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Something I've wondered... when politicians give speeches they often have some hand gesturing from a sign language interpreter standing next to them. But I've n

Something I've wondered... when politicians give speeches they often have some hand gesturing from a sign language interpreter standing next to them. But I've never understood why this is better than subtitles. If you're deaf then wouldn't you rather read text than follow sign language?

SanjayMehta 4y ago
I would guess that the sign language interpreter is translating in near real time in live speeches.
- kvm000 4y ago
  Live closed captions (text only) is very common and standard. Usually those are done by an external company listening in to an audio feed, and sending the data back. It used to be done with regular POTS lines and telnet, but now it’s obviously more common to use public internet based services like EEG iCap[1] I don’t know too much about it but I had read recently that ASL sign language can be thought of as a different language, rather than a direct equivalent to text subtitles[2]. [1] https://eegent.com/icap https://eegent.com/icap [2] https://imanyco.com/closed-captions-and-sign-language-not-a-substitute-for-one-another-1/ https://imanyco.com/closed-captions-and-sign-language-not-a-...
  - bloak 4y ago
    > I had read recently that ASL sign language can be thought of as a different language Yes, it is a different language. I've heard that ASL is rather similar to French Sign Language and quite different from BSL (British Sign Language). If someone were to translate something from English into ASL, and someone else were to translate the ASL back into English, I'd expect the result to be as different from the original as if they'd gone via some other language, like Italian, for example.
    - RajT88 4y ago
      There's a variety of running jokes that Italian is half sign language anyways. (Apparently derived from the fact that in Italy, there's quite a lot more non-verbal communication with hand gestures than other parts of the world)
sigwinch28 4y ago
There's more to speaking than just the words. Sign language can convey inflection and emotion in ways that closed captions cannot. Watch someone signing: they use their face and body to convey emotions like anger, confusion, hesitation, love, joy, and the rest of the human range.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  But if you're watching the politician speak, you can already see all of the emotion in their facial expression and body movement. And that's the "original" emotion, it's not filtered through another human being. When you watch a movie without audio and with subtitles (like in a bar or on a bus), the emotions of the speakers are already awfully clear from the visuals.
  - rwmj 4y ago
    No I think you're missing the grandparent's point. Inflection in spoken language "translates" to facial expression in sign language.
    - crazygringo 4y ago
      No I'm getting that completely. But inflection in spoken language is redundant to a large degree with facial expression. If you're watching the original speaker, you're already getting that. For example, if we ask a question, it's not just that our voice goes up at the end. Our eyes move in a certain way too, slightly more opened and our eyebrows and sometimes cheeks raise.
      - marbletiles 4y ago
        And you’re seeing this nuance while simultaneously reading subtitles? From a speaker at a distance? GP is correct, sign is a fully expressive language, far richer than subtitles.
        thrdbndndn 4y ago
rwmj 4y ago
Since I live with someone whose first language isn't English I basically watch everything with subtitles. And live subtitling - while it's a thing - isn't that good. Try turning on subtitles for something like a news programme or live broadcast and it'll usually be quite delayed, with lots of misspellings and even outright wrong text. (This is true for premier public broadcasters in the UK such as the BBC, I don't know if this is solved better in other countries). Anyway my theory is that sign language interpreters may be much better at this because sign language uses the same areas of the brain as speaking[1] so they're able to listen and sign much more intuitively than typing. Think if you were able to listen and speak at the same time without your "speech" drowning out what you are listening to. [1] https://maxplanckneuroscience.org/language-is-more-than-speaking-how-the-brain-processes-sign-language/ https://maxplanckneuroscience.org/language-is-more-than-spea...
- ClassyJacket 4y ago
  Nobody can type fast enough on QWERTY to keep up with human speech, so the comparison is versus chorded typing on a stenography keyboard, or someone repeating the dialogue into voice dictation software which is obviously prone to errors.
  - rwmj 4y ago
    As someone who watches TV news with subtitles on, whatever entry technique they're using, the result is not very good [in the UK, can't speak for other countries].
- crazygringo 4y ago
  Sure, but the closed captioning is still extremely good. The typists use chorded keyboards for speed and yes they occasionally make mistakes but everything is generally quite clear and accurate. On the other hand, signing involves actual translation, not just transcription, which is much more likely to drop meaning or introduce confusion. Translation is already hard enough, and live translation is a whole other level of difficulty.
