Clayton Valli and Ceil Lucas, Editors

Unit Four: Language as Art

Goal
To gain a basic understanding of the different artistic forms in ASL

ASL is not used only for everyday communication. Artistic forms such as storytelling (which includes A-to-Z stories, numerical stories, and classifier stories), percussion signing, drama, comedy, and poetry have long existed in the Deaf community. The artistic forms of ASL have played an important role in the transmission of culture and history from generation to generation of Deaf people. The artistic forms of ASL are often quite distinct in their structure. For example, storytelling, a popular art form among Deaf people, demonstrates a complex structure that includes the extensive use of formulaic elements.

STORYTELLING

Storytelling is a fundamental part of Deaf culture. As with spoken language stories, ASL stories can be fables, personal experiences, anecdotes, or legends. Ben Bahan’s “Bird of a Different Feather” (1992) is an excellent example of a fable. It tells the story of a singing bird who lives in the world of eagles and struggles to live up to their expectations. It very much applies to Deaf people’s common experience of being raised with hearing people’s expectations. “For a Decent Living” by Sam Supalla (1992) is a good example of a legend about a Deaf young man’s dramatic fate. Like many other anecdotes and personal stories about funny experiences with house parents and teachers at residential schools, it also contains “paving the way” experiences (situations in which the Deaf hero of the story paves the way for other Deaf people through his pioneering experience).