The Fingerspelling Code: Linguistics of the ASL Alphabet

by James W. Van Manen

It’s not just too fast. When native ASL users produce the ASL alphabet they don’t just go faster—they do very different things than students are usually taught about. Unlike other approaches, this book assumes there is no weakness on the part of the student. The student’s eyes and brain work well enough. The problem is that what they are seeing is so unlike what they have been taught, they can’t figure out what they are looking at. Dr. Jim Van Manen studied this and discovered some important clues to the code that native ASL alphabet users produce without knowing they use it. The field has taught that native users are just faster, but their speed is possible because of specific changes that Dr. Jim has found and captured in The Fingerspelling Code.

316 pages, Paperback

Published June 12, 2018