ASL and art

The article that first got my attention was this: http://www.newarkadvocate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071112/UPDATES01/71112040/1002/

Kids are learning sign language through art, apparently by making tissue paper resemble hand motions or something.The interesting connection, though, is the one between sign language and aesthetics, visual and kind of metaphorically (I'll explain this one later, I just can't think of the word).

It kind of makes sense that sign language would also develop (naturally) an aesthetic component. This is true of pretty much all written language. The Koran is often written in embroidered gold font, and the beauty of the text is meant to complement the message of glory. Fonts, such as Roman letters, were engineered with visual characteristics in mind (in this case, power, expressed through the serif). And cool things have been done through manipulation of writing, like Apollinnaire's picture poetry. On the flip side, oral language also has its aesthetic component. Rhyming, alliteration, meter, are all things that make verbalized langage sound good. The pont here si that language doesn't just convey information, and oftentimes the aesthetic aspects that accompany the information either complement/reinforce the message or comprise an entirely different message themselves.

So along comes ASL, and after thinking about the previous two cases of writtena dn oral langauge, it becoems clear that ASL occupies an interesting niche. It is a visual language, in that you can see the signs, but it's also analogous to oral language because it's not permanent - the signs come and go, mirroring the flow of transient phonemes. Indeed, as this article explains:

http://www.ubu.com/ethno/discourses/bauman_asl.html

ASL (and any other sign language too by inference) combines many of the aesthetic elements of writing and speaking. For example, and this is really cool - you can rhyme in ASL by repeating particular handshapes. Moreover, I guess the cadence, or speed and rhythm of the hand symbols conveys a kind of meter, or lilt. And the style, flourishes, whatever, along with the actual design fo the handshapes contribute to the visually pleasing/aesthetic qualities of ASL. The article seems to make the argument that ASL is like poetry, containing "meter, rhyme, metaphor, simile, and line-breaks.", as well as spatial characteristics. It's kind of like listening to a recitation and reading an artful depiction simultaneously.

More on ASL (and film) by Thursday.