3 ms·

> but the reason that this feels like a combination of government-waste and possibly virtue-signaling I’ve felt this same way about all these government press

by xienze 4y ago

> but the reason that this feels like a combination of government-waste and possibly virtue-signaling I’ve felt this same way about all these government press conferences that have a picture-in-picture of someone doing sign language translation. I genuinely don’t understand the point apart from virtue signaling. Why not just use live transcription? I can’t imagine that we don’t have the tech to do a good job of it now, in real time, or close enough.

richbell 4y ago
> I’ve felt this same way about all these government press conferences that have a picture-in-picture of someone doing sign language translation. I genuinely don’t understand the point apart from virtue signaling. Why not just use live transcription? I understand why you might feel this way, so let me try to explain. Sign languages are a completely different modality/type of language than written and spoken languages. For example, American Sign Language (ASL) is completely unrelated to written and spoken English, and conveying a message between languages is often complicated and requires someone to actively interpret -- it's more of an art than a science. So while Closed Captioning was a huge step forward for making things accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people, it's still a subpar method of communication because for deaf people, especially deaf immigrants, written English is often their 2nd/3rd/4th language. When you are communicating important information where comprehension is essential, you *need* an interpreter.
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  > American Sign Language (ASL) is completely unrelated to written and spoken English Do you have any resources that could explain this different more fully?
  - MrDrone 4y ago
    This parent-commenter is correct, ASL is a completely separate language from spoken English. Many people who are raised with ASL as their first language prefer seeing ASL rather than reading English. Modern ASL includes elements of "signed English" but it it's own language, the third most common in the US. I am a hearing person, so take my understanding of this with a grain of salt. Here is a Deaf primary resource to describe the difference. https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/history8.htm https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/history8.htm
- MrDrone 4y ago
  This is absolutely correct. ASL is so deeply different from English that in certain circumstances where it's a priority that a signer's understanding of the topic is clear there can be two interpreters at once. A hearing interpreter who interprets verbatim to a Deaf interpreter (a CDI, or certified Deaf interpreter) who then interprets to the Deaf recipient. Public broadcasts should absolutely be interpreted to ensure that everyone has access to understanding them. I encourage everyone to learn more about ASL and to learn a bit of ASL themselves. There are many amazing resources put out by Deaf people to help folks learn.
  - richbell 4y ago
    > A hearing interpreter who interprets verbatim to a Deaf interpreter (a CDI, or certified Deaf interpreter) who then interprets to the Deaf recipient. This is a fantastic point. Learning about CDIs really helped me understand the chasm between written and spoken languages versus sign languages. For example, writing a program that leverages NLP to provide real-time captioning doesn't necessarily make the content as accessible as you'd think.
logicalmonster 4y ago
I think the best argument for having government press conferences with a video of somebody doing sign language is that it underscores that something might be a super serious situation that literally everybody needs to know about as a matter of immediate life and death and it would get peoples' attention who might not otherwise notice that something was serious. That benefit is arguably nullified though when every press conference has them. Personally speaking though, I'm against using them in about 99.999% of situations that are not imminent life and death emergencies. The gesturers' motions can be super distracting to the point that it makes the normal political process harder to focus on. It's just distracting enough (IMO) that important details about the normal everyday government business can be missed.
- richbell 4y ago
  > That benefit is arguably nullified though when every press conference has them... Personally speaking though, I'm against using them in about 99.999% of situations that are not imminent life and death emergencies. The benefit is including deaf people, not just making sure that they're able to comprehend emergency alerts (though that is also important). While I agree that the system could be refined, another part of me likes it because it gives visibility to something that the vast majority of hearing people wouldn't know about otherwise. Anecdotally, my partner's parents can read and write English but aren't fluent in it. The prevalence of interpreters in the past few years has made things accessible to them that wouldn't have been in the past. From what I've heard, they aren't alone in their experience.

by xienze 4y ago

richbell 4y ago

> I’ve felt this same way about all these government press conferences that have a picture-in-picture of someone doing sign language translation. I genuinely don’t understand the point apart from virtue signaling. Why not just use live transcription? I understand why you might feel this way, so let me try to explain. Sign languages are a completely different modality/type of language than written and spoken languages. For example, American Sign Language (ASL) is completely unrelated to written and spoken English, and conveying a message between languages is often complicated and requires someone to actively interpret -- it's more of an art than a science. So while Closed Captioning was a huge step forward for making things accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people, it's still a subpar method of communication because for deaf people, especially deaf immigrants, written English is often their 2nd/3rd/4th language. When you are communicating important information where comprehension is essential, you *need* an interpreter.

logicalmonster 4y ago
> American Sign Language (ASL) is completely unrelated to written and spoken English Do you have any resources that could explain this different more fully?
- MrDrone 4y ago
  This parent-commenter is correct, ASL is a completely separate language from spoken English. Many people who are raised with ASL as their first language prefer seeing ASL rather than reading English. Modern ASL includes elements of "signed English" but it it's own language, the third most common in the US. I am a hearing person, so take my understanding of this with a grain of salt. Here is a Deaf primary resource to describe the difference. https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/history8.htm https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/history8.htm
MrDrone 4y ago
This is absolutely correct. ASL is so deeply different from English that in certain circumstances where it's a priority that a signer's understanding of the topic is clear there can be two interpreters at once. A hearing interpreter who interprets verbatim to a Deaf interpreter (a CDI, or certified Deaf interpreter) who then interprets to the Deaf recipient. Public broadcasts should absolutely be interpreted to ensure that everyone has access to understanding them. I encourage everyone to learn more about ASL and to learn a bit of ASL themselves. There are many amazing resources put out by Deaf people to help folks learn.
- richbell 4y ago
  > A hearing interpreter who interprets verbatim to a Deaf interpreter (a CDI, or certified Deaf interpreter) who then interprets to the Deaf recipient. This is a fantastic point. Learning about CDIs really helped me understand the chasm between written and spoken languages versus sign languages. For example, writing a program that leverages NLP to provide real-time captioning doesn't necessarily make the content as accessible as you'd think.

logicalmonster 4y ago

I think the best argument for having government press conferences with a video of somebody doing sign language is that it underscores that something might be a super serious situation that literally everybody needs to know about as a matter of immediate life and death and it would get peoples' attention who might not otherwise notice that something was serious. That benefit is arguably nullified though when every press conference has them. Personally speaking though, I'm against using them in about 99.999% of situations that are not imminent life and death emergencies. The gesturers' motions can be super distracting to the point that it makes the normal political process harder to focus on. It's just distracting enough (IMO) that important details about the normal everyday government business can be missed.

richbell 4y ago
> That benefit is arguably nullified though when every press conference has them... Personally speaking though, I'm against using them in about 99.999% of situations that are not imminent life and death emergencies. The benefit is including deaf people, not just making sure that they're able to comprehend emergency alerts (though that is also important). While I agree that the system could be refined, another part of me likes it because it gives visibility to something that the vast majority of hearing people wouldn't know about otherwise. Anecdotally, my partner's parents can read and write English but aren't fluent in it. The prevalence of interpreters in the past few years has made things accessible to them that wouldn't have been in the past. From what I've heard, they aren't alone in their experience.