- Jun 29, 2010
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I have a question about the growing use of sign language in political speeches and news media. First let me say I'm very hard of hearing, having worn hearing aids practically all my life and have been told I really need a cochlear implant to function. I also know a fair amount of ASL and have taken a number of classes in it.
However...I really don't get why all the signing. There are only about 600,000 deaf people in the U.S. (about .22% of the population.) If you include hard of hearing you can get up to about 6 million, though most of them are over 65 and don't know sign language. So even including people who aren't deaf, deaf people and their families a high estimate would be maybe 2 million people know ASL. It would make much more sense just to use Closed Captions or if you really wanted to reach out sub titles in Spanish. (About 43 million people in the U.S. use Spanish.) This isn't unique to the U.S. you can watch Canadian, New Zealand, European speeches and there is the ubiquitous signer, happily signing away.
Personally I'm glad, since I know it a bit, but even then I get more comprehension from closed captions, even when they aren't perfect. Why is it so prevalent? Does the Deaf community have a powerful lobbying effort or is it more helpful than I realize? Any thoughts?
However...I really don't get why all the signing. There are only about 600,000 deaf people in the U.S. (about .22% of the population.) If you include hard of hearing you can get up to about 6 million, though most of them are over 65 and don't know sign language. So even including people who aren't deaf, deaf people and their families a high estimate would be maybe 2 million people know ASL. It would make much more sense just to use Closed Captions or if you really wanted to reach out sub titles in Spanish. (About 43 million people in the U.S. use Spanish.) This isn't unique to the U.S. you can watch Canadian, New Zealand, European speeches and there is the ubiquitous signer, happily signing away.
Personally I'm glad, since I know it a bit, but even then I get more comprehension from closed captions, even when they aren't perfect. Why is it so prevalent? Does the Deaf community have a powerful lobbying effort or is it more helpful than I realize? Any thoughts?