  - 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
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AstixAndBelix 4y ago
Depends, if the speech is IRL-first and video-second then a sign language interpreter is better and cheaper than installing some sort of concoction to display live subtitles (which have to be typed by a paid steganographer). But in any case, deaf people still have the need to practice reading their language, so removing it from everywhere except IRL conversations might be detrimental to them
gpvos 4y ago
Sign language is the native language for most deaf people, while subtitling is derived from spoken language which is usually their second language. Also you can express emotions better using it, similar to how it's easier to convey them using speech than using text.
- MrJohz 4y ago
  The other part of the jigsaw that a lot of people don't realise at first is that sign languages are distinct languages from spoken languages. Or to put it another way: ASL is to American English as Portuguese is to Korean.
jbms 4y ago
Sign language has a different grammar. At least in British Sign Language. Simplistically, put the object of the sentence first so it's clearer what's being talked about. For someone who is profoundly deaf from birth and who can't lipread, the way we speak and write is a massive struggle. Cochlear implants before a year old are much more common now, while the brain is still more malleable, so there's maybe less and less deaf people who are totally profoundly deaf and you may not realise what it's like for them if you never come across them.
- TechBro8615 4y ago
  Interesting perspective. I've never considered how much of reading and writing is dependent on first listening and speaking. I guess it makes sense, since the first steps to reading are "sounding out the words."
rozab 4y ago
As I understand it, BSL is a fully different language to spoken English, with different grammar and syntax. For someone whose 'first' language is BSL, reading subtitles is more like a second language, where meaning is not conveyed in the same way. https://www.british-sign.co.uk/what-is-british-sign-language/ https://www.british-sign.co.uk/what-is-british-sign-language...
jameshart 4y ago
Think about how you learn to read - you 'sound out' words, turning letters into sounds to match them to a pronunciation to figure out what word is represented. Now imagine trying to learn how to do that when you have never heard any words spoken out loud. People who are deaf from birth often have a lot of difficulty with spelling and reading, because both skills are closely connected to saying and hearing words. Connecting written words to lip movements (which is kind of the closest thing to 'phonics' for a deaf person) is lossy - the letter-to-lip connections are fuzzier than letter-to-sound, and lip-to-letter is very ambiguous. Subtitles are great for people who are confident and comfortable readers - say, people who have become deaf due to age - but for some deaf people following subtitles can be like asking someone who's dyslexic to quickly read a sentence out loud.
- foldr 4y ago
  The more salient point is that English is going to be a second language for people who grew up deaf (with a completely unrelated sign language probably being the first language).
- zdragnar 4y ago
  That doesn't sound too different from learning Mandarin or any other Chinese dialect. There are some parts of characters which are roughly phonetic, but generally speaking you're not going to know how to write a word by hearing it, or how to speak a word by reading it.
retrac 4y ago
Sign languages are not coded speech. They are languages with their own grammar and vocabulary. For example, American SL is descended from Old French Sign Language and is partially understandable by French SL speakers today, while British SL is completely different, not in the same language family. It is even possible to write sign language. it is done like with spoken language. The most basic components, akin to phonemes in spoken language, are a closed set, assigning a symbol to each allows lossless transcription. Mostly used by linguists; but there are some books in ASL. Deaf people who speak sign language natively approach English as a second language. And it is hard to learn a spoken language when deaf. English literacy rates among ASL native speakers are rather low.
- lazyeye 4y ago
  This has to be a generational thing. There is no way a deaf person growing up now is not going to be using the internet.
  - retrac 4y ago
    Partial literacy is all you need for YouTube or video calls. Plenty of hearing people can read well enough for that too, or to find what they need at the store, but can't read well enough to e.g. summarize the main points of a newspaper story. I've seen estimates that something like 20 - 40% of Americans are functionally illiterate in that way. For the Deaf, it is even higher.
  - adammarples 4y ago
    A speech and language therapist tells me that spelling and reading is hard for deaf children because we match phonics to text but they don't have access to phonics, so they have much lower literacy levels without specialist help
- amelius 4y ago
  Still, I suppose that many people still want the original phrasing, not a translation where subtleties might get lost.
aaron695 4y ago
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SanjayMehta 4y ago

