Asklemmy

Would you rather watch content in your native language, or subtitled? If you read translated content, it's fine. But it's not the same as hearing something performed for you. Might be hard to grasp if your language is largely auditory and written, rather than visual and emotive.

Just because sign language is a visual language, does not mean reading is an equivalent. There is a ton of nuance and feeling that goes into communicating through sign language that is not possible through text alone.

Beyond the communication piece, there is respect of an individual who natively speaks a language, and the importance of keeping the language alive.

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.

In addition to the fact that it's not just English via hand gestures, I believe it's done because sign language is speech, with all of the benefits that comes with. There are extra channels of communication present in sign language beyond just the words. There's equivalents of tone and inflection, and (I beleive) even accents. Like, this video of this lady performing "Fuck You" in ASL is what made it click for me when I first saw it many years ago. She's just so fucking expressive, in a way that subtitles could never be.

EDIT: changed my wording to be more accurate, since sign language literally is speech through a different medium. There's no need to draw an unnecessary boundary.

I'm profound deaf. I sign, write and speak. :)

Well, sign language aren't superior. Having both : subtitles (hard hearing people) and sign language (deaf people) is better. I prefer subtitle because it is closer to the speech and i'm not fond of sign video. Often the sign interpreter is small and sign very quickly.

In general, i prefer text, it help me focusing on the content instead of the person and use less bandwidth...

Sign language still lacks lot vocabulary. It's a young language «created» in the 18s when Abée de l'Épée founded the first deaf school. And i had to create lot technical signs with sign language interpreters during my agricultural course. Furthermore, they don't have an official sign writing yet, and it is a problem for keeping human knowledge and culture outside video and technological device. So there is still lot things to do and improve.

In France, lot deaf people aren't fluent with French writing due to the lack of bilingual school (French writing and French sign language) and interpreters (eg : only 200 hours in sign language for 1 year in universities).

So, having sign language improves a lot the accessibility for deaf people as they are not fluent with writing language. For me, i prefer both. Both are good and it meet each people need. :)

A lot of these comments are American so I thought I would provide a different point of view. In the UK it is a legal requirement for some broadcasters to have a certain percentage of signed programmes.

Most of my girlfriend's family is deaf. They read fairly slowly and end up usually not really following subtitles very easily. Sign language is fastest for them to understand.

If sign language is your first language, any written language is like a foreign language that you might've learned but aren't a native speaker in.

i am not Deaf, but i imagine it is easier having stuff presented in your native language.

It's also simpler, faster, and more accurate to have a live translator than having some one type.

For one thing there are probably people who know sign language but can not read.

Because it’s some people’s native language and for those people English (or whatever is the spoken/written language of the land) is their second language. Sign languages aren’t using hands to communicate in their original language, those do exist like ESL (English as a Signed Language) but the Deaf in America and England don’t use ESL, we use ASL (American Sign Language) and BSL (British Sign Language) respectively. These are very different languages from each other and ESL. They don’t even share fingerspelling alphabets.

Captions are amazing for the hard of hearing and late deafened, especially since many children such as myself who grew up hard of hearing were denied sign. But it’s my language by right and I was denied it as a native language. It’s natural for face to face communication in a way writing isn’t and it’s also a cultural language. A Deaf five year old can understand the news broadcast in sign language just as well as a hearing one can understand the spoken one.

I have only ever seen this at live events and so the persons actually there would not be able to see subtitles.

Beides being more natural to follow for native Sign "speakers" (do you say Sneakers? No idea), at live broadcasts it is way more efficient than live subtitling