Subtitles vs Signing

[mrsfran]

Of course you find signing, distracting - you don't sign. That's understandable. But you actually sound a bit irritated that there's signing on anything you want to watch and I'm a bit baffled as to why. 99% of programming on TV is made for you, the hearing viewer. Everything that is shown signed is also shown without sign language. You're fantastically well catered for, so perhaps you could leave off "expressing yourself" with ill-informed opinions.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

...Surely subtitles is better for deaf people? It's a bit like when I use subtitles for foreign films. ..

But you're just wanting to impose your preference on to everyone else. Some people prefer foreign films to be dubbed, because they don't want to miss any action by reading the subtitles at the bottom of the screen, and they find subtitles distracting...

Just playing devil's advocate here...

Personally, I'm with you in that respect, I prefer subtitles, because dubbing foreign films drives me to distraction, I don't like the way the words don't match the mouths.

However, I disagree about the signing. I've suffered over the past year or so from insomnia (although I'm a lot better now, thanks to acupuncture), and I ended up watching television programmes at ridiculous o'clock. I really didn't find the signing too distracting. I think it's okay when the format of the screen is to have a reduced size screen covering most of the screen, inset into the frame, with the signer just off to the side, so they're not standing in front of the actual programme image.

In fact, having spent a few months, every now again watching the kind of programmes that are usually on in the day time/early evening repeated as a signed version, as well as See Hear, and Switch and stuff, I did wonder why on earth the BBC didn't just pilot a few of those programmes during 'regular', non-insomniac viewing hours, I mean why should deaf people have to stay up till ridiculous o'clock or set their videos when the programme could easily be aired in the day/evening in a signed format that everyone can enjoy, i.e. non deaf (because when you get used to it, it really isn't that distracting), and deaf.

And as for Switch, why is that relegated to the early hours? Why can't they repeat it or even broadcast it during the evening on BBC2, BBC3 or something? It's a good soap opera, maybe not top drawer, but comparable to other stuff that's broadcast in regular viewing hours. And if a Welsh programme like Pobol Y Cwm can attain a wider non-Welsh audience and cult viewing status among students, then maybe Switch could do so too. At the moment, Switch is quite exclusive, and aimed just at the Deaf community because of the time it's broadcast, the BBC could promote inclusivity and disability as a part of every day life by broadcasting Switch during regular hours instead of as part of 'special' programming.

And I even did the whole 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' thing, and emailed the BBC tellling them that I thought their service was lamentable in the way signed programmes were broadcast in the early hours, and as a non-deaf, non-signing person, I wanted to recommend/support the broadcasting of signed programmes as a matter of course in the normal scheduling, because the way they do it at the moment is quite discriminatory.

[/dismounts from high horse]

 

[mrsfran]

Well done you, Ann!

 

[fudgefactorfive]

My understanding is the same isn't true of films. But you're right, subtitles can be crappy on that front but not consistently. As I said, the subtitles are on permanently here.

I can't possibly articulate the pros and cons of signing against subtitles being that I can't sign myself. I can only speak of experience and I find signing distracting. That doesn't mean I want it blasted out of existence I'm just expressing myself as a non signer.

I'm learning to sign at the moment, just about to finish my first year of level 2.

The thing is, these signed programmes are not aimed at you, the non-signer. They are repeats: if it's distracting enough to spoil the experience, you need to make sure you catch the original programme. Set your video, like deaf people usually have to do with the signed edition.

Sign language has several "channels" of information that subtitles just don't have, even if you're lucky enough to be a d/Deaf person that managed to salvage a decent education. A lot of people, particularly the older ones, feel that they got a really shoddy ride out of the school system, and some of the stories I've heard from sign tutors beggar belief. Add to that the recent-ish changes to the way deaf people are taught - the change away from specialist Deaf Schools to mainstream schools with a learning unit - and you have more chaos and more people left out of English.

In some countries, like Germany, the preference for foreign films is for dubbing, because if it's done well, it's often a better experience. We're more used here in the UK to really cheap, badly dubbed programmes where the voice doesn't match the mouth movements at all, and the voice actor isn't really any good - the intonation and characterisation are hugely lacking. That doesn't mean that dubbing itself is useless - just that it can be done well, or badly.

Signing is like that. If the signer is any good, there's a ton of information in what they're saying which just can't be expressed in subtitles - it's impossible, written words are just too different to sign. Facial expression, modifiers to signs which give indicators of degree or severity, classifiers which remove ambiguities, signs which make distinctions between things where English doesn't. If sign is your first language, which it is for about 125,000 people in this country if memory serves, it makes a huge difference to what you get out of the programme.

 

[PacificOcean]

Bit OT: Do different countries have differernt sign lanangue or is it all basically the same give or take a bit?

 

[mrsfran]

No - as I said earlier in the thread, sign languages vary as much as spoken languages (including regional "accents"). I am fluent in British SL but cannot understand French, or German or even American SL. Like the spoken word, they sometimes share the same words, but as an example - the British alphabet is signed with 2 hands, the American alphabet only uses one. They're completely different.

