While I am by no means fluent in ASL I can cummunicate somewhat. I use and abuse it much the same way I do in French and Spanish, that is I use a mixture of words (signs recognised by native signers as actually in the language), symbols (pointing etc) spelling out (equivalent to looking it up in the phrasebook)and mime.
It is a language filled with nuance. The size of the hand movements, the distance of the hands from the body, the facial expression and the body posture are all involved.
I have had a shouting argument in ASL. I have also seen puns and "poetry". I use the quotation marks not to belittle the art of the piece but because the word is not an accurate descriptor but as close as I can come in English.