American sign language is not a gesture based form of English. It is an entire language in its own right, with its own distinct grammar and vocabulary.
To someone deaf from birth, sign language is their native language. And it is much more comfortable to quickly read your native language than a second language.
This raises more questions than it answers, like how do the deaf from birth function in society at all if they struggle with other languages besides sign language. How do they get a job, go to school, learn new skills, read the news, text people? What do they do in their leisure if not watching subtitles movies or reading books? Many non-english speakers end up learning English anyway because of just how pervasive it is.
You’re on the internet. Most Deaf people these days read English fluently. It’s just that Deaf 70 year olds were often able to get away without becoming actively fluent in English and may not have felt the need to. Closed captions are younger than most people think and they fucking sucked fairly recently. I grew up watching the news with captions and it was distracting if you didn’t need it. Big black boxes with the words said a few seconds ago rapidly appearing on them as they covered stuff. And often captions on prerecorded content wasn’t much better. It was an accessibility feature and treated as such. Technology connections has a great video on closed captions that was almost nostalgic lol.
Then there’s also the mood. If you grew up with tv that had captions you’re used to it. But before captions we had terps (interpreters). At live events we have them. At a government press release they already needed one because they can’t just show the teleprompter to the Deaf people in the audience. So they just show the terp where we expect to see them on the screen. Like I can’t think of an event on tv that has interpreters that doesn’t need one in person.
How do you learn to RECOGNIZE A WRITTEN WORD when you don’t know what it sounds like, let alone what the letters mean. Or becomes a matter of a hundred thousand different symbols, recognized as a unit, removed from the auditory context.
I can’t imagine how any deaf person learns to read, to be honest . It’s an astounding feat.
You’ve hit on a problem that the Deaf community faces. There’s often an entire Deaf society in places. Deaf jobs, Deaf schools (including universities), Deaf media… They do read English but it’s harder and it’s not their primary language (though I’ve heard the internet is helping a lot there).
But yeah, there are Deaf universities, including prestigious ones like Gallaudet. Nobody teaches medicine or engineering in sign language from what I can see. I did check and I was pleasantly surprised that Gallaudet offered shit like math, biology, and IT with even grad programs in stuff that isn’t explicitly about deafness.
American sign language is not a gesture based form of English. It is an entire language in its own right, with its own distinct grammar and vocabulary.
To someone deaf from birth, sign language is their native language. And it is much more comfortable to quickly read your native language than a second language.
This raises more questions than it answers, like how do the deaf from birth function in society at all if they struggle with other languages besides sign language. How do they get a job, go to school, learn new skills, read the news, text people? What do they do in their leisure if not watching subtitles movies or reading books? Many non-english speakers end up learning English anyway because of just how pervasive it is.
The same way anyone else for whom English is a second or third language function in society.
I’m ESL and use English subtitles when watching a programme in a language I can’t speak…
You’re on the internet. Most Deaf people these days read English fluently. It’s just that Deaf 70 year olds were often able to get away without becoming actively fluent in English and may not have felt the need to. Closed captions are younger than most people think and they fucking sucked fairly recently. I grew up watching the news with captions and it was distracting if you didn’t need it. Big black boxes with the words said a few seconds ago rapidly appearing on them as they covered stuff. And often captions on prerecorded content wasn’t much better. It was an accessibility feature and treated as such. Technology connections has a great video on closed captions that was almost nostalgic lol.
Then there’s also the mood. If you grew up with tv that had captions you’re used to it. But before captions we had terps (interpreters). At live events we have them. At a government press release they already needed one because they can’t just show the teleprompter to the Deaf people in the audience. So they just show the terp where we expect to see them on the screen. Like I can’t think of an event on tv that has interpreters that doesn’t need one in person.
Think about written English: it’s phonetic.
How do you learn to RECOGNIZE A WRITTEN WORD when you don’t know what it sounds like, let alone what the letters mean. Or becomes a matter of a hundred thousand different symbols, recognized as a unit, removed from the auditory context.
I can’t imagine how any deaf person learns to read, to be honest . It’s an astounding feat.
Don’t you just recognize the sequences? There are plenty of non phonic languages, you just recognize patterns instead of sounds.
They don’t. Having your native language be easier than another doesn’t mean you’re struggling significantly.
Well, subtitles are usually really fast. For most other things that you dont have to read live, reading a bit slower is not really an issue.
You’ve hit on a problem that the Deaf community faces. There’s often an entire Deaf society in places. Deaf jobs, Deaf schools (including universities), Deaf media… They do read English but it’s harder and it’s not their primary language (though I’ve heard the internet is helping a lot there).
But yeah, there are Deaf universities, including prestigious ones like Gallaudet. Nobody teaches medicine or engineering in sign language from what I can see. I did check and I was pleasantly surprised that Gallaudet offered shit like math, biology, and IT with even grad programs in stuff that isn’t explicitly about deafness.