 

[fudgefactorfive]

Bit OT: Do different countries have differernt sign lanangue or is it all basically the same give or take a bit?

Like it says on page 1 no - different countries have very different sign languages.

Interestingly, American Sign Language and British Sign Language are utterly different, which throws people, because American and British hearing people both speak English. ASL is more closely related to French Sign Language than British. A few ASL signs have crept into BSL though.

There is a thing called "International Sign" but I'm not sure that it's a completely developed language (?) and very few signers know any, only the ones with a keen interest in travelling and meeting a lot of foreign deaf people.

The only places where BSL is used much, apart from the UK, are in Australia in a highly mutated form, and New Zealand.

 

[mrsfran]

Also, sometimes sign language varies more than spoken language - for example, I can think of three different BSL signs for "sugar", and four for "people".

 

[Mogden]

I've always watched with the subtitles turned on. I'm not deaf but my brain does struggle with seeing and listening to programmes. I take far more information in if I can see, read and hear it. Irritates Flashman beyond belief but now I use the shortcut button on the Sky remote so it takes me no time at all to turn them off.

 

[fudgefactorfive]

This is the guy I drool over:

His signing is lovely too.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

...The only places where BSL is used much, apart from the UK, are in Australia in a highly mutated form, and New Zealand.

I have an Australian friend, and her children went to a school, think it was in Tasmania, where they all learned AusLan as a second language, (which apparently is very different to BSL) much as we'd learn French or Spanish. It wasn't a specialist school for deaf children, it was a mainstream school, not sure how many deaf pupils there were, but in terms of helping people communicate in the wider community, when I heard that from my friend I thought it was a brilliant, progressive initiative.

 

[scarecrow]

Of course you find signing, distracting - you don't sign. That's understandable. But you actually sound a bit irritated that there's signing on anything you want to watch and I'm a bit baffled as to why. 99% of programming on TV is made for you, the hearing viewer. Everything that is shown signed is also shown without sign language. You're fantastically well catered for, so perhaps you could leave off "expressing yourself" with ill-informed opinions.

The thread title is "Signing vs Subtitles" there is no mention that ill-informed people can or can't express an opinion. I said it irritated me on one occasion when I recorded 1984 without really paying too much attention to the small print in the TV listings. That doesn't suddenly equate to me being some sort of fascist who wants it eradicated from our screens so as to not upset me further. You've extended my point of view for me based on one isolated instance.

It was interesting to find out the pros of signing over subtitles in your earlier post, as a none signer I would never have known and just assumed that because I'm perfectly happy watching foreign films with subtitles then maybe hard of hearing people would find that equally sufficient too.

Incidently my mother can sign. She used to always kind of point upwards and the push a slightly fist-clenched palm towards me when I was younger. I later learned this meant "Up yours"

Charming mother, eh?

 

[cyberfairy]

I hope I'm not derailing but how different is british sign language to Makaton which I'm currently in the process of learning?

 

[mrsfran]

I'm not very knowledgable on Makaton, but as far as I'm aware, it's a knd of very simplified form of sign language (but not BSL). The thing that complicates the matter is that BSL isn't just words signed in the same order they would be in English, it has it's own grammar.

Signing done with the same grammar as English is known as Sign Supported English (SSE). Makton is a very simple version of SSE.

 

[fudgefactorfive]

I have an Australian friend, and her children went to a school, think it was in Tasmania, where they all learned AusLan as a second language, (which apparently is very different to BSL) much as we'd learn French or Spanish. It wasn't a specialist school for deaf children, it was a mainstream school, not sure how many deaf pupils there were, but in terms of helping people communicate in the wider community, when I heard that from my friend I thought it was a brilliant, progressive initiative.

I've heard of a few schools in the UK that have a special needs unit, that are taking a similar approach now: sign lessons for all pupils. It's a great idea. But there is no push from schools authorities for this: it's all off of individual schools' backs.

Makaton - just to confirm and add to what missfran said - I've seen one Makaton manual aimed at primary school teachers and all the signs in it were identical to the BSL ones I've learned. The thing with Makaton is that it's not mainly intended for the deaf, but for kids with learning difficulties, as an accompaniment to spoken language. From what I've been told about it, it's not really a language as such (just like SSE isn't really a different language but a way of signing English), unlike BSL which has its own syntax and other features.

 

[Strawman]

I often watch signed programs in the middle of the night due to my working hours.

The signing itself doesnt bother me, but what does get on my nerves is they show the program at about 2/3's size, with the picture surrounded by seemingly unecessary borders.

 

[maya]

- yay, subtitles!

i love subtitles, as english is only my 3rd language,
and it actually makes it possible to follow the dialogue- much more effortlessly than without-

especially if the talking mugshots babble along in some bizarre/obscure dialect which is impossible to decipher at the speed it's spoken... : mad : !

