“Bilingualizing” the Playing Field: Commenting with ASL Vlogs
By Chris Heuer on Sun 22 Apr 2007 |
Email This Post
You’ll have to bear with me here. I know next to nothing about the technological aspects of vlogging (or even blogging for that matter), and thus lack the necessary technical vocabulary to easily discuss the topic. I am a mere writer. When I type a blog or a comment, I go where I’m told to go, type where I’m told to type, and click on the button I’m told to click on in order to send what I wrote. How the process actually works is beyond me.
I can, however, see what the rest of you see. Blogsites are apparently designed to utilize English text only. Mike McConnell’s blog is an excellent example. A growing number of what we formerly called “blogs” now focus on utilizing ASL-only “vlogging” technology. When there is a bilingual access on a single site, such as on a vlog with a section below for replies and remarks, equal linguistic access in the comment section does not exist. On all current websites that I know of—blog or vlog—one can reply only in English.
To illustrate this more clearly: please look at the comment sections below the vlogs of Carl Schroeder, Joey Baer, Amy Cohen Efron or Barb DiGi. Comments on their vlogs are allowed in English only (this is not the fault of the bloggers/vloggers—this merely reflects the capabilities of current technology). If I want to make an ASL vlog in reply to anything they communicate, as for example Aidan Mack often does (see the debate between Aidan Mack and Barb DiGi regarding the president of the NAD for a better idea of what I’m talking about); I can only do it from another website. I can’t reply with a vlog in the comment section under the original vlog I was responding to.
Now, what results from this reality? Several things: First, we have here a clear example of how technology can create the linguistic conditions necessary for hostile stereotyping. For example, suppose that the first language of a given commenter who wishes to reply to this blog is not English, but rather ASL. What do we make of the resultant grammatical errors that often show up in such comments? At the very least these errors can serve as reinforcement for the false—and possibly general—perception that ASL-using Deaf people are illiterate and stupid.
But imagine what would happen if the technological reverse were true instead. Suppose that it were easier (from a digital standpoint) to comment in vlogs than it was to comment in English text. Imagine that every comment below this blog was in fact a vlog in which various commenters signed their responses in their first language: ASL—a language they’re comfortable with, a language they don’t make as many (if any) grammatical errors in. What would happen to the public’s perception of ASL-using Deaf people then?
Would the nature of grammatical criticism change? My first language, for example, is English, and not ASL. I know that I cannot sign as well as Amy Cohen Efron and Carl Schroeder. If I wanted to debate one of their postings, how would I look in my vlog commentary, especially if my points are complicated and demand a high level of linguistic precision? The very nature of vlogging technology would not allow me to rely on my fluency in English. I would be in almost exactly the same boat as Deaf people who are not one hundred percent fluent in English (though they are perfectly literate in ASL).
In the title for this blog I made up a word: “bilingualizing.” I found it necessary to come up with a verb form of “bilingual” that is a bit more involved, a bit more active, than the phrase “making the _______ (website, field, comment section, etc) more bilingual.” The act of “bilingualizing” our websites demands of us an entirely new way of thinking, not only linguistically, but also technologically. The nearest conceptually accurate series of signs in ASL that I can think of for the term would be the signs “ASL” and “English” followed by the verb “merge.” But even those signs do not capture the concept I’m trying to communicate, because the true language needed to convey the term’s meaning is neither English nor ASL, but rather the language of digital programming.
To clarify that statement a bit, let me ask this: Is it possible to redesign the DeafDC.com website so that the comment section can receive vlog input? Right now the comment section can only receive English text. What would be needed for the conversion? What has to happen so that we can start seeing both capabilities (the capability to type in English text and vlog in ASL) in the same comment section? What technological changes would enable us to to scroll down and find that the top three comments are in English text, but the fourth comment is a vlog comment—say ninety seconds long? Followed by another three English comments, then another five ASL vlog windows…
What are the technical barriers in creating something like this? Are there storage capacity problems? Design problems? Something else? Can anyone explain? At this stage in the development of blogging and vlogging technology I highly doubt that the problem is one of linguistic discrimination; that is to say, the deliberate choice (on the part of the website designer) to deny readers the option of commenting with an ASL vlog. But as this technology develops, as data storage capacities increase, and when the capability finally becomes possible… someday linguistic discrimination might very well become a problem.
I think that the best way to ensure that it doesn’t is to understand what we’re dealing with from a design/programming perspective. What exactly goes into creating a vlogging window, and can this be done in the comment section? Why or why not? If not, will technological advances soon bring us to the point where this can happen? If so, approximately how far off (in terms of months, years, etc) is this capability?
And finally, as a community are we ready to level the playing field of blogging and vlogging in this manner? Are we prepared to overcome our own linguistic prejudices? Are there any current commenters whom we belittle and/or disregard only because they do not have the same grasp of English that we have? How would we perceive ourselves, our own literacy skills, if we commented on their vlog with our own ASL vlog? Are we as confident in our ASL skills as we are in our English skills? Are we prepared to face a similar level of heckling and criticism over our grammatical mistakes in ASL? And if we aren’t, then why do we continue to demean those who are not as skilled in English?
© Copyrighted material. This article cannot be copied, reproduced or redistributed without the express written consent of the author. As with every blog on this website, this blog does not reflect the opinion of DeafDC.com.
