Disclaimers: while I have been learning ASL (American Sign Language, I am not yet fluent. Also, I am not deaf. Both of these things being said, I have been learning ASL for nearly a year and I’ve been doing independant research about the language itself and the Deaf community. What I’ve listed below are things that I have learned from my own personal experience signing, what I’ve learned in my ASL class, and what I’ve learned from my independant research.
1) When you write signed dialogue, use quotation marks and everything else you would use for any other type of dialogue. Yes, I know they didn’t do that in the Magnus Chase series, but many Deaf readers were made uncomfortable at the choice to depict sign language as not speech. Establish early on that the character signs and then use tags such as “xe signed,” or “hir motions were snappy with irritation.”
2) Without facial expressions, someone’s signs are going to be almost meaningless. All of the grammar is in the face, as are some descriptors. For example, if you can’t see a character’s face, and you’re only looking at their hands, the signs would be the same for the statement “Xe doesn’t have dogs.” and the question “Does xe have dogs?”
3) There is no such thing as fluent lipreading. The best lipreaders in the world can only understand about 70% of what’s being said, and factors such as darkness, the presence of mustaches, lack of context, and a bunch of other common things can easily lower that ability. If someone’s lipreading, they’re taking little pieces of what they can lipread, and stitching together context and other details to get a general picture of what’s going on, but there’s still always going to be holes.
4) If you’re writing a character who can’t hear, know the difference between deaf (lowercase d) and Deaf (uppercase D). The medical term for not being able to hear anything is deaf. People who use their deafness as part of their identity are referred to, and refer to themselves as Deaf. They are part of the Deaf community.
(more tips below cut)
caprarufa reblogged this from eternalglitch - caprarufa liked this
daaedoodles liked this
vivixian liked this bluboobird reblogged this from writing-with-olive
payper-arts liked this 
queenwendy reblogged this from writing-with-olive 
vixcrutch liked this lbulldesigns reblogged this from josketches
might-as-well-happen liked this
edmundpevensiesqueen reblogged this from josketches
rainoftea liked this
josketches reblogged this from writing-with-olive
shiftingskys liked this
aaustinwrites reblogged this from writing-with-olive
startheriw liked this
infotohelpout reblogged this from writing-with-olive 
lovelyalicorn reblogged this from hohdeaf-headcanons - lovelyalicorn liked this
bbeeohazardd liked this
anamelessfool liked this
yikesmoon liked this
humanly-imperfect liked this
roseandthethorns liked this tillytech13 liked this
crownofrats liked this
azuls-stuff reblogged this from writing-with-olive
alkus-art liked this
kjs-s liked this
roseniceblade-blog liked this
babymilkworm liked this
alexanderargonrubidium liked this lux-ace liked this
wolfye liked this 
shorterthanadverage reblogged this from writing-with-olive thebagmansgambit liked this
bluuscreen liked this
galaxygal618 liked this muf-do-stuff reblogged this from randomchaoticanarchy
anonry99 reblogged this from randomchaoticanarchy
blairflucker liked this - neitherrelevantnorimportant liked this
sunsetcurveauto reblogged this from writing-with-olive
bitch-stop-breathing liked this bilboblogsthings reblogged this from juniperhillpatient
writing-with-olive posted this
- Show more notes
