SEE stands for Signing Exact English, a sign system designed to visually represent every word and grammatical element of the English language. Unlike American Sign Language (ASL), which is its own language with unique grammar, SEE takes English sentences and translates them word-for-word into signs, including small function words like “is,” “am,” and “with” that ASL typically leaves out.
How SEE Was Created and Why
Signing Exact English was invented in the early 1970s by Gerilee Gustason, a deaf university professor and researcher, along with Esther Zawolkow. The core motivation was straightforward: many parts of English grammar, like word endings, are invisible on the lips and nearly impossible to pick up through speechreading alone. SEE was designed to give deaf and hard-of-hearing children full visual access to English grammar “through the air,” with the goal of supporting reading and writing skills.
It’s important to understand that SEE is not a language in the way ASL is. Linguists classify it as a sign system or code, meaning it was deliberately constructed to mirror an existing spoken language rather than developing naturally within a community over time.
How SEE Works
The defining feature of SEE is that it maps signs directly onto English words and follows standard English sentence structure: subject, then verb, then object. If you would say “I am going to the store” in English, you sign every single one of those words in that exact order. ASL would express the same idea differently, often dropping words like “am” and “the” and rearranging the structure entirely.
SEE also signs the small grammatical pieces of English words that carry meaning, called morphemes. These include:
- Suffixes for tense: “-ed” and “-ing” are signed separately to show past tense or ongoing action
- Plural markers: “-s” is added as its own sign when a noun is plural
- Prefixes for meaning: “un-,” “non-,” “dis-,” and “re-” each have their own sign added before the root word
This level of detail means signing in SEE takes noticeably longer than signing the same idea in ASL, because every grammatical marker gets its own visual representation.
SEE vs. ASL: Key Differences
The easiest way to understand SEE is to compare it directly to ASL, since the two look superficially similar but work very differently.
Word order is the most obvious distinction. SEE locks into English grammar, always following subject-verb-object order. ASL uses a topic-comment structure, where the topic of a sentence often comes first regardless of whether it’s the subject. A sentence like “The cat sat on the mat” would be signed word-for-word in SEE but restructured in ASL.
Facial expressions also play a very different role. In ASL, facial expressions are an integral part of the grammar itself. Raised eyebrows can mark a yes-or-no question, and specific mouth movements modify the meaning of signs. In SEE, facial expressions are used sparingly because the grammar is carried entirely by the hand signs matching English word order.
Finally, SEE signs every English word in a sentence. ASL omits words that don’t carry independent meaning, like articles (“a,” “the”) and linking verbs (“is,” “are”). This makes ASL more visually efficient but means it doesn’t mirror written English the way SEE does.
Where SEE Is Used
SEE is primarily used in educational settings, particularly in mainstream schools where deaf or hard-of-hearing students are learning alongside hearing peers. The idea is that by seeing English grammar represented visually throughout the school day, students build stronger connections to written English.
In practice, delivering SEE accurately in real time is extremely difficult. A study published in The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education found that SEE transliterators (the professionals who convert spoken English into SEE for students) averaged only 42% accuracy. Omissions, where signs were simply left out, were the most common error type at 40% of all mistakes. As speaking rate increased, accuracy dropped sharply. The faster a teacher talked, the more signs were skipped.
Compounding the problem, no interpreter training programs in the United States currently offer specific training in SEE transliteration. Transliterators often learn SEE on the job, and even highly experienced ones made significant errors under normal classroom speaking speeds.
The Debate Around SEE
SEE occupies a contested space in the deaf community and among educators. Supporters point to its potential for building English literacy. Because it mirrors English grammar exactly, children exposed to SEE theoretically see every grammatical structure they’ll later encounter in books. For families where the hearing parents want to communicate with their deaf child in a system that matches the language they already know, SEE can lower the barrier to early communication.
Critics raise several concerns. The most fundamental is that SEE is not a natural language. It was invented by committee rather than evolving within a deaf community, and it lacks the spatial grammar, classifier systems, and expressive richness that make ASL a complete language. Some researchers studying literacy interventions for deaf students have excluded SEE entirely from their analyses, categorizing it alongside other coding systems rather than treating it as a signed language.
There are also practical objections. Because SEE signs every morpheme of every word, it is significantly slower than ASL, making natural-speed conversation cumbersome. The 42% accuracy rate among transliterators raises real questions about whether students receiving SEE in classrooms are actually getting the full English representation the system promises. If nearly six out of every ten signs are dropped or altered, the theoretical advantage of seeing complete English grammar falls apart.
Another point of tension: about 30% of the time, SEE transliterators in the accuracy study defaulted to traditional ASL signs rather than the correct SEE sign, blurring the line between the two systems in actual use. This suggests that even trained professionals find it difficult to maintain strict SEE production, often falling back on the more natural ASL signs they also know.
Who Benefits From Learning SEE
SEE tends to be most useful for hearing parents of deaf children who want a signing system that closely matches English. Because the grammar is identical to spoken English, parents don’t need to learn an entirely new linguistic structure the way they would with ASL. This can speed up early family communication during a critical window for language development.
Some deaf and hard-of-hearing students also use SEE as a bridge tool alongside other communication methods. A child might use SEE in a mainstream classroom setting while also learning ASL for use in the deaf community. The two systems share many individual signs, so learning one doesn’t prevent learning the other, though switching between different grammar systems does require practice.
For adults interested in communicating with deaf individuals, ASL is far more widely used in the deaf community and is the more practical choice. SEE is rarely used in social settings among deaf adults, and most deaf cultural spaces center ASL as the primary language.