45 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
There is a very easy workaround for those who want to make a comment in ASL. Assuming that he has the equipment to capture his ASL comment, he just uploads his video to YouTube or Google Video. Then, he goes back to blog or vlog and provides a link to his video in his comment. This happens once in a while in some blogs and vlogs.
Those who demean people who do not write proper English usually do not understand the dynamics of communication among people whose first language is not English. They are the ones that need to be more flexible when they are in the places such as vlogs where formal English is not required or expected.
Before I exit, I want to note that I don’t agree with your unspoken position that there are literacy skills in ASL. Until there is enough literature that is written in ASL, there are no literacy skills in ASL. When a person has good skills in using ASL, he is said to be fluent in ASL. When a person is excellent in telling stories using ASL, he is said to have good expressive skills in story telling, not that he is literate in ASL. Literacy should always remain in the written form of communication and should not be reshaped like an amoeba to include the spoken and signed forms of communication.
Joseph Pietro Riolo
josephpietrojeungriolo@gmail.com
Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the public domain.
Hi Joseph:
Have you ever heard of the researcher John Paul Gee who worked on something called New Literacy Studies (NLS?) I have a book with a fascinating article of his at work and will dig it up ASAP. Basically however he argued that “literacy” is not just “text” and the mastering of text. Literacy is MUCH more: the social roles, norms, and mores around the language, the medium being used to carry the language… And extrapolating upon his work, I believe I could successfuly argue that one can indeed become “literate” in ASL, because becoming literate in ASL then becomes redifned to include the development of receptive skills, the appropriate use of classifiers, etc…
Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. I had to work on group project.
I am not aware of John Paul Gee’s works. Based on what you wrote, it seems to make sense that literacy skills involve more than just reading any text. Where we part is the attempt to extrapolate literacy to a language, be it spoken or signed, that does not have literature. Written form of communication is the cornerstone of literacy. Without any written form, literacy could not have existed.
As indicated by others, there is no technological barrier to including textual and video comments in a blog. It is only that someone has to provide the code to do the job (unless someone already patents the process and in this case, users may have to pay the inventor royalty for the next 20 years minus or plus few years depending on the timing of application).
Your questions relating to the attempt to bilingualize blog are thought-provoking. However, what I object is to use literacy skills as an argument to justify the inclusion of ASL video comments in a blog or vlog. I am too picky on the logic and I will just stop here.
My challenge questions for you: Why do you stop at ASL? Why don’t you talk about trilingualizing, quadlingualizing, or n-lingualizing DeafDC.com? What’s your rationale for including ASL but not including Spanish language or any other signed language? Perhaps, it is best to respect the prerogative of the person who owns blog or vlog. If he wants to allow only English, that’ s his decision. If he wants to allow only ASL, that’s his decision. If he wants to allow any number of languages, that’s also his decision.
Or, perhaps, it is the language politics that upsets us.
I have to go back to work on group project and probably will not participate for a while. I apologize for my bad manner.
Joseph Pietro Riolo
josephpietrojeungriolo@gmail.com
Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the public domain.
Hello Joseph:
Well, for now my rationale is simply supply and demand. If a given blog says it’s for the ______ community (in this case “deaf”), then logically the readership, the advertising it draws in, etc, will be from that community. Based on the demand, it makes more sense to bilingualize a blog/vlog with English text/ASL vlogging than it does to trlingualize it with, say, printed Chinese. However if the readership of the site expands to include a group that uses that language, then it becomes an issue.
One final point. Gee made the argument that we can’t change how we think about literacy until we change the way that we think about TEXT, because out of that understanding flows our ideas of what “writing” is. Are Egyptian hieroglyphics text? I’d say so. Pictographs? I’d say so. Stone age art? Why not?
And how about the medium that imparts the text? How many people out there believe right now that if it wasn’t spat out of a typewriter, then it’s not literacy? But that doesn’t hold, because stone age art definitely imparts something if we walk out of the cave with the story that the hunt that year was successful. Egyptian hieroglyphics imparted something to us if they successfully recorded the contents of this or that pharaoh’s tomb. We got past thinking of paper as the only medium when we started thinking about electrons and the internet as a medium. Stretch that a bit further and the stone wall behind the hieroglyphics was a medium too. But the internet can do more than a stone wall OR a piece of paper. If the medium is what conveys the literature, then why can’t a vlog be the 21st century’s version of “what was spat out of a typewriter?”
Now that my group project was done, I got a chance to reread your blog and read all the comments in this blog.
It seems to me that your vision is to have universal access where anyone from a language group can discuss with a person from any other language group. Star Trek has what is called Universal Translator. If it were to exist today, you would not have written your blog bemoaning the hostile environment for people who could not participate in a group due to language barrier.
Until such device exists, what I am a little concerned with your proposal is that when you bilingualize a blog, you are one step closer to the Tower of Babel. If you keep on adding other languages and other systems (i.e., cueing, SEE, PSE, audio, etc.) to the blog, your proposal becomes detrimental to the quality of blog and it creates more problems than the original problem. Perhaps, my concern is overblown.
Limiting blog to one or few languages is not necessarily bad. The United Nations uses only few languages as the official means to communicate with the representatives and the world. If one’s language is not one of the official languages, he has to learn it. Nobody would say that this is linguistic discrimination. It is just the reality that we can’t be all to all people.
I am looking at your idea from other angle. The angle is about Pygmalion effect. Will bilingualizing a blog make the ASL signers feel less obligated to keep improving their English skills? If they are able to sign their comments in video, why should they spend time improving their English skills? How can we ensure that they receive the message that neglecting their English skills is not an option?