I would guess that the sign language interpreter is translating in near real time in live speeches.

kvm000 4y ago
Live closed captions (text only) is very common and standard. Usually those are done by an external company listening in to an audio feed, and sending the data back. It used to be done with regular POTS lines and telnet, but now it’s obviously more common to use public internet based services like EEG iCap[1] I don’t know too much about it but I had read recently that ASL sign language can be thought of as a different language, rather than a direct equivalent to text subtitles[2]. [1] https://eegent.com/icap https://eegent.com/icap [2] https://imanyco.com/closed-captions-and-sign-language-not-a-substitute-for-one-another-1/ https://imanyco.com/closed-captions-and-sign-language-not-a-...
- bloak 4y ago
  > I had read recently that ASL sign language can be thought of as a different language Yes, it is a different language. I've heard that ASL is rather similar to French Sign Language and quite different from BSL (British Sign Language). If someone were to translate something from English into ASL, and someone else were to translate the ASL back into English, I'd expect the result to be as different from the original as if they'd gone via some other language, like Italian, for example.
  - RajT88 4y ago
    There's a variety of running jokes that Italian is half sign language anyways. (Apparently derived from the fact that in Italy, there's quite a lot more non-verbal communication with hand gestures than other parts of the world)

sigwinch28 4y ago

There's more to speaking than just the words. Sign language can convey inflection and emotion in ways that closed captions cannot. Watch someone signing: they use their face and body to convey emotions like anger, confusion, hesitation, love, joy, and the rest of the human range.

crazygringo 4y ago
But if you're watching the politician speak, you can already see all of the emotion in their facial expression and body movement. And that's the "original" emotion, it's not filtered through another human being. When you watch a movie without audio and with subtitles (like in a bar or on a bus), the emotions of the speakers are already awfully clear from the visuals.
- rwmj 4y ago
  No I think you're missing the grandparent's point. Inflection in spoken language "translates" to facial expression in sign language.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    No I'm getting that completely. But inflection in spoken language is redundant to a large degree with facial expression. If you're watching the original speaker, you're already getting that. For example, if we ask a question, it's not just that our voice goes up at the end. Our eyes move in a certain way too, slightly more opened and our eyebrows and sometimes cheeks raise.
    - marbletiles 4y ago
      And you’re seeing this nuance while simultaneously reading subtitles? From a speaker at a distance? GP is correct, sign is a fully expressive language, far richer than subtitles.
      - thrdbndndn 4y ago

rwmj 4y ago

Since I live with someone whose first language isn't English I basically watch everything with subtitles. And live subtitling - while it's a thing - isn't that good. Try turning on subtitles for something like a news programme or live broadcast and it'll usually be quite delayed, with lots of misspellings and even outright wrong text. (This is true for premier public broadcasters in the UK such as the BBC, I don't know if this is solved better in other countries). Anyway my theory is that sign language interpreters may be much better at this because sign language uses the same areas of the brain as speaking[1] so they're able to listen and sign much more intuitively than typing. Think if you were able to listen and speak at the same time without your "speech" drowning out what you are listening to. [1] https://maxplanckneuroscience.org/language-is-more-than-speaking-how-the-brain-processes-sign-language/ https://maxplanckneuroscience.org/language-is-more-than-spea...

ClassyJacket 4y ago
Nobody can type fast enough on QWERTY to keep up with human speech, so the comparison is versus chorded typing on a stenography keyboard, or someone repeating the dialogue into voice dictation software which is obviously prone to errors.
- rwmj 4y ago
  As someone who watches TV news with subtitles on, whatever entry technique they're using, the result is not very good [in the UK, can't speak for other countries].
crazygringo 4y ago
Sure, but the closed captioning is still extremely good. The typists use chorded keyboards for speed and yes they occasionally make mistakes but everything is generally quite clear and accurate. On the other hand, signing involves actual translation, not just transcription, which is much more likely to drop meaning or introduce confusion. Translation is already hard enough, and live translation is a whole other level of difficulty.
- 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

AstixAndBelix 4y ago

Depends, if the speech is IRL-first and video-second then a sign language interpreter is better and cheaper than installing some sort of concoction to display live subtitles (which have to be typed by a paid steganographer). But in any case, deaf people still have the need to practice reading their language, so removing it from everywhere except IRL conversations might be detrimental to them

gpvos 4y ago

Sign language is the native language for most deaf people, while subtitling is derived from spoken language which is usually their second language. Also you can express emotions better using it, similar to how it's easier to convey them using speech than using text.

