[refulgentis]

I got a insanely dumb question, that probably has an obvious answer: why is it so critically important to have ASL? It seems to me you could skip having someone to the side adding the layers of emoting imperfectly and just watch the anchor and captions? Note, I'm definitely the one missing something. When first met with a contradiction, check your premises, is my motto, not lecture on why they're wrong.

[amdsn]

Think of it more like "why is it important to have Spanish as an option for captions in an area that knows it has a large audience of L1 Spanish speakers?". English/<insert dominant local language> is pretty much a foreign language to many signers. Their native language is ASL or whatever other sign language they know, and these languages aren't just 1:1 mappings of words in the local dominant language to hand signals. They have many dimensions of expression for encoding meaning like facial expression/body motions, speed of the sign, amount of times they repeat the sign that have grammatical meaning that spoken languages express with inflection (noun cases, different verb forms) or additional words. For example, where an English speaker would use words like "very" or "extremely" or choose adjectives with more intense connotations an ASL signer would repeat or exaggerate the sign they want to emphasize (often by signing it more quickly, but it frequently involves intensifying multiple parts of the sign like the entire motion or the facial expression as well).

[thaumasiotes]

> For example, where an English speaker would use words like "very" or "extremely" or choose adjectives with more intense connotations an ASL signer would repeat or exaggerate the sign they want to emphasize

小小比小更小

大大比大更大

If you search for "a big big guy", you'll find no end of English examples, either. I would be surprised if any language didn't use repetition for emphasis.

[umanwizard]

What captions? There’s no widely-used written form of ASL.

If you meant the English-language captions, well, it should be apparent why some people prefer content to be dubbed in their native language rather than reading subtitles in a different language that they understand less well.

[refulgentis]

Yes I meant $NATIVE_LANGUAGE_OF_VIEWER, and that example didn't help me I'm afraid, I'm quite a dense one! I appreciated you checking if I meant written ASL captions. :) The example of dubs left me confused because dubs brings in an extra sense that isn't applicable in the ASL case. There, in either case, we're watching someone who isn't the character. I can't square that with the existential fervor the woman in OP felt

[umanwizard]

> Yes I meant $NATIVE_LANGUAGE_OF_VIEWER

Right, the native language of most ASL users isn’t English. It’s ASL. And there is no such thing as captions in ASL (because it has no widely-used written form), which is why you have interpretation.

[jdietrich]

Most sign language users are functionally illiterate.

https://academic.oup.com/jdsde/article/17/1/1/359085