I want to make few comments on literacy. The medium alone is not sufficient to define literacy. Literacy is not limited to what comes out from a typewriter. It could come from electronic medium such as this laptop that I am using to type this comment. It is the process of alphabetization that gives literacy. Literacy depends on the discreteness in a language and the discreteness is provided by an alphabet system. With the discreteness in literacy, one can manipulate the pieces of information in whatever medium. Also, the discreteness enables the writers to decontextualize information.
The stories that ASL signers tell in ASL lack the discreteness. So do the stories told by speakers in their vocal languages. When these stories are written down using an alphabet system, they are alphabetized and they become part of literature.
You asked about three things: Egyptian hieroglyphics, pictographs and Stone Age art. Stone Age art definitely is not literature. Pictographs occur in very early stage of alphabetization. I consider the works in pictographs as proto-literature. This is somewhat like works that are written in SignWriting for signed languages. Egyptian hieroglyphics occurred much later than pictographs in the process of alphabetization.
Joseph Pietro Riolo
josephpietrojeungriolo@gmail.com
Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the public domain.
Actually, literature can be written or spoken or signed. Native Americans don’t have a written language but their voice-recorded stories are considered literature. Therefore, we have PLENTY of ASL literature on videotapes and DVDs in storytelling form and poetry form.
Well-written blog… I like your term “bilingualizing”, which uses both of blogging, vlogging, and commenting. BUT, as Joseph mentioned, ASL is a separate language from English. ASL is a visual language and yes, there have been many attempts to make ASL “a written language” (it comes out like poetry when written exactly in ASL.)
I like viewing vlogs because they give me a personal sense of the vloggers’ personalities, seeing their emotions, facial expressions, and tones of their signs. Then I could make comments based on what I viewed. Perhaps the reason is I was born deaf, so that makes me a visual learner and I take things through my eyes, despite the fact that English is my first language. It is like hearing people could read the emotions, etc., through listening and make better judgements through listening.
Written English is one of the literacy aspects, which requires a degree of reading expertise in the field of communication. So it is essential that we master written English in order to become the effective communicators, since we live in the hearing world. I am always a stickler for my deaf children to read, read, read, and to write, write, write, at home.
Hello Karen:
I too am a strong advocate of English, but I am not suggesting that anyone “write” in ASL. I agree with you that this is not possible. Rather I am suggesting that anyone who wants to reply in ASL, “vlog” in ASL. If you use the verb “write” when talking about communicating in ASL, then in my opinion what you’re talking about is the effort to force English print into ASL grammatical structure (”Me store go now for-for? Pepsi cold thirsty.”) The end result is as linguistically mangled as SIMCOM.
What I’m arguing for here is a medium through which both languages CAN appear at once… though they can simultaneously appear in such a way that doesn’t force us to mix them. Then you would no more have to “write” in ASL than you would have to “vlog” in English text.
Chris,
Teri Sentelle made some headway with this on her blog:
http://www.terisentelle.com/vlog/?p=119
Forgive me for my ignorance here… like Chris, I know next to nothing about the technical aspects of blogging and vlogging. I write my blog, I click the (hopefully) right button, and then I pray.
Maybe it’s my dyscalculia kicking in here that is keeping me from fully comprehending exactly what it is that you’re trying to say here.
If you are asking whether or not it is possible for individuals to respond to a blog or vlog using ASL and thus vlogging their response, well…correct me if I am wrong, but I am starting to see this pop up on a couple of blog/vlog sites, where people do in fact have the option of creating a signed response and inserting that into the comment section - you click on a link and it brings up their comment.
While I do totally agree with having this option available for those who prefer to use it, I also believe that it needs to be a option… not only for the linguistical reasons given above (while I can hold my own in a signed conversation also, I’ll be the first to confess that I’m not a native ASL user and I will never equal the skills of a Carl Schroeder or a Barb DiGi), but also due to the technical issues involved.
I don’t own a webcam. Right now, with my finances being what they are, purchasing a webcam isn’t on my priority list (I have a roof to keep over my head, food to put on the table, and medical bills to pay). Nor do I have the technical expertise to feel comfortable in attempting to create a vlog, and due to my learning disability (dyscalculia) I’m a little nervous to even try.
I know that puts me at a disadvantage at times. I’ve been asked why I don’t make an effort at creating vlogs for my own site. I know there are things I could probably share better with my Deaf readership if I ***DID*** have a webcam and ***DID*** have that technical knowledge and confidence to jump into the world of vlogging.
Unfortunately, I don’t. And truthfully, there are times when I do wonder if I’m being “judged” and perhaps “ignored” by that segment of the Deaf Community that isn’t interested in reading my long-winded ramblings written in English.
The other concern that I do have is that my site also attracts a large non-signing population. If I am going to be bilingual, I have to go full force on such… which would mean not only would the post have to be either captioned or a script included…but comments would need the same.
From what I understand, captioning videos isn’t as easy as it sounds - particularly because of the timing context involved. I’m willing to provide a written script of my post and then include a signed vlog… but who is going to take the responsibility of providing an English translation of signed comments? Does that become the responsibility of the commenter… or the site administrator (in another words - in the case of DeafDC, would Shane be responsible to go through all of the comments to all of the posts here and either caption or provide a script for those expressed in sign? That seems like a lot of time and effort on top of his other duties…)
I like the concept, Chris… I honestly do. I fully support the idea of bilingualism. I just wonder how to effectively and efficiently accomplish such in a way that isn’t too technically complex or overly time-consuming.
