Over the past few weeks, I have published several new books. From the outside, that can look like some kind of creative superpower. Like I locked myself in a room, drank a heroic amount of coffee, and sprinted through a stack of fresh manuscripts until the world blurred and the covers appeared. That is not what happened.
Watch any native signer and then watch an intermediate student. The difference is not in the handshapes. It is not in the facial expressions, though those matter. The difference lives in the arms. The native signer’s shoulders engage when emphasis requires it. The elbows extend and contract with meaning. The signing space expands for formal address and contracts for intimacy. The student, trained to focus on hands and face, moves through space as if the arms were merely transportation for the fingers. This is the gap that Arm Angles in American Sign Language addresses. It is the textbook we wished existed twenty years ago.
You must be logged in to post a comment.