Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!bunker!hcap!hnews!300!3!Pat.Goltz
From: Pat.Goltz@f3.n300.z1.fidonet.org (Pat Goltz)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Commonwealth Games
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Date: 13 Feb 90 15:14:58 GMT
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Index Number: 6748

Heh. I don't recall saying anything about nude interview shows! And I 
don't get cable. Not likely to in the foreseeable future. I don't exactly 
live in the Outback, but it will probably be years before they find it 
economically feasible to wire my neighborhood for cable. I am much more 
likely to get a satellite dish.
  Hmmm. You pose an interesting question. Is sign language deserving of 
special treatment? I would tend to look on the practical side of that 
question. It is customary for a country to have an official language. As 
such, it seems reasonable that all television broadcasts should have 
their narration in that language. I think the maximum number of official 
languages a country has is four. I could see such a nation broadcasting 
on two TV channels, and each channel handles two of the languages. Each 
channel trades off which is used for narration and which for captions for 
a given program. In some cases, that would not be necessary, because the 
languages are spoken in regions. This is true of Switzerland, for 
example. India is a country with a much bigger problem, but again, I 
think it's regional. If a country has an extensive cable system, the 
cable companies could provide dubbed versions of events like the 
Commonwealth Games.
  In most instances, it seems to make sense to require all ethnic 
minorities to be fluent in the official language of the country. Those 
who cannot understand enough usually get cut out, and I see no practical 
way to remedy this. Most people have the mental capacity to learn the 
official language of a country. I think that requiring this is not 
unreasonable in light of the fact that I had a profoundly retarded 
relative who was bilingual, and who learned English late in life.
  On the other hand, the deaf pose a special problem. You cannot lipread 
a narrator who is not on the screen. Nor can you lipread a person who is 
not turned to face you. It makes sense to me to put a signer in the 
corner of the screen. Even if we required all deaf schoolchildren to 
learn to lipread, it doesn't seem reasonable to cut them out in this 
situation. I think it is quite reasonable to put the signer in the corner 
of the screen. I would welcome her being there, because it would help me 
learn sign. Sign poses a special problem for me to learn, because I 
cannot learn it by the methods I usually use to learn a language. Having 
this opportunity would be most welcome. And I think that it would be good 
for society to accept the presence of a signer on a significant number of 
TV programs. The deaf have a peculiar problem inasmuch as their situation 
makes COMMUNICATION more difficult. Most physical problems people face do 
not pose a problem for communication. I think it is only just for the 
hearing world to make SOME effort to help out. It is no worse than 
providing wheelchair ramps, costwise, or other kinds of access. It seems 
reasonable. Not because I am trying to single out one group for special 
treatment, but because the problems of the deaf communicating with a 
hearing world are really a completely different set of problems from 
people communicating with others in a different spoken language than 
their mother tongue.
  Looks like this deserves some discussion here!
  Pat

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