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Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

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Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#11

Post by codyogden »

Things4People wrote: post #3
Robtech23 wrote: post #2

This looks like a good idea. What is the difference between sign language and subtitles?

Many deaf people have poor grammar because American Sign Language (ASL) greatly simplifies and, in some cases, omits things that are not really needed to convey an idea. To a deaf person subtitles are is overly verbose and the word order is strange (for example, subtitles has "running," which is the word "run" followed by a sign for "ing." ASL does away with "ing" because it is obvious in context).

Uh, no. Sign languages, like American Sign Language, are not "simplistic" versions of spoken languages. They are complete, complex languages with their own robust syntax and grammatical structures. A better way to explain this is that it's like an adult who is natively fluent in one language trying to read subtitles in a second language with which they don't have working fluency and rarely, if ever, speak.

Source: My degree in American Sign Language.

Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#12

Post by GauntletWizard »

MikusR wrote: post #4
Things4People wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many deaf people have poor grammar because American Sign Language (ASL) greatly simplifies and, in some cases, omits things that are not really needed to convey an idea. To a deaf person subtitles are is overly verbose and the word order is strange (for example, subtitles has "running," which is the word "run" followed by a sign for "ing." ASL does away with "ing" because it is obvious in context).

So deaf people can't read books?

Some of the best technical writers I've met were classmates from the NTID, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology. But I think it was that english was in some ways a "foreign" language that made them so good; They went out of their way to be clear to the point of verbose, probably because it was unnatural and they felt it.

I don't want to sound judgemental, but I learned a little bit of sign language at the time, and the conversations I and friends had in sign seemed... Slangy. ASL is a language that has to deal with it's bandwidth limitations and the fact that it's not quite as broadcast as shouting is. Deaf culture involves a lot of physically reaching out and "Grabbing" the audiences attention; Tapping someone on the shoulder is an attention grabber of last resort for the hearing, while it's the obvious and only way of grabbing the attention of someone who's looking the other direction to the Deaf. Perhaps for that reason I always felt like Deaf people had no concept of personal space (Though my personal intuition is that it's actually literally about the little sounds your movement makes - I've encountered the same lack of personal space at Gun Ranges, where everyone is wearing hearing protection and you'd think that people would want to be separated)

Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#13

Post by endisneigh »

What's surprising about this to me is that ASL has no written form. I found si5s but it doesn't seem incredibly mainstream. I'm curious how people who speak primarily with ASL interact on the internet.

How do people who speak with ASL communicate over long distances without video, if not text? An AMA would be appreciated.

An interesting idea would be processing subtitles to some sort of digital mannequin that makes all of the gestures. I imagine you'd do this by coding all of the sign and finding all of the appropriate mappings, a la translation.

Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#14

Post by smegsicle »

chaps wrote: post #5
MikusR wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So deaf people can't read books?

....what? How do you read what they wrote and come up with that question?

the part where it says "the word order is strange" is implying that they don't know how to read properly

Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#15

Post by frankfrank13 »

so funny that emojis + black text have become the new norm in logo design.

Cool product though. Would love to see even more accessibility-as-a-service type things. When I was in college I watched a visually-impaired friend try to use Ableton (at the time one of the only DAW's with a screen reader) and it was predictably painful.

Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#16

Post by smegsicle »

endisneigh wrote: post #13

What's surprising about this to me is that ASL has no written form. I found si5s but it doesn't seem incredibly mainstream. I'm curious how people who speak primarily with ASL interact on the internet. How do people who speak with ASL communicate over long distances without video, if not text? An AMA would be appreciated. An interesting idea would be processing subtitles to some sort of digital mannequin that makes a…

not to mention that watching a video with subtitles means glancing at the text when a new line comes up, while watching a video with a signing translator means having to glance at the signer for every single word, right?

Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#17

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

codyogden wrote: post #11
Things4People wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many deaf people have poor grammar because American Sign Language (ASL) greatly simplifies and, in some cases, omits things that are not really needed to convey an idea. To a deaf person subtitles are is overly verbose and the word order is strange (for example, subtitles has "running," which is the word "run" followed by a sign for "ing." ASL does away with "ing" because it is obvious in context).

Uh, no. Sign languages, like American Sign Language, are not "simplistic" versions of spoken languages. They are complete, complex languages with their own robust syntax and grammatical structures. A better way to explain this is that it's like an adult who is natively fluent in one language trying to read subtitles in a second language with which they don't have working fluency and rarely, if ever, speak. Source: My…

To expand on this, it's commonly believed that sign languages are simplified versions of the local spoken language. Indeed, it wasn't until ~1960[0] that these languages were seriously studied as "real" languages.

At least part of the reason a Deaf person might have poor grammar in a spoken language is because said spoken language is almost always at least their second language.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stokoe#Sign_language_r...

Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#18

Post by watersb »

MikusR wrote: post #4
Things4People wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many deaf people have poor grammar because American Sign Language (ASL) greatly simplifies and, in some cases, omits things that are not really needed to convey an idea. To a deaf person subtitles are is overly verbose and the word order is strange (for example, subtitles has "running," which is the word "run" followed by a sign for "ing." ASL does away with "ing" because it is obvious in context).

So deaf people can't read books?

I think this is a good question, because I had always thought of American Sign Language (ASL) as a transcription of English.

But I learned that ASL is a language all of its own, grammar and syntax are not always the same.

In college, I learned a bit of a sign language- "C Sign" - that is actually an adaptation of English. At the time, C Sign was the thing that hearing, native English speakers were taught as a way to interact with non-hearing ASL signers. That was thirty years ago, so things might well be different now.

I don't have any direct experience, but some of my extended family are native speakers of Apache or Navajo. These are different languages, but "mutually intelligible" - speaking one can be understood if you know the other. And I traveled in Finland and Estonia - mutually intelligible (utterly impossible for me to use either of them).

I think C Sign might be more of a "pidgin": a simplification of English and ESL that is not used natively, but can be used to communicate.

So, yeah -- it's not wrong to wonder if ASL signers are using English, or are able to read it. I believe the answers to these questions are "not really" and "yes, fluently".

(Perhaps the question was posed in a blunt manner. But that's written, online communication for you -- it's an approximation of spoken interaction, and often lacking in body language or tone. So it's often taken in a way that wasn't exactly the intention... :-) Yay, Language!)

Re: Show HN: Subtitles are not the same as sign language

#20

Post by [deleted] »

endisneigh wrote: post #13

What's surprising about this to me is that ASL has no written form. I found si5s but it doesn't seem incredibly mainstream. I'm curious how people who speak primarily with ASL interact on the internet. How do people who speak with ASL communicate over long distances without video, if not text? An AMA would be appreciated. An interesting idea would be processing subtitles to some sort of digital mannequin that makes a…

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