American Sign Language (ASL) Program Overview
The American Sign Language (ASL) program teaches the primary language of the Deaf community in the U.S. and Canada, offering students insight into its unique structure and rich cultural heritage. By studying ASL, students gain a deeper understanding of language diversity, enhance their career prospects in fields related to deafness, and develop a new perspective on language as a whole.
Courses & Requirements | Highlights | Faculty
Requirements
ASL cannot be used to satisfy the RC language requirement.
RCASL 100 is a prerequisite for all ASL courses in the RC.
The ASL Program at Michigan
The Residential College offers a 5-course sequence in American Sign Language. Introduction to Deaf Culture (RCASL 100) serves as a pre- or co-requisite to beginning the language courses. The fourth semester language course (RCASL 202) may be used to fulfill the undergraduate language requirement of the College of Literature, Science, and Arts.
RCASL 100: Introduction to Deaf Culture
This course introduces students to Deaf culture within the United States, and focuses on the link between culture and language (in this case, American Sign Language). An analysis of medical and cultural models of perceiving deafness is investigated to familiarize students with the range of perceptions held by members of the cultural majority and the effect it has on the Deaf community.
The influencing factors of educational systems on deaf children are reviewed to understand the link between language systems used in the classroom and the development of a Deaf identity. The historical roots of American Sign Language and the value of language preservation provide for additional overview of attitudes in American society. Social adaptations to deafness and individual factors of communicative and linguistic development are analyzed for understanding the implications of family and social systems on deaf children and adults.
RCASL 100: Introduction to Deaf Culture is a prerequisite for any and all RCASL language courses.
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RCASL 101 and 102: Elementary American Sign Language
These beginning courses in American Sign Language (ASL) introduce students to basic grammatical structures and sign vocabulary through intensive classroom conversational interactions involving everyday topics. Emphasis is on practical communicative functions as students learn how to communicate in a visual-gestural channel. Classroom work is supplemented by videotaped workbook and laboratory exercises to facilitate development of receptive language skills. These courses are conducted exclusively in ASL and regular attendance is essential.
RCASL 201 and 202: Intermediate American Sign Language
Students in the intermediate courses in ASL learn more advanced communicative forms including understanding the essential role of facial communication (non-manual behaviors) in forming expressions. Additional vocabulary including idiomatic expressions, are introduced to expand students' abilities to understand and converse appropriately in various settings. Through a conversational approach, students also continue to study selected literature, history, culture, and outlooks of Deaf people in order to develop an understanding of appropriate standards of communicating in ASL. Students completing RCASL 201 and 202 will have acquired a basic understanding of how to communicate in a visual-gestural channel in order to receive and express ASL sentences in everyday conversational interactions.
Advising for ASL
Paula Berwanger is the primary instructor and head of the ASL Program.
Why study American Sign Language?
American Sign Language (ASL) is the language of the Deaf community in the United States and much of Canada. ASL uses a gestural-visual modality in which manual signs, facial expressions, and body movements and postures all convey complex linguistic information. It is a fully developed language, with its own systems for articulation, forming words and sentences, and meaning. ASL is separate from English, and is also distinct from other signed languages. An excellent example of the separateness of signed languages from each other and from the surrounding spoken language(s) is that, although English is the shared spoken language of the U.S. and Britain, speakers of ASL do not understand speakers of British Sign Language.
ASL is estimated to be the fourth most commonly used language in the U.S. Through learning the preferred language of the Deaf community, students who study ASL gain access to the rich cultural heritage of that community, which includes a distinguished tradition of visual poetry, narrative, and theater. Students of ASL also learn about other aspects of American Deaf culture, including the values and outlooks of Deaf people, and social and educational aspects of deafness.
Students of ASL may find that they gain a new perspective on how human languages are structured. Through learning a language that uses a different modality of expression than the oral-auditory modality of spoken languages, students begin to discover properties that are common to all languages. Linguists' research on the commonalities between signed and spoken language provides strong evidence that all languages are governed by the same basic properties.
Finally, study of ASL also provides practical training for students entering a range of professions in the field of deafness, and may strengthen students' qualifications for various non-deafness careers.
Faculty
American Sign Language Faculty
Residential College: American Sign Language NEW
Professor Emerita Arts and Ideas in the Humanities Program, Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, and Women's Studies
Director, Residential College; Professor and Head, Science, Technology and Society Program
Lecturer II, Semester in Detroit, Creative Writing & Literature, and First Year Writing Seminar
Exhibitions and Curatorial Coordinator Intermittent Lecturer Limited License Mental Health Counselor (LLPC/LLC) Art Therapist (ATR-P)
Lecturer II, German Intensive I & II, Humanities in Arts and Ideas, Cultural Anthropology and CBL in Social Theory and Practice
Professor, Social Theory and Practice, Richard A. Meisler Collegiate Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies, and History
Clinical Associate Professor Emeritus, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation; Instructor, RC Social Theory and Practice Program
Teaching Professor and Program Head, German; Arts and Ideas in the Humanities Program; First Year Writing Seminar
U-M Detroit Center
Lecturer Emeritus, Social Theory and Practice; Faculty Scholar Integrative Medicine; Faculty Fellow, Mellon Faculty Institute on Arts Academic Integration; Academic Advisor
Theodore Roethke Distinguished University Professor of English Language and Literature, RC Creative Writing and Literature Program
Professor of Theatre & Drama, Residential College, Prison Creative Arts Project, Latina/o Studies Program, English, and Penny Stamps School of Art & Design
Walgreen Drama Center, room 2435
RC Community Programs Business Manager; Associate Director, Prison Creative Arts Project
Lecturer Emerita, Spanish, Comparative Literature, Arts and Ideas, American Culture, Latino/a Studies, Women's Studies
701 E. University
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1245
Social Theory & Practice Major Program Head and Advisor; General Academic Advisor; RC Living/Learning Advisor; Mental Health Referrals
Lecturer, Spanish Program, Social Theory and Practice; Coordinator Intensive Spanish II
Lecturer Emerita, Creative Writing and Literature, First Year Seminar Program Head, Academic Advisor
Lecturer, Social Theory and Practice, and Spanish Language Internship Program Coordinator
Director of Residential College Admissions, Recruitment & MLC Administration; Adjunct Lecturer
Collegiate Professor of History and African American Studies in the History, Afroamerican and African Studies Departments and in the Residential College Social Theory and Practice Program
Associate Director for RC Faculty; Arthur F. Thurnau Professor; Associate Professor, Semester in Detroit, Social Theory and Practice Program; Advisor, Urban Studies minor; Faculty Director, Semester in Detroit
Professor, Arts and Ideas in the Humanities Program; Professor, Afroamerican and African Studies; Professor, History
