Sign Language for Everyone

by Cathy Rice

There are approximately 28 million deaf, hard of hearing, and deafened people in the US, according to Gallaudet University, and although not all of them speak American Sign Language (ASL), a visual-spatial language that is used by the deaf community in the United States (and English-speaking parts of Canada), the number of them who do make ASL the fourth most commonly used language in the country! Now being made available in this affordable trade paper edition, Sign Language for Everyone can be used to reach a new generation of the deaf. For those seeking to establish a ministry to the deaf, or simply to provide ASL translation of sermons, the book-written by Dr. Cathy Rice, using her more than fifty years of experience in working with the hearing-impaired-will be a welcome resource. In addition to the explanation and illustration for each sign, the book covers rules and etiquette to observe when interacting with the deaf.

Genres: Nonfiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published March 20, 1981

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did I finish "reading" it? Yes.
Am I fluent in ASL now? Absolutely not.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was my first foray into "I'm going to learn asl". It definitely started me on the right track and helped me learn some important signs easily.

As ASL signs can change locally, some of the signs in this book were not used by my local Deaf community. Not Mrs. Rice's fault, of course. I just mention it so that others may be aware that they will be signing somethings differently and that you should always conform to what the community is using.

This book isn't great with the grammar of ASL and it's religiously slanted. Sure,there were everyday words, but there were also words like "God", "church", "devil", "Christian", "Catholic". And all of the practice sentences were religious. So if the mere mention of it doesn't bother you, go for it. It helped me in my studies.

[Krislyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book very helpful when wanting to pick up sign language again, but it failed to mention that the book had Christian/Catholic signs in it too, I don't really have a problem but the book saids it's for everyone when it's clearly for Christians/ Catholics only, for the first chapter all but one sentence at the end of the chapter was religious.