The fact that a sign language exploits the visual medium in quite subtle ways makes it difficult to represent accurately on the page. As Lou Fant (1977) has observed, “strictly speaking, the only way to write Ameslan is to use motion pictures.” One of the major problems is finding a way to incorporate those aspects of facial expression that contribute to the message. A partial solution is to write one line of manually signed words (in capital letters) and then, above this line, to indicate the nature and extent of the facial expression (in some conventional way) that contributes to the message. As illustrated here, the q in the transcription is used to show that the facial expression indicated a question function throughout the signing of what would be translated as Can I borrow the book?

Other subtle aspects of meaning that can be conveyed by facial expression are still being investigated. In one study, it was observed that a signer, in the middle of telling a story, produced the signed message: MAN FISH [continuous]. The “continuous” element is indicated by sweeping repetitive movement of the hands as they form the verb FISH. The basic translation would be: The man was fishing. However, ASL users translated it as The man was fishing with relaxation and enjoyment. The source of this extra information was a particular facial expression in which the lips were together and pushed out a little, with the head slightly tilted. This non-manual signal was clearly capable of functioning as the equivalent of an adverb or preposition phrase in English and was an integral part of the message. The notation mm was chosen as a way of incorporating this element and so a more accurate transcription of the message might look like this:

There are, of course, other notations that have been devised to capture major non-manual elements in ASL communication.