....yay for subtitles!!

 

[fudgefactorfive]

The thing is that a lot of programmes have optional subtitles, if your set is capable of showing Ceefax, page 888. If you like subtitles for whatever reason, most popular programmes will have them, during the original broadcast.

But Sign Zone is specifically catering for those people that do not benefit from subtitles and greatly benefit from having sign.

Some people are going to get very wound up by suggestions that Sign Zone is somehow "annoying" or "unnecessary", because they have put a huge great shedload of work into persuading TV stations to do it.

 

[scarecrow]

i love subtitles, as english is only my 3rd language

This is pretty much why my GF likes it. She speaks English perfectly but still likes it switched on, perhaps for words she doesn't know yet. She seems to ask more questions abot phrases than words really, though.

 

[fudgefactorfive]

I often watch signed programs in the middle of the night due to my working hours.

The signing itself doesnt bother me, but what does get on my nerves is they show the program at about 2/3's size, with the picture surrounded by seemingly unecessary borders.

They decided that was the better way of doing it for some shows, perhaps particularly documentaries since it seems to happen most often with those. Sometimes programmes have their own subtitles - eg. people's names - embedded at the bottom, which the inset signer would block. This way, the signer mostly only obscures the border.

 

[Santino]

Switch is appalling. Fact.

 

[Maltin]

the signed films are only shown a few times in comparision to ones that are not signed, there are so many reapeats of films I am sure you can wait until the unsigned version comes on?

The Paper is on at the moment and the signing person in the corner is, to me, totally obtrusive of the film and the characters on screen that it is very awkward for a person who is not deaf to watch without being distracted by the bloke at the bottom. I know that people who show TV programmes don't generally care about the audience and whether they are able to watch everything that is on screen but why can I watch a film in a foreign language and understand it with subtitles and deaf people apparently can't watch a film with subtitles?

 

[Maltin]

I've just turned on to On the Buses and they've got the same issue Surely after 40 years, they can work out how to subtitle this too. Is the bane of signing resigned to those too drunk to notice?

 

[lizzieloo]

That's one hell of a bump Maltin!

 

[Maltin]

That's one hell of a bump Maltin!

I didn't want to create a new thread where one had covered the main issues before. I can understand the usefulness of signing of "live" programmes but was just annoyed that a decent film was ruined in my eyes by the obtrusiveness of the signing person. I think most programmes on BBC seem to have the signer in a space below (or partly below) the programme broadcast. I guess ITV don't care about who watch their programmes.

 

[mrsfran]

How funny that this thread has been bumped as sign language and subtitles on TV is now my job.

I didn't want to create a new thread where one had covered the main issues before. I can understand the usefulness of signing of "live" programmes but was just annoyed that a decent film was ruined in my eyes by the obtrusiveness of the signing person. I think most programmes on BBC seem to have the signer in a space below (or partly below) the programme broadcast. I guess ITV don't care about who watch their programmes.

What time was this programme on? 2am? And you're complaining that it's ruining your viewing? You can't even abide the fact that what tiny amount of signing on TV there is (a massive 3% of all programming) is on at a time when almost no one is watching, in order to appease the people who find it distracting, meaning that deaf people have to be practically nocturnal in order to watch anything with sign language on.

My heart bleeds for you.

 

[Lord Camomile]

I was thinking about this thread the other day, glad to see it's still useful

Not so glad it's useful for complaining about signing though

What do you do in your job missfran?

 

[mrsfran]

Today I am in the sign language studio directing the signing on some sports programmes. I also look after the subtitles for lots of channels.

 

[Santino]

The Paper is on at the moment and the signing person in the corner is, to me, totally obtrusive of the film and the characters on screen that it is very awkward for a person who is not deaf to watch without being distracted by the bloke at the bottom. I know that people who show TV programmes don't generally care about the audience and whether they are able to watch everything that is on screen but why can I watch a film in a foreign language and understand it with subtitles and deaf people apparently can't watch a film with subtitles?

Maybe you should read the fucking thread as well as bumping it.

 

[Maltin]

What time was this programme on? 2am? And you're complaining that it's ruining your viewing? You can't even abide the fact that what tiny amount of signing on TV there is (a massive 3% of all programming) is on at a time when almost no one is watching, in order to appease the people who find it distracting, meaning that deaf people have to be practically nocturnal in order to watch anything with sign language on.

It's irrelevant what time the film was on. Why couldn't it be subtitled? I seem to cope perfectly well watching films not in English with subtitles?

I can understand why sign language may be better, especially with live news etc, but can't see the necessity to have films signed.

If you work for ITV, can you ask them to respect films/tv programmes and not obscure the screen. It's bad enough when tv programmers squash the screen, speed up credits or talk over programmes to plug upcoming programmes let alone superimpose people over the images.

Just because something is on late at night, it does not give the tv programmers the right to not give a shit about the programmes they show.