jeffwLA is burning, and the Right is furious—about sign language interpreters
𝚐𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚒𝚎So he postulated why not just have only closed captioning as once before instead of half the screen be ASL.
I guess I would be curious to know why, actually. Is there a better reason?
aramis87Because live captions are frequently shit, especially for live broadcasts of local or regional issues. They're behind the images that are shown on the screen, so you get things like someone saying "you see here where the fire is coming from" and they switch to a second map just as the captions appear on the screen. The captioners are rushed and can't always keep up and they make typos. Auto-generated captions lose words and nuance and sometimes just output pure gibberish.
That seems like a problem that would be well addressed by investing more resources into the live captioning process, though.
PeppycitoOr you could just have someone sign it while the person talks.
To be clear, I’m not necessarily against sign language interpreters.
They do miss out on what I consider to be an important part of accessibility though - they are not an example of universal design. High-quality captions are an example of universal design, which gives them higher staying power (what right-winger would move to kill captions?) and makes it easier to justify investments.
ASL is not English, though. It has its own grammar structure and words (obviously) so it is functionally a different language than written English. People who speak ASL as a first language are essentially learning a second language with written English, one that is based on spoken language they can’t hear. As a result, many in the Deaf community struggle to read and write. Add to that the stress of it being an emergency and having to process the text in real-time before it disappears? I just don’t see captions being the answer for this already vulnerable community, especially in life-or-death situations.