Hi Virginia:
I wasn’t aware that people could make a youtube vlog and insert the link. But even that sets up a potential condition for linguistic prejudice: the link itself is English text.
For example, imagine that somebody wanted to respond to Scott below, which is comment #82957. Suppose a person who was not fluent in English typed:
“This comment responds Scott Van Nice (#82957)…
blahblahblahblah@utube.com12457”
Okay, now the person responding gave the link, and the link might be grammatically error-free in ASL. But the English text message telling you to go there still has mistakes (it should read “This comment is IN RESPONSE TO…”), and thus still sets that person up for whatever prejudiced reactions the audience already has against people who are not skilled in English.
But now look at how this comment section is set up. If I want to reply to you, I reply within your box, and that’s how you know it’s addressed to you. If you want to reply to me, you reply within mine, and so on. But there’s no …. “_______” (I don’t even know what word I’m looking for here… capacity? Technological… capability?) for a vlog window reply. In other words there’s nothing that allows you to ONLY and FIRST see the vlog without depending on English to go to it and open it.
Does that make sense?
Now you make a good point about captioning vlogs to provide true Bi-Bi access, and I agree that captioning such vlogs would be lengthy and time consuming. But would it be as time consuming or as technically hard to allow people to respond in uncaptioned vlogs? I’m not sure. That’s why I’m still hoping someone will explain what’s “needed” (technology/programming-wise) to install vlog-response capability.
Bleh. See what I mean about not having the vocab to have this discussion? I’m sure there are more accurate technical terms than the ones I’ve been using…
Hi Chris ~
I looked for some examples of inserting an ASL response so you could see how it is in fact being done at this point… figured that might help.
JohnABC does so on Teri Sentelle’s blog:
http://www.terisentelle.com/vlog/?p=147
Karen Mayes and Oscar the Observer do it at Amy Cohen Efron’s blog:
http://blog.deafread.com/abcoh...../#comments
I’ve seen it on other vlogs/blogs as well.
So it does look like it ***can*** be done, but my understanding is that Site Administrator has to approve the comment with the link, or something along those lines. Shane commented on how Teri Sentelle has been working on this issue… it appears there are some programming glitches that do have to be dealt with.
But I did want to give you some examples to see if this is along the lines of what you’re thinking?
It *can* be done, you’d have to embed the YouTube/GoogleVideo/Egg/whatever vlog into the comment.
It is certainly technically possible to do all this (I’m a programmer so I do know what I’m talking about here). There is potentially the issue of storage space, if vlog comments were actually stored at the blogsite itself, since video takes up much more space than text.
But what I’m taking from the concept of “bilingualize” is that it should be equally easy from the user’s standpoint to leave a written OR visual response in the comments. Yeah, that would be very nice.
I could see putting together a WordPress plugin to facilitate this (although I think it should always require owner approval — imagine the consequences of getting spammed via video rather than text)…interesting idea.
The poor man methods, though (leaving a youtube/googlevideo/etc link at least are still available, whether or not there is any support for easier more direct methods.
I do love the idea of being able to just view each vlog down a comment stream the same way I do the written text, without even having to click on the text.
Technically it’s feasible.
Chris,
I agree with your message: at how we should consider incorporating the feature of allowing people to respond via vlogs.
In fact, I still remember a comment from one DeafDC.com member where that person observed at how DeafDC.com intimidated those who didn’t have strong English skills from responding. Also, I can imagine the web traffic to DeafDC.com going up (hint to Shane Feldman and Rob Rice) which might translate to more publicity, advertising, etc. This could also make a neat case study for not only BayFirst but also for others interested in this from a linguistic, social behavior, or technological perspective.
I also agree that this could become a humbling experience from a technological reversal experience. For example, I have my own prejudices against those who don’t write well e.g. one well known blogger used “precedence” instead of “precedent” and also, apparently, used “amused” instead of “bemused”. Those two distinctions are substantial and because of those two mistakes, my perception of him is not altogether positive.
Yet, I’ve seen some of his vlogs and he’s extremely good at conveying his message so it’s not fair of me to judge him solely on his writing. Further, I sign using Signed English with lots of finger spelling so I would be petrified in using vlogs for myself because I know I’d be subjected to serious heckling (and rightfully so). Therefore, if that sort of medium becomes more widespread within the community, then shouldn’t I force myself to improve my signing if I want to participate? Probably.
Also, I have to admit that when I check the latest from deafread.com, I often skip postings that have vlogs simply because I don’t like having to click on a webclip and wait patiently to see what the person says. Many times, I like scrolling down and quickly scanning the post / article to see if there’s something relevant – much the same way many of us scan a newspaper article e.g. look at the headline, read the first paragraph and perhaps let your eyes jump around to see if there’s some more “meat” in the article. Yet, after reading your article, this made me realize that I’m also being somewhat prejudicial and doing both myself and the speaker a disservice.
Good article, Chris. I really enjoyed this one.
Actually, I wouldn’t be happy with this because I, as an oral deaf person, would be left out of participating in the comments if commentators only chose to respond in ASL without a written transcript of what they were saying. I know that there are many oral deaf people that participate on this blog, and this method of changing comments over to ASL-only would exclude them, and that’s not fair.
Hiya Noelle, long time no see!
