Lesson Amid Silence -- A Hearing Person Studies The Language Of The Deaf And Learns Something More

Second of two parts

Right next to the gene that passed on my father's extreme nearsightedness and tendency toward sarcasm, there must be another one that gave me particularly keen hearing.

When I eat alone in restaurants, I bring along a book, but often end up tuning in to the conversations around me. At home, I'm an unwilling expert on my neighbors' romances and the music they play.

So there's a certain irony to my pursuit of American Sign Language, which I've studied for the past year.

Why would a hearing person without any deaf friends set out to learn this silent sort of communication?

My first look at ASL came a few years ago at public events here in Seattle, where interpreters can be found signing performances, political speeches, sermons and other events for audience members who are either deaf or hard of hearing.

I loved it. ASL is fast and graceful. With near-constant eye contact and a lot of physical movement, it's both intimate and expansive.

Some people are captivated by the romantic sound of French or Italian, the singing tones of Cantonese. I was hooked by the look of American Sign Language. I could learn that, I thought. No biggie . . . Just memorize a few gestures.

So I did what I always do when I want to learn something: I bought a book. Plunged in with the alphabet. After two days of looking from the illustrated ASL guide to my right hand, then back at the book, wondering if a "K" was really supposed to resemble a sideways peace sign, I did the second thing I always do when learning something new. I found a patient teacher.

None of the beginning ASL classes fit my schedule, so I called various deaf-services agencies for advice, eventually finding a deaf teacher willing to tutor me for a couple hours each week.

In the first 10 minutes, I realized two things:

ASL is a lot more than mime.

It only looks easy.

Still, by the end of the first session I was able to slowly fingerspell my name (I was right about one thing: a "K" does look like a sideways peace sign); communicate the single-gesture signs for "thank you," "I'm sorry," and a couple of curses that I require in order to carry on a conversation about my average workday in the newsroom.

Richard Jacobs, my tutor, communicated to me in slow, careful ASL and when I was unable to fathom his meaning, in handwritten notes. RJ could puzzle out my meaning through the same means, along with reading my lips when I forgot the no-talking rule and blurted out a word or two.

From the beginning he impressed on me that ASL deserves to be studied as a part of deaf culture, not simply as some secret sign language.

RJ started with the basics: demonstrating the ways his house was adapted to his deafness. When the doorbell or telephone rings, the lights flash. His telephone calls come through a teletypewriter (a keyboard with a small display screen that allows callers to exchange typed messages). The two dogs understand ASL so well that he must sign "walk" out of their sight if he wants to avoid a leaping, tail-wagging frenzy.

Like a lot of hearing people, I'd never thought much about the idea of a deaf culture. I'd mostly seen the deaf in terms of what they couldn't do. Things that are important in my own life: No Mozart. No listening to ocean waves against rocky coastlines. No striking up conversations with people met while traveling or standing in the grocery-store line.

As I began to learn ASL, my perception changed. The world is set up for hearing people, no doubt about it. And that can put the deaf at a disadvantage. But to see their silent world only through the lens of its deprivation provides a fuzzy picture.

Things came into sharper view as I talked more to RJ and his fiancee. I learned about their work and their families. He talked of being the only deaf player on a national athletic team. He showed me a videotape of his sister's wedding reception, where a roomful of deaf and hearing guests of all ages were signing to each other. We compared our impressions of the 1988 protest by deaf students at Gallaudet University who demanded (and got) the school's first deaf president. We pondered the pros and cons of hearing aids and the controversy over implants that can give some deaf children a limited ability to hear.

Along the way, his lessons were more profound. When two salesman came to RJ's door one afternoon, I spoke up, told them he was deaf and that we were in the middle of a tutoring session. After they left, he explained that although he was glad to keep their interruption brief, I should not make a habit of speaking for deaf people. I learned the sign for "pride" that day, and I am unlikely to forget it.

Right to the point

Just as some people have an ear for languages, students of ASL who have an eye for visual details fare the best. Nuance is everything. Gestures that look similar often differ wildly in meaning. I quickly became familiar with the sign for "very different," as my tutor - struggling to keep from laughing at my signed malapropisms - demonstrated the meanings.

The first confusion cropped up right away, as I proudly signed an explanation of my career as a journalist, only to be hurriedly told that I was confusing the signs for "work" and "masturbation."

