Semiotics analysis of ASL poetry

Cynthia Campbell shares her research on the semiotics of ASL Poetry, analyzing a seemingly simple poem, Cow and Rooster by Clayton Valli signed by a young girl. She explains that in teaching hearing students ASL they had a difficult time making a transition to using sign language smoothly. Her research question relates to improving the teaching of ASL by asking Deaf people what is considered excellent storytelling or poetry. They were not able to give her examples, so this became part of her research question. She analyzes Cow and Rooster by using some semiotic principles as outlined by 19th century philosopher Charles Sanders Pierce: symbols, icons, and index (as it pertains to ASL). She found rich analysis in this poem: body stance and shift to indicate different characters, handshape patterns of 3 (rooster), Y (cow) and 5 (farm) signed in different spatial areas, and discovered metonymy (icon and index)-- and a pattern of in the narrative structure. English text has a different pattern as compared to ASL signs, thus more research is needed to see how Deaf and hearing people process language and if it is different, how to improve teaching of ASL to hearing students.