Yes, that’s very true. But that’s also what’s ALREADY (in a sense) what’s happening to ASL-using D/deaf people who are not fluent in English, only in reverse. So…
Don’t get me wrong. You and Virginia definitely have a point (re: captioning)…
I agree with Noelle. I think using vlogs will further exclude those who do not know ASL, and take away from the overall idea of DeafDC.com.
What do you have to say about many of those who do not understand much English, often not their fault due to systematic negligence, are often excluded from blogs?
In fact, blogs outnumber vlogs, so your group of people don’t suffer as much as these deaf people do. You have access to English anywhere you lay your eyes on.
What I find to be tiresome is every attempt we try to make ASL vlogs more accessible, people are quick to criticize it rather than embrace it whether or not they know ASL.
I understand one’s point to caption ASL vlog. Would it only be fair that those who do a blog also provide with a signing vlog for those who prefers the latter? If anyone says no to this, it is what I consider to be a double standard and it is not something to be tolerated.
What you are advocating here is increasing the insularity of the Deaf community, excluding oral deaf people and hard-of-hearing people whose primary language is English because that is the dominant language in this country, in favor of a language that is only understood by this particular minority.
I’ll just refer you to Chris Heuer’s
post #82999. Happy reading :)
What about the Deaf-Blind? They can “read” the text but not the vlogs.
Hi Keri:
Ah, but you know what? My very good friend, who is Deaf-Blind (John Lee Clark) was telling me about the tools that HE uses to read things on the internet. I was utterly fascinated (let me get some more info from him so that I can describe this stuff better). Our conversation reminded me of an article I read on a machine being developed to press “______” (I forgot what word was used) against the skin of a blind person (his chest believe it or not) so that the tactile “flash” of the image travelled to the brain. It’s not “seeing” per se, but it’s … what? Tactilizing? It’s not the same thing as “feeling.”
Sounds like science fiction at this point, doesn’t it? But really it’s no more unbelievable than the story about that person who made a glove with sensors on it that would “read” a sign and print out the English version of it. I was just taking about this with a guy named Der Sankt a few months ago… I’ll dig up the link to the article.
My point here is we can make the internet accessible in ways we could have only dreamed of a decade ago. Imagine it. And the push forward for greater accessibility, for more language, for more options, will only drive up the demand for yet MORE accessibility. So by heading in this direction, aren’t we moving towards an era where even Deaf-Blind readers will have access to a vlog? Not necessarily sight-based access, but a type of tactile access we can today only imagine.
I totally agree with Noelle’s comment… we do need to respect the diversity of linguistic choices and communicative modes which can be found in the Deaf Community. While I am fluent enough in ASL to be capable of understanding most vloggers, I grew up oral and can certainly understand and appreciate the concerns of those who don’t want to be excluded.
But I also appreciate where Chris is coming from in regards to ASL users who might feel intimidated to leaving comments due to concerns about their English skills.
The challenge here is this… how can we create a blogging/vlogging community that is in fact all-inclusive? Captioning is one way to go… but it does appear we need to find better technology to allow this to occur easily and with less time and effort involved.
By the same token, what about those folks who leave comments that are written in “highly sophisticated” (for lack of a better term) English that might be difficult for some individuals whose English skills might not be so fluent? Would such comments be required to be translated into ASL? What if the commenter doesn’t have those skills - would this involve finding ASL users to translate the text?
Hmmmm…. a couple of issues here to think about.
Hi Virginia:
Well, here’s another way of looking at it:
Why can’t we shoot for the goal of making our websites be as bilingually all-inclusive as we can easily make them WHILE we keep aiming at the loftier goal of perfect captioning translations for vlogs and perfect vlog translations for English text? For example, if having the easy CAPABILITY to make a vlog comment under a blog or another vlog makes a website more linguistically accessible than does a website without this capability, shouldn’t we go in that direction even if we can’t yet figure out how to quickly and easily caption everything? Taking into consideration for a second what Noelle said… if people can already make youtube vlogs and post links to them in the comment sections, then that’s a done deal. While I understand how she might not be happy with that, the truth is that if people want to do it, then they will, because they already can. Thus the issue becomes: how can we make it EASIER for them to do what they already might prefer to do? Answer: don’t make them go to Youtube. Build vlogging capability right into our own websites.
Would it be fair if I posted a vlog in which I spoke orally and did not provide captions in response to this post?
Noelle, while I am not ignoring your point - you have a valid point regarding concerns about excluding those who do not use ASL - your comments do not seem to show that you understand the concerns that I, and many others, share regarding the current state of affairs where those with weak English skills but high ASL skills are excluded here and in many other deaf-oriented blogs. My question to you, Noelle, is: do you understand, realize, and accept that this is a valid concern and that both populations need to be addressed?
Why not a vlog in cued English? That would even the playing field for native cuers not comfortable signing, and because all the English words are mouthed, be accessible to the oral population…
Even with English subtitles, that would leave out the ASL/MCE community.
Hmmmmmm. :)
Hi Hilary:
Hey, it’s a good point. Yes, it’d be GREAT if we could open everything up. Is it merely a question of code? If so, then all the wesbite owner would ever have to do is write in the code that allows us to post our own vlogs, and then we can sign/cue whatever we’d like to our heart’s content. Captioning would remain a problem. But we’d be far more “level” than we are now…
You got me. I have no idea. The only coding I know is ultra-basic HTML
BOLD
italics
You get the idea….
