEVELOPMENT OF SIGNED ENGLISH
DEVELOPMENT OF SIGNED ENGLISH
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

DEVELOPMENT OF SIGNED ENGLISH
Q1. Describe how and why Signed English was formed? Comparison of Signed English and
American Sign Language (ASL)? How deaf community uses Signed Language ?
Children before the year 1970 used the oral only process of education as because at that
time parents as well as other adult person and teachers did not prefer to use sign language. Only
after the 1970’s Sign English was used as a tool for education for the deaf and dumb. The main
three reasons why Signed English was formed is because at that time there was a problem with
the education levels of the deaf children (Supalla Siple and Fischer, 2017). They were facing
problem with syntax-ting and morphology in their writings. A discrepancy also arose regarding
the learning of the normal knowledge between the deaf and dumb students. There was also a
concern regarding the speech reading.
The Signed English was formed by Dr. March Marschark and other teachers of deaf as
well as few other professionals in the year 2000 who was the author of Deaf Education and Deaf
Studies. He had a valuable support to the listening, speaking and speech of the English Language
in the schools. At that time The Deaf community found it very difficult to use the Oral English as
in the form of speaking and signing (Johnston and Schembri 2018). In Signed English each and
every word in a sentence which is spoken is signed. It fully uses the language and grammar
which is used in English. It does not use the language or grammar used in the deaf signed
languages.
The basic difference between the Signed English and the American signed language is
that Signed English is mostly used in classrooms whereas the American Sign Language is only
used where the focus is put on the thought shared or the message provided. Taking the example
of signing “I have two sister”, in Signed English every word has to signed whereas in American

DEVELOPMENT OF SIGNED ENGLISH
Signed English signs have to be made for the two words: ‘Two’ and ‘Sister’ and then point the
finger to the speaker (Padden and Ramsey 2014).
The Deaf Community uses sign language which is made with the movement of the hands,
which also includes few facial expressions and general posture made by the body. The Deaf
Community also uses their village sign languages so as to communicate with the deaf people in
their area. The various sign of the English alphabets which are used by the Deaf Community is
presented in the figure below:
Fig 1. Represents the Signed English alphabets in English Language.
(Source: Stokoe 2015)

DEVELOPMENT OF SIGNED ENGLISH
References
Supalla, S., Siple, P. and Fischer, S., 2017. Manually coded English: The modality question in
signed language development. Theoretical issues in sign language research, 2, pp.85-109.
Johnston, T. and Schembri, A.C., 2018. On defining lexeme in a signed language. Sign language
& linguistics, 2(2), pp.115-185.
Padden, C. and Ramsey, C., 2014. American Sign Language and reading ability in deaf children.
Language acquisition by eye, 1, pp.65-89.
Stokoe Jr, W.C., 2015. Sign language structure: An outline of the visual communication systems
of the American deaf. Journal of deaf studies and deaf education, 10(1), pp.3-37.