For all its subtlety, ASL is wonderfully direct. It uses its own syntax, rather than just substituting signs for spoken English. "Would you consider going out with me to the movies sometime?" is likely to be signed as "movies/we-go/future?" with an inquiring (or if appropriate, pleading) look on the signer's face. When a group of deaf and hard-of-hearing friends are gathered in the living room, there are no euphemisms about visiting the powder room. The sign for "toilet" is a perfectly fine way to let people know why you are disappearing. (It helps, of course, to avoid confusing it with the sign for "Tuesday," something I still do now and then.)

Along with figuring out the syntax and vocabulary (there are at least 1,200 signs in my most compact illustrated dictionary), comes expressiveness. Hearing people usually catch each other's drift by listening to word choice and tone. If they pay attention, body language provides other clues. For the deaf, the equation is turned around: a sharp sweep of the hand and a fierce expression can equal shouted words. Raised eyebrows indicate the topic of the sentence or may denote a question.

Oddly enough, I've found that as I've developed the concentration needed to watch other people's expressions as they sign, I am growing more attentive in listening. (This can only be a plus.)

If you're sick, look like it

I first saw how difficult this crucial expressiveness can be for hearing people when, after a few months of tutoring, I enrolled in a series of noncredit ASL evening classes at Seattle Central Community College.

Some of the students in my first class were quite shy. One bashful man told me he was attracted to signing because it didn't require him to speak out loud. Still others in the class were very stoic personalities who showed no change of expression when they were speaking, never mind signing. All of us tended to concentrate so hard on remembering basic signs that our expressions registered more confusion than anything else.

Learning to overcome this may be one of the toughest parts of mastering ASL.

But Dennice Jordan, the teacher, was undaunted by our scared-deer-in-the-headlights demeanor. She went to work proving to us that a deadpan expression is the ASL equivalent of mumbling. Asking a question? Well, look curious! Hoping for sympathy after the flu felled you last week? Don't just make the sign for "sick" - stick out your tongue and make a horrible face at the same time. Lock yourself in a room with a mirror, she told us, and make faces until you get it.

So here I am. Making faces in the bathroom mirror every morning as I dry my hair, looking as outraged or sick or happy as I possibly can. Not exactly what I imagined when I set out to learn ASL.

Nor did I imagine that learning the correct sign for "work" and the ability to tell "Tuesday" from "toilet" would be only one small part of my studies. I've discovered that the language I loved at first sight is sustained by a culture with a rich depth and history that will take a lifetime to explore.

I cannot really know what it is to be deaf, and I am very much a novice at ASL. But as a hearing person, I am energized by seeing my same old world in this changed light. Now I am aware that everything I see as I walk down the street has its own sign. I no longer hear a new name and visualize it in written letters; instead I think how my hand moves to spell it in the manual alphabet. Occasionally I dream in sign, and in the satisfying way of good dreams, I am swift and fluent and everyone around me understands.

But some things haven't changed a bit. Last month I sat in a coffee shop on Capitol Hill and, as usual, pretended to read while I eavesdropped on a man and woman across the room.

They were fighting. In sign. ----------------------------------------------------------------- What is ASL?

Not all deaf people communicate in American Sign Language. Some use "Manually Coded English," others rely on lip reading; still others make use of a combination of these skills.

Unlike Manually Coded English, ASL does not just substitute signs for spoken English words. It does have a manual alphabet that allows the spelling out of words, but it is largely composed of separate signs, and has its own sentence structure that is compact and direct.

Some of the signs are mimed expressions: the ASL sign for "book" uses two hands to mimic opening the covers of a book. But many signs do not evoke their meaning - such as the sign for "black" in which an index finger is drawn across one's forehead. Not all deaf people use ASL.

ASL is different from signed languages in other countries - it is not a "universal" language for the deaf. Rather than growing out of spoken English, much of what is now ASL came from a European-influenced French sign language first "imported" and studied here in the 1800s. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Deaf culture resources

Interested in learning more about American Sign Language? These organizations and books are a good starting point. The public library and bookstores carry these titles and many others.

Seattle organizations and schools -- American Sign Language Interpreting School of Seattle, 525-1030 (voice/tty) -- Seattle Central Community College Interpreter Training Program, 344-4347 (voice/tty) -- ASUW Experimental College, 543-4375 (voice only)

Books -- "A Basic Course in American Sign Language" (TJ Publishers). -- "The American Sign Language Phrase Book" (Contemporary Books). -- "The Perigee Visual Dictionary of Signing" (Perigee Books).

Videotape "Deaf-Blind Communication and Community: Getting Involved by Sign." Media Inc.