Reading about Signed Exact English and so much of its promotional materials are like "this should be a bridge to ASL! We want kids using SEE grow up to be adults using ASL!" and... that's not how it always happened.
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I've been told about adults who still use SEE because they never crossed that bridge. Part of what they missed is that a bridge needs to connect at both ends, and if deaf adults aren't at the other end, then the SEE user is stuck where they are.
As a native SEE user, it was fairly easy for me to pick up ASL signs, harder to get the grammar. I feel the people who invented this had good intentions and wanted to overcome a particularly bad manual sign system (SEE1), but it just didn't quite work.
And SEE1 also came from good intentions, also invented by deaf teachers. It even introduced a few signs to ASL, including PROGRAM. But in the end, it became too convoluted and collapsed.
Plus SEE1, having been around for roughly a generation before SEE2 emerged, also became the butt of a lot of jokes in the Deaf community. When people talk about how bad Signed English is, they generally mean SEE1.
I grew up using SEE, and it took me a literal decade for me to feel comfortable in ASL. Like the bridging between SEE and ASL is often pretty shaky and there’s not a lot to really reinforce the transition.
Exactly! It took full immersion for me to even be comfortable with ASL. SEE also encourages acting in an ASL-like manner, which I think is hard if you're not already fluent in ASL
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