MrJohz 4y ago
The other part of the jigsaw that a lot of people don't realise at first is that sign languages are distinct languages from spoken languages. Or to put it another way: ASL is to American English as Portuguese is to Korean.

jbms 4y ago

Sign language has a different grammar. At least in British Sign Language. Simplistically, put the object of the sentence first so it's clearer what's being talked about. For someone who is profoundly deaf from birth and who can't lipread, the way we speak and write is a massive struggle. Cochlear implants before a year old are much more common now, while the brain is still more malleable, so there's maybe less and less deaf people who are totally profoundly deaf and you may not realise what it's like for them if you never come across them.

TechBro8615 4y ago
Interesting perspective. I've never considered how much of reading and writing is dependent on first listening and speaking. I guess it makes sense, since the first steps to reading are "sounding out the words."

rozab 4y ago

As I understand it, BSL is a fully different language to spoken English, with different grammar and syntax. For someone whose 'first' language is BSL, reading subtitles is more like a second language, where meaning is not conveyed in the same way. https://www.british-sign.co.uk/what-is-british-sign-language/ https://www.british-sign.co.uk/what-is-british-sign-language...

jameshart 4y ago

Think about how you learn to read - you 'sound out' words, turning letters into sounds to match them to a pronunciation to figure out what word is represented. Now imagine trying to learn how to do that when you have never heard any words spoken out loud. People who are deaf from birth often have a lot of difficulty with spelling and reading, because both skills are closely connected to saying and hearing words. Connecting written words to lip movements (which is kind of the closest thing to 'phonics' for a deaf person) is lossy - the letter-to-lip connections are fuzzier than letter-to-sound, and lip-to-letter is very ambiguous. Subtitles are great for people who are confident and comfortable readers - say, people who have become deaf due to age - but for some deaf people following subtitles can be like asking someone who's dyslexic to quickly read a sentence out loud.

foldr 4y ago
The more salient point is that English is going to be a second language for people who grew up deaf (with a completely unrelated sign language probably being the first language).
zdragnar 4y ago
That doesn't sound too different from learning Mandarin or any other Chinese dialect. There are some parts of characters which are roughly phonetic, but generally speaking you're not going to know how to write a word by hearing it, or how to speak a word by reading it.

retrac 4y ago

Sign languages are not coded speech. They are languages with their own grammar and vocabulary. For example, American SL is descended from Old French Sign Language and is partially understandable by French SL speakers today, while British SL is completely different, not in the same language family. It is even possible to write sign language. it is done like with spoken language. The most basic components, akin to phonemes in spoken language, are a closed set, assigning a symbol to each allows lossless transcription. Mostly used by linguists; but there are some books in ASL. Deaf people who speak sign language natively approach English as a second language. And it is hard to learn a spoken language when deaf. English literacy rates among ASL native speakers are rather low.

lazyeye 4y ago
This has to be a generational thing. There is no way a deaf person growing up now is not going to be using the internet.
- retrac 4y ago
  Partial literacy is all you need for YouTube or video calls. Plenty of hearing people can read well enough for that too, or to find what they need at the store, but can't read well enough to e.g. summarize the main points of a newspaper story. I've seen estimates that something like 20 - 40% of Americans are functionally illiterate in that way. For the Deaf, it is even higher.
- adammarples 4y ago
  A speech and language therapist tells me that spelling and reading is hard for deaf children because we match phonics to text but they don't have access to phonics, so they have much lower literacy levels without specialist help
amelius 4y ago
Still, I suppose that many people still want the original phrasing, not a translation where subtleties might get lost.

aaron695 4y ago

[dead]