American Sign Language

High school (ages 12+)
People & Society

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/american-sign-language

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the primary linguistic domain?United States and Anglophone Canada
2. What is the foundational institution?American School for the Deaf, Hartford, Connecticut (early 19th century)
3. How did American Sign Language start?ASL began in the early 1800s at the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, where deaf students mixed their own signs with French Sign Language brought by Laurent Clerc.
4. Why do people use signs instead of talking?People use signs because they can see the gestures and facial expressions, which help them understand each other even if they can't hear.

Agglutinative Morphology: A linguistic process where morphemes (units of meaning) are joined together to form words.
Lingua Franca: A language systematically used to communicate between people of different native languages.
Nonmanual Features: Facial expressions, head movements, and body posture that convey grammatical and semantic information in sign languages.