Beyond the Hands

What You Will Learn

This textbook moves from the grammar of the face through discourse structure, sentence types, special topics, and professional applications across twenty-four chapters and six appendices. Each chapter builds systematically, introducing concepts that subsequent chapters extend and complicate. By the final chapter, readers possess both the analytical vocabulary and the practical protocols to assess and improve their own non-manual production.

The core challenge addressed is cognitive: how do signers manage the simultaneous demands of grammatical facial marking, manual sign production, and discourse organization? Unlike spoken language, where facial expression accompanies speech but does not constitute part of the linguistic system itself, in ASL the face carries grammar. A yes/no question without raised eyebrows is typically interpreted as a statement. A conditional without the appropriate facial marking loses its logical structure. A topic without topic marking becomes an ungrounded assertion.

Yet non-manual competence remains undertaught. Learners focus on vocabulary and handshapes, on the visible and nameable elements of signs. The face receives less systematic attention, perhaps because it is harder to describe in words, harder to drill in isolation, harder to assess objectively. The result is a generation of signers whose hands are more skilled than their faces, whose manual fluency outpaces their grammatical accuracy. This book provides the theoretical foundations, the analytical frameworks, and the practice protocols that transform passive understanding into active competence.

Chapter Overview

Part One: The Grammar of the Face

Chapter One: Non-Manual Markers as Grammatical System

Establishes the foundational claim that non-manual markers are part of ASL grammar, not optional emotional overlays. Distinguishes grammatical facial marking from emotional facial expression and introduces the scope principle that governs how non-manual markers spread over constituents.

Chapter Two: The Eyebrow System

Examines how eyebrow position marks question types, topics, conditionals, and other grammatical categories. Provides detailed analysis of raised brows for yes/no questions, furrowed brows for WH-questions, and the scope and timing of brow configurations.

Chapter Three: Mouth Morphemes and Mouthing

Distinguishes between ASL-internal mouth morphemes (TH, CHA, MM, PAH, and others) and English-derived mouthing. Examines how these two systems differ in origin, distribution, and function, and how register affects their deployment.

Chapter Four: Head Position and Movement

Analyzes the grammatical functions of head nods, headshakes, head tilts, and head turns, with attention to how head movement interacts with other non-manual articulators in marking negation, assertion, and discourse structure.

Chapter Five: Eye Gaze as Grammatical System

Examines how eye gaze functions in verb agreement, referent tracking, constructed action, and turn-taking. Distinguishes grammatical eye gaze from natural eye behavior and addresses the pragmatic complexities of gaze in interpreted settings.

Chapter Six: Body Position and Shift

Analyzes how body position and shift mark constructed action, contrastive structure, and discourse organization. Examines the interaction of body shift with other non-manual markers in creating the layered grammar of ASL.

Chapter Seven: Integration of Non-Manual Articulators

Synthesizes the preceding chapters by examining how the eyebrows, mouth, head, eyes, and body work together in simultaneous configurations. Addresses the coordination challenges that learners face and provides frameworks for integrated production.

Part Two: Discourse Structure and Information Flow

Chapter Eight: Topic-Comment Organization

Examines ASL's topic-comment structure as a discourse organizing principle, with attention to topic marking, topic types, and the information structure that governs how given and new information are distributed across utterances.

Chapter Nine: Discourse Markers and Connectives

Analyzes the manual and non-manual resources that signal discourse relationships: sequence, contrast, cause, condition, concession, and elaboration. Examines how connectives function differently in ASL than in English.

Chapter Ten: Cohesion and Reference

Examines how ASL maintains coherence across extended discourse through spatial reference, pronominalization, classifiers, constructed action, and lexical cohesion. Addresses the challenge of maintaining reference chains in interpreted settings.

Chapter Eleven: Narrative Structure

Analyzes the structural organization of ASL narratives, including orientation, complication, evaluation, and resolution. Examines how non-manual markers contribute to narrative organization and how skilled narrators deploy them for literary effect.

Chapter Twelve: Conversational Structure

Examines turn-taking, repair, topic management, and adjacency pairs in ASL conversation. Addresses how the visual modality shapes conversational organization and the implications for interpreted interaction.

Part Three: Sentence Types and Clause Structure

Chapter Thirteen: Questions in Depth

Comprehensive analysis of question formation in ASL: yes/no questions, WH-questions, alternative questions, rhetorical questions, tag questions, and echo questions. Examines the non-manual requirements, syntactic structures, and discourse functions of each type.

Chapter Fourteen: Negation

Analyzes the headshake system for negation, negative incorporation, negative concord, and the scope of negation across clause types. Examines how negation interacts with other non-manual markers and the challenges it poses for interpreters.

Chapter Fifteen: Conditionals and Hypotheticals

Examines conditional constructions in ASL, from simple if-then structures to counterfactual hypotheticals. Analyzes the non-manual marking of the protasis, the relationship between conditional and topic marking, and the expression of degrees of probability.

Chapter Sixteen: Complex Sentences

Analyzes relative clauses, complement clauses, adverbial clauses, and other complex sentence structures in ASL. Examines how non-manual markers signal clause boundaries and subordination relationships.

Chapter Seventeen: Assertion, Modality, and Speech Acts

Examines how ASL expresses certainty, possibility, obligation, and permission, and how speech acts such as commands, requests, promises, and warnings are structured through manual and non-manual resources.

