# Why American Sign Language on Television? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 9, 2020, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-american-sign-language-on-television/851453 "2020-04-09T20:08:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-american-sign-language-on-television/851453/21 "2020-04-10T09:53:25Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > What distinguishes the “Deaf community” from the deaf part of the population? I’m not sure my answer it completely accurate, if someone else can do better that would be good. My statement comes from a young woman, a karate blackbelt at the dojo I used to train in. She was deaf. She could speak, in a flat tone, having had cochlear implants to allow some hearing… She did not consider herself part of “the deaf community”. She and her mom both explained that those people did not consider themselves to have a handicap, just that the rest of us had an extra ability. Some of them had even told these two ladies that the one should not have had the implants. Some seemed to be very insular, and self-righteous about their status. I can’t point anyone to a cite for what I’ve spoken about above, it’s all based on what two people told me. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-american-sign-language-on-television/851453/22 "2020-04-10T10:32:22Z")
This is all very complicated, and I can’t answer in a short post-- although I will note that Deaf people did not come up with the term “hearing-impaired,” and have never liked it. Back when I was at Gallaudet in 1987-88, people did not like hearing-impaired, and preferred Deaf. Later, when I have time, I will start a thread about Deaf community and culture identification. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-american-sign-language-on-television/851453/23 "2020-04-10T10:38:07Z")
Because doing it on the radio would just be awkward. ---
**Author:** ![CelticKnot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/celticknot/32/3392_2.png) [@CelticKnot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelticKnot)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-american-sign-language-on-television/851453/24 "2020-04-10T12:39:03Z")
> [@Daylate](#): > > Just for fun, I turned on “closed captioning” yesterday, and watched several programs using this. I found that a program that was not filmed live, but instead had been filmed prior to broadcasting, the closed captioning was OK. However, if any program was live, the closed captioning had a two or three second delay which was very annoying. > > And sometimes the translation from the verbal to the captioning was what one would get with an instruction manual that had been from translated from Japanese to English by a Japanese speaker. My hearing is fine, but my auditory processing and short-term memory are dubious, so I use subtitles/closed captioning to help me. Live CC can be inaccurate, and sometimes wildly wrong. Nothing takes you out of a scene or causes you to miss what is being said more than hilarity at very wrong words in CC. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-american-sign-language-on-television/851453/25 "2020-04-10T15:21:23Z")
I’ve read several places that many deaf people don’t view deafness as a disability. Some don’t want to get surgery with an implant that could very well give them some ability to hear. I worked with a professor who later got one of the first cochlear implants in the US and he was happy to get it. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-american-sign-language-on-television/851453/26 "2020-04-10T15:25:07Z")
During the most recent Super Bowl, they had a sign language interpreter during the singing of the national anthem. Except they also had the words on the display in the stadium and they didn’t keep the interpreter on screen for the broadcast. So I’m not sure what or who that was useful for. (Plus does anyone need someone to interpret the song? The lyrics are fairly well-known.) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-american-sign-language-on-television/851453/27 "2020-04-10T16:42:57Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > This is all very complicated, and I can’t answer in a short post-- although I will note that Deaf people did not come up with the term “hearing-impaired,” and have never liked it. Back when I was at Gallaudet in 1987-88, people did not like hearing-impaired, and preferred Deaf. > … When I was with the feds, and was managing several hearing impaired employees, thereby having to takes classes on ASL, everyone made it clear that the proper term was “hearing impaired” since some of the workers could hear- just poorly. So, not deaf. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-american-sign-language-on-television/851453/28 "2020-04-10T16:44:12Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Because doing it on the radio would just be awkward. Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy would beg to differ. :p:p ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-american-sign-language-on-television/851453/29 "2020-04-10T17:01:58Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > When I was with the feds, and was managing several hearing impaired employees, thereby having to takes classes on ASL, everyone made it clear that the proper term was “hearing impaired” since some of the workers could hear- just poorly. So, not deaf. The classes i took in ASL several years ago made it clear that Deaf was preferred for those who were immersed in the culture, and that while some subset of people preferred to be called hearing impaired- they usually didn’t learn ASL or consider themselves part of the Deaf community. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-american-sign-language-on-television/851453.md?page=1)