American Sign Language 121
Seattle Central Community College
Barb Bernstein Fant, Instructor

Sign Parameters

Every ASL sign is made up of five ingredients. These ingredients are called parameters i.e. the parts of a sign.

Handshape: There are 45 different handshapes in ASL.

Palm Orientation: Each handshape can change orientation; the palm can face out, down, up, etc.

Location: The location (wherever on the body) of each sign can change and add grammatical information.

Movement: The direction in which the sign moves (away from the body, towards the body, etc.) carries specific information. Repetition of movement can have grammatical information.

Facial Expression: Many signs in ASL require a non-manual signal/prosody in order to be produced correctly.
__________________________________________

Use the table below to produce sets of signs.
You can see the sign sets via streamed video using the link below.

Notice that the change in just one parameter
will often produce a new sign (but not always).

It is important for new signers to realize that even a slight
alteration of one of the parameters can produce an unintended sign.

Click here for the streamed video