But yeah, everything that’s computer-based is based on binary ON/OFF code. All those 10100010 strings. That I do know…but as far as css scripting, java script, .asp, etc… ME CLUELESS. :)
Good blog, Chris - I always am intrigued by your thoughts - either here or on GallyNet. I’d like to see you in a VLOG!
We will always have blogs so I don’t think the oral deaf will be ever left out.
Commenting in ASL is a new tool so I don’t think anyone should feel threatened or intimidated at all!
It actually has helped me improve my signing a lot and I have a lot learning to do! :)
Chris, I’ve seen you signing at the v/blog conference on webcast and you sign just FINE! I understood everything you said!
Vlog away…and there are plenty of support out there who would be willing to help you out!
You could write and vlog at the same time – amazing, huh? ;) You’d be getting the best of both worlds!
You could draw more ASLers to DeafDC.com and that would be awesome! DeafDC.com scares me…with all of your writing! I still feel like I have to wear a suit and glasses to read DeafDC!
I’m not very good at writing (I wish I was) and I am more comfortable in explaining in ASL (Ok, I use PSE but whatever *smile*).
I know you want to Chris…go for it! :D
Why do we have to bend over backwards? Why do we have to appease EVERYONE?
Personally, I like deafdc.com the way it is. Reading intelligently written blogs by deaf, Deaf, and DEAF people, and reading stimulating comments (some of which are mini-blogs) by people.
I am not crazy abt vlogs…for reasons stated by Scott Van Nice (comment #82597). Also, may I add that some of these vloggers overstate their fluency in ASL? I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen sloppy classification as well as jumbled fingerspelling.
So there IS a reason why we have so many blogs/vlogs. To fit a niche. I think deafdc.com fits a niche, and the audience seems generally happy with it. Of course, as with anything else, improvements can be made.
So again, I ask…WHY?
Hi Sez Who:
Okay, I just want to make it clear again (and to others above) that I’m just using DeafDC.com here as a hypothetical example. It’s not a direct request for change.
Now, why indeed should we do this? How about this: to find out what happens when we do?
Think about it. Suppose it’s just a question of code, and it can be done easily (I have no idea if it can be because I know nothing about computer programming). So we do it. Then what we’ll suddenly be in is something new.
How long has bilingual-bicultural education for deaf people been a debate now? Since the mid 1990s? And ten to fifteen years later where do we stand? We have some state schools enthusiastically embracing the approach, we have couple of charter schools embracing the approach, we have more research on it than we used to… but not much else.
Why is that? Politics, certainly, plays a part, as does general fear of and resistance to change, as does the honest disagreement that Bi-Bi has a place.
But the internet has exploded, and blogging and vlogging have exploded, and these realities bypass politics. They bypass fear and resistance. What CAN be done on the internet WILL be done if there’s enough demand for it. But there won’t be demand until there’s recognized value.
Thus maybe the way to think about this is truly recognizing the value of bilingualizing a site. For one thing, are we all, oral deaf, cued speech users, and signers, in the same boat in a way when it comes to the realities that produce illiterate deaf people? If Hearing America believes that deaf people are stupid because so many of them can’t read and write, then we won’t make a dent in that stereotype until we somehow produce deaf people who CAN, and in overwhelming numbers.
So isn’t to our advantage–all of us–to push forward for a medium (the internet) and tools for conveying messages (blogs/vlogs/etc) that promote the greatest amount of literacy in the various languages and communication methods embraced by this overall community? The more access we create, the more it helps us overall. What do you think?
I think you should explain this in a vlog. ;)
Chris,
It would be nice if you would do both a vlog and a blog since you teach English literacy to the deaf at Gallaudet. I would love to see all hearing English teachers to vlog and blog. Deaf students would learn
to discern the essence of the linguistics of TWO
separate languages; thereby, learning to distinguish between two languages.
Hi Jean:
This summer I’m thinking about getting whatever it is I need for vlogging. But I need to learn A LOT between now and then. You know what I’d really like to learn how to do, though (and this is in response to IamMine above)?
Imagine that, you know, I wrote a story or something, and not only could you click on an ASL button to see the vlog version of it, BUT ALSO…
…imagine that the story had the word “abduct” or something, and you were a reader who didn’t happen to know what that meant. And suppose you clicked on the word “abduct” and this UFO suddenly flew across the computer screen (sort of like what those screen saver Simpsons do when Homer comes out and starts making a meal of whatever document you have on yoru computer screen), chasing this little guy who runs out right before the UFO comes on. And then the little guy runs to the word “abduct” just as the UFO catches up with him and zaps him with some sort of tracor beam and yanks him up into the ship. See what I’m getting at? So now we don’t only have ASL and English text but we have art reinditions too. I have NO IDEA what amount of programming would go into building something like that, but imagine what we could do with literacy with such tools? We could make every single word interactive. We could totally revolutionize how people read and write and sign and communicate on/through/over a computer.
That’s what I mean about doing it (bilingualizing sites) to see where it takes us. When we invent one thing, we invent along with it the capacity to do something else, and thus advance.
Sorry so long in my replies. I’ll do vlogs on this in the future if anyone’s still interested…
Wow, you have so many wonderful ideas!!
Go make some friends in programming and get some stocks! :)
Your “long” posts are always a pleasure to read - but I think your ASL audience would also enjoy your vlogs! :D ;)
Well now I’ve read all the comments and I’m truly intrigued by the concept.
