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"Unfortunately (IMHO) this letter[1] got mixed with a lot of politics in it, but the technical aspect is solid." Totally agree, question is why didn't the Ling

by Jun8 10y ago

"Unfortunately (IMHO) this letter[1] got mixed with a lot of politics in it, but the technical aspect is solid." Totally agree, question is why didn't the Linguistics Department finish the letter after that section, i.e. why the convoluted discussions about audism, appropriation and such? Not having a deaf person on your team or checking the results with the Deaf Community is certainly to be criticized with respect to the naivete of developing an accurate translation system but the letter treats this as a colonial assault. If I want to develop my own French to English translation system (I don't know anything about French) should this be interpreted as my (perhaps) subconscious feelings of superiority? Evidently so.

teraflop 10y ago
If you built a system that translated word-by-word from a pidgin French into English, and then tried to sell it as a tool that would unlock "the fundamental right of communication" for those poor French people, then yeah, I think you should expect some push-back.
- notahacker 10y ago
  Sure, but if the linguistics department wrote a response which spent half a page explaining why the app didn't actually interpret French very well and might have benefited from a native speaker on the team and devoted considerably more space to attacking the creators' motivation with specious drivel about how it was "cultural appropriation" to take their language "without permission", I'd think they were the ones displaying the arrogant colonialist mentality.
  - teraflop 10y ago
    Well, I don't agree but that's probably because I don't think "cultural appropriation" is an inherently specious concept, as you seem to. Whatever else you might think about that letter, I thought the authors made it very explicit that they were not attacking the SignAloud creators' motivation.
    - notahacker 10y ago
      I realise the letter starts with a disclaimer about not attacking the creators, who seem to have been browbeaten into actually endorsing it, but it also spends two pages bashing them with phrases like "a feather in the cap—for members of the non-marginalized culture—hearing people", "reaping the rewards...of cultural appropriation" and "this is exploitation" which clearly apply to them more than to the PR office; internal consistency is not one of its strongpoints. FWIW, I don't think the concept of cultural appropriation is inherently specious, but I do think many if not most accusations of cultural appropriation are, and suggesting that the idea to demo a tech product as a potential translation gadget is "exploitation" is stupid and counterproductive beyond belief. I mean, if a student at this university in future has a choice between pursuing a neat idea for an app they think might help deaf people or a different project, which way is this letter going to nudge their decision? They could have made the same point about the disadvantages of not engaging the deaf community with the project at its inception and the resulting practical shortcomings by structuring the letter as an offer of help...
theoh 10y ago
The key phrase in that letter is "where is the deaf person on the team?" It's arrogant to take someone else's culture and redesign/"enhance" it, particularly if members of that culture are impaired or disadvantaged. Privilege creates blind spots, and the most invidious kind of privilege is the kind that you don't realize you have. The typographer Adrian Frutiger notoriously designed a "universalized" version of Devanagari script in the 60s or 70s. Not having the necessary insight into the history of the letterforms, he made an embarrassing mess of it. I don't think anyone really feels that this made him a bad person, but it's indicative of the tendency to march in and appropriate cultural artifacts in an insensitive way.
gugagore 10y ago
French is a particularly poor example to choose. ASL has been continuously delegitimized as a language. Up until the 60s no one thought ASL was a "real" language, or a language as rich as English, because no one was studying the grammar of ASL. And because ASL was seen as broken English, pantomime, or otherwise deficient, ASL was actively out of the reach of deaf people. Throughout history, deaf kids were punished for using sign language, and their hands were cuffed so they could not sign. French, on the other hand, has experience elevated status (perhaps not so much now that English is most often the lingua Franca, but even the term...). If someone comes out and suggests that French is simple, or basically a re-encoding of English, that will sound absurd but more importantly it will not be associated with a history of language oppression behind it.

by Jun8 10y ago

teraflop 10y ago

If you built a system that translated word-by-word from a pidgin French into English, and then tried to sell it as a tool that would unlock "the fundamental right of communication" for those poor French people, then yeah, I think you should expect some push-back.

notahacker 10y ago
Sure, but if the linguistics department wrote a response which spent half a page explaining why the app didn't actually interpret French very well and might have benefited from a native speaker on the team and devoted considerably more space to attacking the creators' motivation with specious drivel about how it was "cultural appropriation" to take their language "without permission", I'd think they were the ones displaying the arrogant colonialist mentality.
- teraflop 10y ago
  Well, I don't agree but that's probably because I don't think "cultural appropriation" is an inherently specious concept, as you seem to. Whatever else you might think about that letter, I thought the authors made it very explicit that they were not attacking the SignAloud creators' motivation.
  - notahacker 10y ago
    I realise the letter starts with a disclaimer about not attacking the creators, who seem to have been browbeaten into actually endorsing it, but it also spends two pages bashing them with phrases like "a feather in the cap—for members of the non-marginalized culture—hearing people", "reaping the rewards...of cultural appropriation" and "this is exploitation" which clearly apply to them more than to the PR office; internal consistency is not one of its strongpoints. FWIW, I don't think the concept of cultural appropriation is inherently specious, but I do think many if not most accusations of cultural appropriation are, and suggesting that the idea to demo a tech product as a potential translation gadget is "exploitation" is stupid and counterproductive beyond belief. I mean, if a student at this university in future has a choice between pursuing a neat idea for an app they think might help deaf people or a different project, which way is this letter going to nudge their decision? They could have made the same point about the disadvantages of not engaging the deaf community with the project at its inception and the resulting practical shortcomings by structuring the letter as an offer of help...

theoh 10y ago

The key phrase in that letter is "where is the deaf person on the team?" It's arrogant to take someone else's culture and redesign/"enhance" it, particularly if members of that culture are impaired or disadvantaged. Privilege creates blind spots, and the most invidious kind of privilege is the kind that you don't realize you have. The typographer Adrian Frutiger notoriously designed a "universalized" version of Devanagari script in the 60s or 70s. Not having the necessary insight into the history of the letterforms, he made an embarrassing mess of it. I don't think anyone really feels that this made him a bad person, but it's indicative of the tendency to march in and appropriate cultural artifacts in an insensitive way.

gugagore 10y ago

French is a particularly poor example to choose. ASL has been continuously delegitimized as a language. Up until the 60s no one thought ASL was a "real" language, or a language as rich as English, because no one was studying the grammar of ASL. And because ASL was seen as broken English, pantomime, or otherwise deficient, ASL was actively out of the reach of deaf people. Throughout history, deaf kids were punished for using sign language, and their hands were cuffed so they could not sign. French, on the other hand, has experience elevated status (perhaps not so much now that English is most often the lingua Franca, but even the term...). If someone comes out and suggests that French is simple, or basically a re-encoding of English, that will sound absurd but more importantly it will not be associated with a history of language oppression behind it.