Part Four: Special Topics

Chapter Eighteen: Tense, Aspect, and Temporal Reference

Examines how ASL locates events in time through temporal adverbs, spatial timelines, and discourse context rather than verb inflection. Analyzes aspectual marking through non-manual and movement modifications.

Chapter Nineteen: Quantification and Number

Analyzes how ASL expresses quantity, including numeral incorporation, quantifier scope, and the non-manual markers that modify quantificational meaning.

Chapter Twenty: Fingerspelling Integration

Examines how fingerspelling integrates with the broader grammatical system, including lexicalized fingerspelling, fingerspelled loan signs, and the non-manual behaviors that accompany fingerspelling in discourse.

Part Five: Professional Applications

Chapter Twenty-One: Legal Interpreting

Addresses the demands of legal interpreting where non-manual accuracy affects comprehension of testimony, question types carry evidentiary significance, and conditional constructions have legal consequences. Includes case studies and error analysis protocols.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Medical Interpreting

Examines the challenges of medical interpreting where question types affect diagnostic accuracy, negation scope affects medication instructions, and conditional constructions frame prognosis and treatment decisions.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Educational Interpreting

Analyzes the demands of educational interpreting where discourse structure affects comprehension, question types facilitate or hinder participation, and the register of academic language requires particular non-manual competence.

Chapter Twenty-Four: Self-Assessment and Development

Provides rubrics for self-assessment and peer evaluation, benchmarks for competency levels, and pathways for continuing professional development in non-manual grammar and discourse structure.

Supplementary Materials

The textbook includes six appendices providing reference tools for both independent learners and classroom instruction. Appendix A establishes the notation system for transcribing non-manual markers in written form, covering eyebrow notation, head notation, eye notation, mouth notation, body notation, combined notation, scope boundaries, and timing. Appendix B provides practical exercises organized by chapter, progressing from analysis to production across all five parts of the book. Appendix C offers self-assessment rubrics for evaluating non-manual competence. Appendix D presents a comprehensive glossary of technical terms. Appendix E provides an annotated bibliography organized by topic for further reading. Appendix F contains sample syllabi for both semester-length and intensive courses.

The notation system deserves particular attention. Describing non-manual markers in text requires conventions that capture configurations, scope, and timing in readable form. The notation introduced here balances precision with accessibility, providing enough detail for analysis while remaining manageable for learners still developing their analytical skills.

For Whom This Book Is Written

This is not a beginning ASL textbook. Readers are expected to have completed at least intermediate ASL coursework or to possess equivalent proficiency. The book assumes familiarity with basic ASL phonology, the parametric structure of signs, classifier categories, and standard glossing conventions. Those without this foundation should complete introductory and intermediate ASL study before engaging with this material.

The primary audiences include advanced ASL students preparing for interpreter certification, working interpreters seeking to refine their non-manual accuracy, ASL instructors developing curriculum for upper-level courses, interpreter educators designing training programs, Deaf education professionals, and researchers in sign language linguistics. The text is also appropriate for native signers who want explicit vocabulary for analyzing what they do intuitively.

About the Authors

David Boles, MFA is a multidisciplinary creative professional based in New York City with over four decades of experience as an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher. He holds an MFA from Columbia University, where he trained at the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Graduate Theatre Studies. He has taught American Sign Language at New York University, Public Health at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and English and Literary Criticism at multiple institutions. He founded David Boles Books Writing and Publishing in 1975. His ASL textbooks with Janna Sweenie include Hand Jive: American Sign Language for Real Life, Picture Yourself Learning American Sign Language, Level 1, Day One: Learning American Sign Language in 24 Hours, Hardcore ASL Textbook for Levels 1-7, and American Sign Language Level 5.

Janna Sweenie, MA has been teaching American Sign Language at New York University for over 35 years and created the ASL 5 course for the NYU minor in American Sign Language. She served as Program Coordinator for American Sign Language at NYU from 2017-2020 and previously served as Interim Director for the program. Her Master's degree is in Deafness Rehabilitation from NYU. She is an Iowa School for the Deaf graduate, born Deaf in Council Bluffs. Janna has been a consultant for Microsoft, Google, and New York City area museums. She is a two-time recipient of the NYU Steinhardt School, Applied Psychology Department, Administrator Award. For the last 18 years, she has served as a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor for the Deaf in the State of New York Department of Education.

David and Janna have collaborated on ASL education for over two decades, combining academic rigor with practical application. Their work appears at HardcoreASL.com and BolesBooks.com.

Excerpt: The Core Challenge

A courtroom interpreter, highly skilled in manual production, interprets a prosecutor's question to a Deaf witness: "Didn't you see the defendant at the bar that night?" The interpreter produces the signs accurately. The handshapes are correct. The spatial reference is maintained. But the interpreter's face remains relatively neutral, perhaps with a slight furrowed brow suggesting concentration. The witness, processing the question, understands it as an open information-seeking question rather than what it actually is: a leading question expecting confirmation, a challenge to prior testimony. The witness responds with detailed information about what she saw, when the prosecutor expected a simple "yes" or "no." The attorney grows frustrated. The witness grows confused. The interpretation was manually accurate and grammatically wrong.

The face is a grammatical organ. This claim may seem strange to those whose experience with language is limited to spoken modalities, where facial expression accompanies speech but does not constitute part of the linguistic system itself. In American Sign Language, the situation is fundamentally different. The eyebrows mark question types and clause boundaries. The mouth produces morphemes that modify meaning. The head nods and shakes with grammatical force. The eyes point to referents and track agreement. The body shifts to mark perspective and emphasis.