Of the blogging s/w, I know wordpress best though I’m also looking at Drupal, which honestly would probably be the best platform for fully implementing an idea like this…so I’m going to look at putting together a plugin to enable as much of this (well NOT the “abduct” example :-O ) but making it easy to embed videos, for starters.
I’d need to investigate further about hosting the video directly at the site though…it seems like reinventing YouTube and GoogleVideo all over again: upload, render, store, etc.
Also, I totally understand where Noelle is coming from, I was there six months ago. But I stopped complaining about it the day I finally realized that some ASL-signers are insecure/uncertain about their English skills — I had had absolutely NO idea up till then. So while I think captioning all vlogs is a laudable idea, it isn’t feasible to do so in all cases, any more than it is feasible to demand that, say, a spanish writer provide english transcriptions of all their posts. It would be lovely, but feasible…no.
(I guess I need to go back and caption my own vlog…! :-)
Then it goes back to the whole question of Deafhood. The premise as I supposedly understand, is that it is an all-encompassing umbrella that includes subgroups such as CIers, SEEers, oral deaf, hard of hearing, ASL, and Deaf.
What is Deafhood, then, really, if it doesn’t include all groups in its various manifestations such as vlogs, blogs, and so on? In my view, it really should be exclusionary because it is clear that Deafhood, when referred to, means Deaf people, and not the rest of the subgroups that is supposed to be included under it.
Hi Noelle:
This is in response to both of your recent comments…
In a sense, you (as a non-signing deaf person) ALREADY ARE excluded from the Signing Community, just as those of the Signing Community who struggle with English are excluded from English-only blogs. Now what I’m advocating for here isn’t exclusion, because exclusion is what we get when we make a blog or vlog *only one thing*… that is to say, English text-only, or Vlog-only. We start to overcome that exclusion a bit when we make our sites more accessible. Thus a vlog with English text commentary is accessible to a larger number of people than a vlog with vlog-only commentary would be.
Now an English-text blog with English text-only commentary is accessible to a larger number of people in the United States, because (as you say), English is the primary language of this country. But that doesn’t mean that the use of English text makes it accessible to a larger number of people IN THIS COMMUNITY.
I think that if we went ahead and did this, what would happen is that the sites would start becoming more truly bilingual, and more accessible… and that in turn would drive up the demand to caption the vlogs and vlog the English-text. And that in turn would drive up the demand to put other tools in there to serve as a bridge where the translations break down (such as art, etc).
Of course CUEing could be added in too, since CUEing would be vlogged. And as for voice-over, I don’t know how that works but I don’t see why it can’t be done. The internet is the one place where we can make the environment as accessible to all as we wish. We just have to put our minds to it.
One last thing. I don’t think that doing this kind of thing would make the community more insular. It would open it up. And it would open up the hearing world too, because ASL-using Deaf people would have more access, as would CUEers, etc. And once we know “how” to do something, we’ll have that much less of a problem when users of other sign languages want access, or other spoken/written languages, etc. In a sense we already have that (foreign written language access)because just about any foreign language that’s typed on the internet can be translated by running it through one of those translation sites, and bam, you have your English approximation within thirty seconds flat… so how was I excluded from say, a message board where Spanish was being used, and how was the English-using world made more insular from the invention of that translation device?
Hi BEG:
See this response alone helps me to understand a lot more about what’s needed. Okay, so it’s called installing the capability to “embed” videos. I’m not sure what a plugin is or what Drupal is. If it’s a question of storage capacity, what are the problems? If a site has too much video content does it take a longer time to load, or..? How much can be stored before that happens? And if not very much, can the problem be solved somewhat by, for example, establishing a policy where all video comment content is erased after a month or a week or something (or if not erased stored somewhere else)?
And… you know that art stuff that’s showing up on more and more vlogs? Like a guy is talking about a basketball and a basketball appears on the vlog, or a cartoon cowboy hat appears on his head… what’s that feature called? And can art be moved around on the screen? The capability must exist… I’ve seen it in screen savers, but how about for vlogs?
Hi Joseph (#83008 above… sorry I couldn’t reply anymore within that box):
I think that there’s a difference between “literacy” and “literature.” I define literacy as the process of reading, of understanding text. And I define text as a wide–indeed a vast–variety of things. So on that we agree entirely. I think literacy is MUCH MORE than what is “spat out of a typewriter.” The problem is that both of live in a world where a great many people disagree with both of us.
Now literature I define as something closer to what you’re talking about (alphabetized language, etc). So here we’re also in agreement, because you’re right, Stone Age art I wouldn’t necessarily define at literature. But the process of understanding it, the tools we use to decipher it… those skills and processes would fall under literacy.
So with that in mind, don’t you think that we’re limiting ourselves by continuing to think about literacy and text in terms of one “primary” language (usually by default the native language of a given country) and about the medium used to convey that text as a medium that can only do a few limited and highly defined jobs? For example a piece of paper can’t do much by itself, but the internet as a medium is like comparing God to an ant. So shouldn’t we be exploring what we can do with this new medium we have at our fingertips?
Would a site become messier and have more problems? It would depend upon the design, wouldn’t it? Look up. What’s there? A toolbar. Why couldn’t a site have a toolbar where you just click on the language you want? If you only want to see vlogs and block text, you can do that. If you only want to see text and block vlogs, more power too you. But the sites themselves would have as much as possible embedded, SO THAT YOU *CAN* make those linguistic choices.
