ASL2140 American Sign Language I

American Sign Language I introduces the fundamentals of American Sign Language (ASL) used by the Deaf community in the United States. Communicative competence in ASL is developed through immersive expressive and receptive tasks. Emphasis is placed on fingerspelling fluency, vocabulary development, sentence construction and grammatical features. The curriculum explores the rich language and culture of the Deaf community from a cultural-linguistic viewpoint, examining Deaf experiences and significant historical events that influenced the development and evolution of ASL. . This course introduces the core elements of ASL and progresses to basic conversational skills, including asking questions, simple dialogue, and developing appropriate pragmatics in a visual language. Effective signing conveying meaning and emotion depends on purposeful facial expressions and body movement, both of which are developed throughout the course. Together, these elements provide a solid foundation and prepare students for continued progression in ASL discourse. Completion of this course helps satisfy the Daytona State College foreign language requirement.