There’s More to the ASL Performances in CODA Than Nonsigners Realize

A recent episode of the Slate podcast Culture Gabfest discussed the film CODA and the significance of having deaf actors take lead roles.

Sara Nović told the audience:

"Troy (Kotsur who plays the father) is just such an amazing signer. There are different continuum gradients of ASL like there are in any language. In his ASL, he’s almost like a poet when he’s just talking. In ASL you have matching hand shapes and hand movements that feel like they would rhyme almost. And, his ASL is just really beautiful. There’s a scene where he’s talking about a condom. I was on the floor laughing. And also thinking, How were they ever going to get a hearing guy to do this? because so much of ASL is descriptive classifiers, which are like specialized pronouns that you use to describe the quality of things. It’s not like a one-to-one translation between words."

Read the transcript of the show here.