My journey into ASL continues. I’ve been reading Oliver Sacks _Seeing Voices_ and Harlan Lane, Robert Hoffmeister, and Ben Bahan’s _A Journey into the DEAF-WORLD_. In short, learning a language in your thirties is a whole different ballgame than learning as a toddler. There are a few different brain plasticity cliffs you drop off especially at around age 6 and again at age 12.<\/p>\n
And I’m completely OK with this. I don’t expect to ever get confused for a native signer, which is fine with me. I do expect, however, to become a better communicator–to develop sufficient skill to be clearly understood in ASL. I\u00c2\u00a0prefer\u00c2\u00a0to think of it like someone with a suave British accent in America. You’d never mistake them for a native and yet they are a joy to converse with. In the right circumstances, they can even grab your attention moreso than someone with a native accent.<\/p>\n
This can only do good things for my spoken communication skills as well. It’s a lot like acting classes in some\u00c2\u00a0respects, which is a marked departure from my normally taciturn personality. This is encouraging me to quit holding everything inside quite so much, with encouraging results. If you see me walking a little taller, speaking a bit more emphatically, or better conveying emotion to get my point across, now you know what’s behind that. -m<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My journey into ASL continues. I’ve been reading Oliver Sacks _Seeing Voices_ and Harlan Lane, Robert Hoffmeister, and Ben Bahan’s _A Journey into the DEAF-WORLD_. In short, learning a language in your thirties is a whole different ballgame than learning as a toddler. There are a few different brain plasticity cliffs you drop off especially…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1111],"tags":[721,1112,1115,1114,293],"class_list":["post-1006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asl","tag-acquisition","tag-asl-2","tag-communication","tag-fluency","tag-language"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t