Signing: How to Speak with Your Hands

By Elaine Costello

Book Overview

American Sign Language is a wonderful silent language of hands, face, and body that is rich with nuance, emotion, and grace. Bantam is proud to present the newly revised Signing : How To Speak With Your Hands , a comprehensive and easy-to-use guide that has long been the invaluable and definitive guide for families, friends, and professionals who need to communicate effectively with deaf children and adults. Now this expanded edition, with redesigned interiors and updated material, includes even more signs; large, upper-torso illustrations clearly show formation and movement of the hands, and their relation to the face and body. All the beautifully illustrated signs are accompanied by precise, easy-to-follow instructions on how to form them. This complete guide includes chapters on common phrases, the alphabet, foods and eating, health, recreation, and the newest chapter covering technology, politics. education, and music.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553375393
• ISBN13: 9780553375398
• Release Date: August 1995
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.19 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.9" x 10.7"

Customer Reviews

Great basic ASL dictionary

Elaine Costello got it right when she made this dictionary and had it sectioned by topic instead of purely alphabetical. This book is a required text for my college level intro to ASL classes that I teach.

"Signing: How To Speak With Your Hands" by Elaine Costello, PHD

I began taking classes to learn A.S.L. about two years ago, and "How To Speak With Your Hands" was my first study guide. I found it to be an excellent book for a beginner and I continue to use it as a reference tool.

Silent language

This book is easy to use and is a very good reference to have.

An excellent introduction to ASL

I purchased this book for an introductory sign language course offered through a local public school. I found it to be a very good starting point, though I quickly outgrew it and needed Elaine Costello's more extensive Random House Dictionary. This book provided a much better overview of ASL than any other I have since seen on the shelves, but if you are wanting to learn a significant amount of ASL, better to forgo this one and purchase the full size dictionary.

Wonderfully thorough book teaching ASL

I use this book to teach Sign Language classes and think it is great. Dr. Costello has a thorough introduction to the language in the beginning of the book. The chapters are broken into "families" of signs, with clear illustrations. At the beginning of each chapter are three "basics" of ASL useage, which introduce the student to not only the vocabulary in the book, but also the way in which the language is used. It's a great book, and her background gives her every right to write a book like this. BTW, if you're interested in a children's Sign Language video, contact me. I am producing one that you may love!