Sometimes race does matter cos Judy talks with disabled people of colour a lot.
Yeah I've seen arguments in blindie facebook groups about whether a person's race (or even apparent-gender) should be included in image/audio descriptions. There are arguments to be made on either side and I think it's hard for a bunch of white gender-normative people to be informed enough to make good choices on that. Because there isn't going to be one blanket answer, always/never do this. It's going to be situational and contextual, and the relative privilege that's likely to exist in the people doing the describing is going to hinder their ability to assess those situations. It's one of the things that I hope to see improvement on; this stuff is still so new and patchy that there aren't really cultural norms about it yet, not consistently anyway.
Some people get SO hung up on perfection that they won't even try which pisses me off.
Yeah, me too... I used to be a stronger advocate for "just try," but then you get these image descriptions that are just like "my cat" or whatever and I'm like ...okay try a little harder. Fail better, haha. I used to not mind bad image descriptions like this and now I wonder if they aren't worse than nothing. But like I say, it's still evolving quickly.
I like that when you ALT Gary you explain WHO he is cos that is as important as what he's doing in a pic
Exactly! I am also effusive about describing dogs I just happen to see in the park or whatever, but in a very different way. It's all superficial stuff then, how they look and how happy they seem to be to be going for a walk in the park or whatever. With Gary it's like "He's trying to look innocent but I know he's just sulking because he's been naughty" or whatever, I'll tell that kind of story in the alt text because that's honestly what I see when I look at him in that situation! And I don't have that kind of story to tell about a random dog I see in the park.
I will have zero memory of films I have definitely seen.
I always found that too, audio description has helped to some extent but sometimes even then...if I'm tired or the film wasn't particularly to my tastes, I will remember nothing even a short time later. I don't know if I technically have aphantasia or if I just am no good at visual imagery for impairment reasons but the result seems to be similar (Andrew has aphantasia and we seemed to be the same in how we thought/perceived things etc.).
I think anything in English is brain whereas BSL is definitely an emotive heart language.
This makes so much sense, it's even related to some stuff I learned in linguistics: a lot of people have different language for different functions/purposes, either literally different languages like you're talking about here, or even different varieties (what other people might call dialects or accents, linguists call varieties) of the same language. And that doesn't need you to be native or fluent, it's just about the contexts and the connotations the language has for you.
my sense of which interpreters "read the room" and could "read me" while doing hydro
Yeah I remember you mentioning this and I found it interesting from a crip/language level but potentially so frustrating and exhausting for you that it isn't something I'd wish on my friend! It seems really obvious to me that a person might use SSE but want BSL signed back to them, like so many of us are different in our language perception and production. And it didn't have to make intuitive sense to them, they could just follow your clear instructions! How frustrating that it proved so unreliable to get this basic stuff you needed. Especially when you might need fine detail -- stuff like which leg to put weight on is really important and they need to be getting that information to you in a way that lets you respond properly to a clincian's instructions!
Not telling you about a loud bang does sound like the ASL terps not mentioning 9/11, like you're just going to be aware of really weird energy in the room so you should be clued in to that! Just because it isn't language spoken by the person they're there to interpret for you doesn't mean they can ignore it.
later the details (wtf grammar here - the details later - is BSL mashing my English again!).
Just for the record, it is always fine to use BSL word order with me. I don't know BSL but I know a little of how the structure works and it's easier for me to parse that than it is for you to worry about getting your words back in Englishy order. Especially when you're talking about BSL, your brain is inevitably going to think in more BSLy ways! (This also happens to everyone; if I'm talking about Minnesota or my family or whatever, I can't help but talk in a more Minnesotan way.) So if it ever saves you spoons, please feel free to not worry about grammar and word order in conversations with me.
I also loved the discussion around protactile
I did too! I initially tried to write about that here but it was too much with everything I was already trying to say. :) And I know so much less about it, but everything I've heard about it makes it sound great.
no subject
Yeah I've seen arguments in blindie facebook groups about whether a person's race (or even apparent-gender) should be included in image/audio descriptions. There are arguments to be made on either side and I think it's hard for a bunch of white gender-normative people to be informed enough to make good choices on that. Because there isn't going to be one blanket answer, always/never do this. It's going to be situational and contextual, and the relative privilege that's likely to exist in the people doing the describing is going to hinder their ability to assess those situations. It's one of the things that I hope to see improvement on; this stuff is still so new and patchy that there aren't really cultural norms about it yet, not consistently anyway.
Some people get SO hung up on perfection that they won't even try which pisses me off.
Yeah, me too... I used to be a stronger advocate for "just try," but then you get these image descriptions that are just like "my cat" or whatever and I'm like ...okay try a little harder. Fail better, haha. I used to not mind bad image descriptions like this and now I wonder if they aren't worse than nothing. But like I say, it's still evolving quickly.
I like that when you ALT Gary you explain WHO he is cos that is as important as what he's doing in a pic
Exactly! I am also effusive about describing dogs I just happen to see in the park or whatever, but in a very different way. It's all superficial stuff then, how they look and how happy they seem to be to be going for a walk in the park or whatever. With Gary it's like "He's trying to look innocent but I know he's just sulking because he's been naughty" or whatever, I'll tell that kind of story in the alt text because that's honestly what I see when I look at him in that situation! And I don't have that kind of story to tell about a random dog I see in the park.
I will have zero memory of films I have definitely seen.
I always found that too, audio description has helped to some extent but sometimes even then...if I'm tired or the film wasn't particularly to my tastes, I will remember nothing even a short time later. I don't know if I technically have aphantasia or if I just am no good at visual imagery for impairment reasons but the result seems to be similar (Andrew has aphantasia and we seemed to be the same in how we thought/perceived things etc.).
I think anything in English is brain whereas BSL is definitely an emotive heart language.
This makes so much sense, it's even related to some stuff I learned in linguistics: a lot of people have different language for different functions/purposes, either literally different languages like you're talking about here, or even different varieties (what other people might call dialects or accents, linguists call varieties) of the same language. And that doesn't need you to be native or fluent, it's just about the contexts and the connotations the language has for you.
my sense of which interpreters "read the room" and could "read me" while doing hydro
Yeah I remember you mentioning this and I found it interesting from a crip/language level but potentially so frustrating and exhausting for you that it isn't something I'd wish on my friend! It seems really obvious to me that a person might use SSE but want BSL signed back to them, like so many of us are different in our language perception and production. And it didn't have to make intuitive sense to them, they could just follow your clear instructions! How frustrating that it proved so unreliable to get this basic stuff you needed. Especially when you might need fine detail -- stuff like which leg to put weight on is really important and they need to be getting that information to you in a way that lets you respond properly to a clincian's instructions!
Not telling you about a loud bang does sound like the ASL terps not mentioning 9/11, like you're just going to be aware of really weird energy in the room so you should be clued in to that! Just because it isn't language spoken by the person they're there to interpret for you doesn't mean they can ignore it.
later the details (wtf grammar here - the details later - is BSL mashing my English again!).
Just for the record, it is always fine to use BSL word order with me. I don't know BSL but I know a little of how the structure works and it's easier for me to parse that than it is for you to worry about getting your words back in Englishy order. Especially when you're talking about BSL, your brain is inevitably going to think in more BSLy ways! (This also happens to everyone; if I'm talking about Minnesota or my family or whatever, I can't help but talk in a more Minnesotan way.) So if it ever saves you spoons, please feel free to not worry about grammar and word order in conversations with me.
I also loved the discussion around protactile
I did too! I initially tried to write about that here but it was too much with everything I was already trying to say. :) And I know so much less about it, but everything I've heard about it makes it sound great.