American Sign Language at Duke
Discover the beauty of American Sign Language (ASL) and explore the dynamic intersection of language and culture while joining a community dedicated to communication, inclusion, and understanding.
Our ASL courses help students build expressive and receptive language skills while exploring the cultural values, experiences, and communities of Deaf people. Learning ASL offers a distinctive opportunity to broaden how students understand communication, language, and culture and provides valuable preparation for connecting across communities and diverse fields of interest. Because ASL is a small program with high demand for its courses, the best strategy for securing a spot is to enroll in ASL 101 during your first year at Duke.
If you have questions about ASL at Duke, contact Luciana Fellin (fellin@duke.edu) or Kraig Klingenberg (kraig.klingenberg@duke.edu).
About ASL
If you're considering studying American Sign Language at Duke, you're in for a dynamic and rewarding experience. ASL courses combine language learning with meaningful engagement with the Deaf community. Our classes emphasize both expressive and receptive communication, including vocabulary, grammar structures, fingerspelling, facial expression, and spatial movement, while introducing students to the cultural values and social practices of the American Deaf community. Through work in and out of the classroom, students come to understand ASL as a rich, fully realized language with its own linguistic and cultural traditions.
We believe learning a language is about more than mastering vocabulary and grammar. It's an opportunity to connect with people, encounter new perspectives, new modalities, and rethink what communication can look like. ASL courses at Duke extend learning beyond the classroom through opportunities to engage with members of the local Deaf community in Durham and across North Carolina, helping students strengthen their language skills while deepening their appreciation for Deaf culture.
ASL Curriculum at Duke
Duke's ASL curriculum — ASL 101, ASL 102, and ASL 203 — guides students from introductory skills to more contextualized, conversational communication. Courses are offered every Fall and Spring semester, and completing the three-course sequence fulfills the Trinity undergraduate language requirement.