So far, you know many individual sign concepts (words) in ASL and some of those signs are actually what we call “cognates” to words in English; they are words whose signs are easily understandable because their signs are almost as if you were playing the game charades and acting out the word.

In ASL linguistics, we call these “iconic” signs because there is a visual reason behind the formation of the sign (IE I, YOUR, HELLO).

There are also “arbitrary” signs in which there is no obvious reason behind the formation of the sign (IE MOTHER, LIKE, COLOR). Choose 20 of the signs you have learned so far and sort them into two categories: iconic and arbitrary. Explain why you chose the category for the sign.

. Choose ASL concepts from the videos and decide if they are iconic or arbitrary. You may use the ASL Concepts from the previous lessons, any ASL Concepts in your ASL Dictionary, or choose new ASL Concepts.