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Captioning Verbatim or for Corrected English

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From: Morin, Gary (NIH/OD) [E]
Date: Mar 8, 2016 12:10PM

What if the speaker makes a grammatical error? Should we caption based on the speaker or based on incorrect grammar?
When captioning for a speaker who's not a native speaker of the language, do you correct the English or leave the English as 'second language', which may not be grammatically-correct but is understandable and maybe even conveys a sense of the speaker's culture through accent and predicable second-language errors? Should the captions be verbatim UNLESS there are grammar errors and so correct them or do you leave the errors there (and do you add anything parenthetically?)?
Under Section 508/WCAG 2.0, and simply for good accessibility (which equivalent and meaningful facilitation recognize includes context and culture) and when we strive for verbatim, should we strive for accuracy without speech noise (uh, um, ya know, etc.)? (that last sentence isn't has fluent as I wanted but I think my point or question is clear :)) Should we edit for incorrect or bad English (or whatever the language of the multimedia) is or leave it as is?
Would love to hear pros and cons on this topic!

Gary M. Morin, Program Analyst
NIH Office of the Chief Information Officer

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