VERSE AND AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE

The translation of Shakespeare is not simply the translation of a dramatic text but also the translation of various modes of language, i.e., musical lyrics, blank verse, and prose, all of which are used in Twelfth Night.

In English, verse meter is essentially a convention of patterned stresses. Stress is a natural aspect of the sound of individual words. Meter, however, is an artificial construct imposed upon language. While sound is what establishes the natural stress of a word in English and other spoken languages, sound cannot be the basis for stress in ASL. Because ASL has a visual/gestural modality rather than an oral/aural one, it makes sense that movement, location and handshape contribute to the overall basis for discussion of the poetic nature of ASL. Classifiers are one way in which the shape of the hands can establish verse-form in ASL.

Classifiers are defined as a set of signs which are made with a specific handshape that represent a noun and indicate the location, movement, size, shape, or texture of that noun. In the movie on this site, notice the similarity of the handshape throughout all of the signs and movement in the first lines from Twelfth Night.

Classifiers do not have precise counterparts in English, and transcribing them is a difficult process because they vary in shape and movement. They can represent individuals, vehicles or animals, and inanimate objects; they "represent some mimetic elaboration to convey, for instance a more precise description of an event or of a quality" (Klima and Bellugi, 13). They may also act as predicates. It is very possible to tell an entire story based completely on the use of one classifier handshape.

Rather than distinguishing verse based on sound, we are investigating movement, classifiers, and location as a means of establishing a verse structure equivalent.