- From: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org>
- Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 14:17:13 -0500 (EST)
- To: "Slaydon, Eugenia" <ESlaydon@beacontec.com>
- cc: WAI GL <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Well, I guess you've hit a bunch of interesting points at once... Disclaimer: I probably know more about this than the average person in the street. (It's part of my job <grin/>). That doesn't make me the unquestioned expert. Besides, I am trying to be clear and simple here <grin/> and may have left out some subtle details that turn out to be important. Or I may have made some major errors. But here is my first attempt at explaining the problem. For many Deaf communities, they often consider that sign language is a different language. Structurally, it is a different language, which people learn because of a disability. For people who grow up learning sign language, learning to read and write is in fact very difficult. Apparently this applies most especially to Deaf children in hearing families, whose deafness is often not diagnosed for a couple of years, and whose very early exposure to language is to spoken language. The reason is that learning a written language means understanding a complex system of abstract notation, which is based on the sound of a language. Since the sound generally has no meaning for this group of people, the degree of difficulty approaches the idea of learning to read arabic (as a monolingual english-speaking child) without learning to read the alphabet - just by learning whole words. The fact that in addition the words don't have direct translations - the syntax and structure is quite different is something that I try to capture by using arabic as an example - where direct translation of words is more or less unintelligible in many cases. Just as a side note, Australian Sign Language (Auslan) is very different from the American Sign Language (ASL) - about as different as English and Russian. (Yep, even the alphabets are not at all comprehensible between the two...) So one might say that many Deaf people have a learning disability with respect to written language, but often have quite a complex language that they do use - like many disabilities, generalisations are often inaccurate. And finally, of course, this only applies to people in certain situations - people who lose some or all of their hearing after learning to speak, or after learning to read and write 7 or 8 languages, are in a totally different situation. Many older people who lose their hearing progressively cannot sign well, but learn some lip reading skills, guess a lot from context, and can often read and write. Some people cannot hear or see, and use completely different methods to learn and use language. cheers Charles On Tue, 12 Mar 2002, Slaydon, Eugenia wrote: I guess this is an issue I have trouble understanding. This is just my point of view and not meant to be derogatory. Please enlighten if I'm heading down the wrong path. I want to understand this issue and right now I'm very confused on it. :) If someone is deaf and using sign language to communicate, then sign language is replacing "the hearing" piece of communication for them. I am also assuming English as the primary language for this example. That doesn't mean that "the seeing" piece of communication is missing. Isn't this a case of "choosing" not to learn or use another means of communication? For example I can read English but find it difficult or tiresome and would rather listen to a sound file instead. Can I then say that the content is inaccessible because it doesn't come in a sound file? It doesn't fit my unique user need or wish? All of my experience with deaf individuals has been that they couldn't hear. They could read and write and communicate effectively with me in that way. In school they were required to learn to read and write like any other individual. So why do you say that deaf individuals don't get much benefit from text? Is this because they can't learn it - or choose not to? If it is a choice then what about the person who just chooses not to learn to read? To me adding sign language to a site is the equivalent of adding another language - like spanish or german. It doesn't mean the site is inaccessible just not in the language of choice. Eugenia -----Original Message----- From: Charles McCathieNevile [mailto:charles@w3.org] Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 10:04 AM To: WAI GL Subject: Sign language equivalents There are a number of communities who really don't get much benefit from text, but are Deaf and use sign languages. Do our requirements and current checkpoints enable this sufficiently or not? Chaals -- Charles McCathieNevile http://www.w3.org/People/Charles phone: +61 409 134 136 W3C Web Accessibility Initiative http://www.w3.org/WAI fax: +33 4 92 38 78 22 Location: 21 Mitchell street FOOTSCRAY Vic 3011, Australia (or W3C INRIA, Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France)
Received on Tuesday, 12 March 2002 14:17:13 UTC