I appreciate the political and philosophical blogs and vlogs found on-line that discuss interpreter roles and ethics, community activism and power,and  Deafhood and Deaf Heart. Kudos to DeafRead and Street Leverage! 

As for me, I’m a bit of a language nerd (oh, let’s be honest I’m a BIG language nerd). For 20 years, I have been observing, documenting and analyzing a growing lexicon of signs and gestures used in everyday ASL narrative and discourse.

My goal has always been to work out the definition of these signs but NOT IN ENGLISH WORDS. I have been working on creating scenarios, reactions, emotions and settings that prompt these signs. This way, as I continue to teach interpreting I am able to help student break out of the English mode by encouraging them to develop a “gut feeling” about these signs.

There is a workshop I have been presenting for many years—Semantic Clusters. This workshop organizes this lexicon into groups of closely related or oft confused signs. Over the years, the number of Semantic Clusters has increased as had my evidence of their meaning.

I believe that interpreters and advanced ASL students are hungry to understand the depth of meaning of signs, particularly those signs for emotions, actions and reactions,

While I continue to present this workshop, I have created a Facebook page “Semantic Clusters” to continue to put forth my ideas and encourage dialogue.

This past week, I began a discussion of a group of signs (with video) that relate generally to the idea of “being quiet/not talking/not saying anything/keeping one’s own counsel”

Please feel free to visit and “like” and participate.