Imagine what we could do.
What I find interesting about this discussion is that Chris is bringing up what looks like an excellent idea, but a lot of people are bringing up objections to it.
Now, I don’t use ASL, but I do understand it. I’m generally in favor of inclusion, whether it be oral, ASL, SEE, cued, or whatever. So I think it’s an absolutely great thing that Chris is bringing up. We should not be so reflexively insular as to ignore pepole with different languages, communication skills, and thoughts.
I can see some problems with incorporating vlogs with this (or another) blog, but I don’t think that these problems are insuperable. I don’t know about a lot of people using DeafDC or elsewhere, but I suspect a lot of people during the day are reading DeafDC during the day while at work. There are places, like parts of the federal government, where streaming media of all kinds is strictly forbidden. So that’s one group of readers that won’t click on vlogs otherwise get firewalled and reported to the IT police — at least during the day time.
Another problem that I thought of — vlogs are for people with high speed bandwidth, like DSL, cable, T1, or whatever. I imagine that it would be especially painful to try to watch a vlog over a dial-up. While a lot of folks have high speed, I would imagine there’s a portion that is still in dial-up land. How many folks is that, I don’t know, and wouldn’t venture to guess.
Setting the problems aside, I really like Chris’ idea of incorporating vlogs and blogs in one place.
I would favor an approach instead of just linking to a site like Youtube, that the vlog get “thumbnailed.” So essentially, what you see, scrolling down are comments, like this one, but people put in video comments which are recorded in vlog format, and shown in a postage sized box with a subject header so that the reader could know what the commenter was discussing. Scrolling down, the reader would have the option of clicking the text or the vlog comments. (Well, I’m confusing a vlog itself with video comments, but you get the idea.) Depending on bandwidth, that thumbnail sized picture could be still or moving. Well, this may not be feasible right now, but, that’s one approach to melding vlogs and blogs. Vlogs are already halfway there since there are often comments posted below, such as Carl Schroeder’s site.
But I might add, to be a genuinely successful endeavor, you do not need to censor every comment that is negative. That’s a particular pet peeve of mine, and I will not visit those sites that censor everything so that it is all a giant echo chamber with little or no independent thought.
Yes, Chris, I’ve imagined, and you’re onto something. Keep up the good work!
Hi SIM:
This reminds me of a series of novels (called the WorldWar series) by author Harry Turtledove. It’s sci-fi, so if you don’t go for that kind of thing, consider this fair warning, ha… but the basic idea of the series was:
An alien race invaded earth just as America was entering World War II. And the invasion changed history as we know it. That’s the primary message of the series. But the secondary message is this–the Race (that’s what they’re called) finds US as alien as we find THEM. They CANNOT understand how we can move so recklessly and quickly ahead with our technology and ideas. Every other race in the galaxy that they’ve conquered (three so far besides us) thinks the way they do… slowly, meticulously. They’re far in advance of us in 1941, with space-capable vehicles and lasers and computers. But they thoroughly test everything first and solve ALL problems before advancing to a new thing. In other words the discussion we’re having here might take us a few years but it takes them centuries. And they make sure technology advances in their society evenly, with all groups having access, and nobody falling behind…
Meanwhile our reckless innovation pushes us to get an edge on them, and in that alternate history we advance to where we are in this one (in 2007) by the early 1980s, with the internet, fast computers, etc. We have supersonic jets in the late 1940s instead of in the late 50s and 60s. We have intrasolar planetary travel by early 2005. And in the last book we have extrasolar planetary travel (2015) and one other nifty surprise that I don’t want to tell you about (cuz it spoils the book) but it puts in IN ADVANCE of the Race for the first time.
I think Turtledove was trying to make a social statement about how technology advances. Here we’re using the internet and in Africa we still have people living in grass huts. Yet we won’t wait for them to catch up. We believe that the fastest advance possible in developed societies is what will pull the grass hut people up more quickly. And whether or not that’s true, that’s pretty much how we’ll keep doing things, I think. So the people with cable will keep ruthlessly pushing ahead to improve on what you can get with cable, and the dial-up people will be left blowing in the wind. Harsh? Yes. Nonetheless, it looks like that’s what’ll happen.
I know Turtledove; he’s a hack who cranks out reams of historical what if books. His original books, Guns of the South, and the early Videssos series, were pretty good, but since then, he’s become too prolific for his own good. It’s gotten to the point that the quality of his writings is seriously degraded and there is ample confusion between the WorldWar series and that other Alternate Civil War series. I’ve since long dismissed him from any serious consideration.
Interestingly enough, Turtledove has a degree in Byzantine history, which is what I specialized in college.
But I do see your point. Relentlessly improving technology all the way to the Singularity, eh? I share your optimism to a certain degree, but, this is all assuming that this isn’t a giant simulation a la Nick Bostrom, and that we don’t perform an extinction level event on ourselves.
That said, I prefer Vernor Vinge, Charles Stross (you remind me of him with that dome of yours), Alistair Reynolds, and Iain M. Banks.
Check out Teri Sentelle’s. She beat you!
She figured out how to embed ASL responses in the area of comments on her vlog about two months ago.
It is really cool. I believe that she is still seeking some solutions that will allow ASL commentors to leave vlogs without her doing the work. Do check it out. Her vlog is really interesting and the design is so beautiful. She seems to know a lot about programming and coding skills including designing.
http://www.terisentelle.com/vlog